Blogging seems to be all the rage, so what the heck? I'll follow the lemmings over the cliff too! It probably won't get me elected President, but maybe some interesting discussions will come out of it... Beware, however: I speak my mind here, and I'm pretty frank and open. Some may be offended at the content and/or opinions. If you're easily offended, you might want to look elsewhere for reading material.

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June 03, 2003

Voting

Voting is one of the most important responsibilities we as citizens have: it is the whole point of a democracy, or even a republic such the US. Why then, does Science News ask "Are we using the worst voting procedure?" In getting a result that actually reflects the wishes of the populace, the "plurality" system we use, where you get one vote per race, period, is the worst system. To give an example of why this system is so bad, we only have to go back to the last Presidential election: the general consensus is that people who did or wanted to vote for Ralph Nader would have preferred that Al Gore get elected over George Bush. Yet if they voted the way they actually felt, they were effectively voting for the person they *least* wanted. This is not a fair system.


The one that seems to be best in terms of simplicity and fairness is Approval Voting. With this system, rather than one vote per race, you get one vote per candidate. It's still fair: what would be unfair would be multiple votes per candidate (well, there are some systems that manage that also, but they're complicated). This way you vote for all the candidates you find acceptable and the one with the most votes wins: people who wanted Nader could also vote for Gore as insurance against Bush. It works both ways: many people in Oregon feel that Al (what's his name? a cohort of Lon Mabon's) siphoned off enough conservative voters to throw the governorship to the Democrats a few elections ago.

When the election represents the opposite of what the people really want, is it any wonder that people are disillusioned?

Posted by abatie at June 3, 2003 12:33 PM
Comments

I like the behavior of Instant Runoff (aka Irish) voting. Check out http://www.instantrunoff.com for more info.

Posted by: John Gregor at June 6, 2003 02:16 AM