Pondering Different Ways Of Voting
By Bob Small
My friends in the Libertarian Party continue to try to improve the voting process.
Roy Minet seeks to replace plurality voting here. Around the time of our revolution “ French scholars, Jean-Charles de Borda and Nicolas de Condorcet, pointed out some of plurality’s serious problems. A 240-year-long debate ensued.
Roy feels plurality “is a cause of the increasing polarization that is rending the fabric of our society.” We end up electing presidents because they are better then.
“People are sick of having to vote for the “lesser evil,” he said.
He advocates Approve/Approve/Disapprove Voting. One of the main advantages of this is that you can express your disapproval.
He mentions that other forms of voting ; approval voting, condorcet, Instant runoff voting and STAR don’t allow voters to ever express dissatisfaction with a candidate. Would this prevent all the chowderheads and doofuses from running? Probably not, but it might make us voters feel better.
My friend Scott from Vermont sent me an article about hand counting votes in which we learn that over 24 countries use hand count elections.
Including Canada, France, Norway and the UK.
When the German Constitutional Court ruled against using voting machines, they went on to say that the “wide-reaching effect of possible errors of the voting machines or of deliberate electoral fraud make special precautions necessary in order to safeguard the principle of the public nature of elections.”
In Germany, the ballots are recounted “three times by different people and then once more in total.
This article goes on to say that if a country that is 14 times the size of Arizona, with 14 times the voter turnout, competently conducts hand count elections and reports preliminary results by the early morning hours, Arizona can achieve the same results “
This article also points out that “public scrutiny and reliable examination of voting machine records are PROHIBITED.”
Unlike in Germany, we are expected to trust the process and are not allowed to audit or question the outcomes. Reminds me of a recent election in Pennsylvania.
Laura Parker, a spokesperson for New Labor (UK) said “ You can’t keep denying millions of people democratic legitimacy and hope they go away”. Making Britain’s voting system fairer won’t enable parties like Reform – it’s the only way to challenge them
Pondering Different Ways Of Voting
