Gobbley Gook

It doesn't seem right that one cannot delete their own post just because someone responded to it. Even if it is entirely extinct.

I consider this one of the two most important pieces of reformist work
(along with the Clean Money Campaign/Disclose initiative) going on right now.

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Posted in reply to the post by Rogue:

Our voting system is broken. And the 2 party monopoly is an insult to democracy. It's ludicrous. We get stuck with politicians we don't want. There is a solution.

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I'm with you only up to this point.

Unfortunately, you have been slightly misinformed about your proposed solution, instant runoff voting. Specifically, your claim that there are no spoilers, is wrong. Allow me to show an example:

45%: A > B > C
25%: B > A > C
30%: C > B > A

Consider this 3-candidate election. By the rules of instant runoff voting, B is eliminated first, and then A defeats C, 70% to 30%. But if you remove C from all the ballots, so that the race is simply A versus B, then B wins, 55% to 45%.

To review: without C in the race, B wins. With C in the race, B loses, and A wins instead. That means that C is a spoiler.

The fact that spoilers are still present, means that instant runoff voting is unlikely to have any effect on the dominance of the two major parties. Indeed, instant runoff voting has been used in Australia for about a century, and their politics is still two-party dominated.

There are however election methods which actually are truly spoiler-free. The simplest of these is approval voting, in which you are allowed to mark you ballot as supporting any number of candidates, instead of just one. Under approval voting, removing a losing candidate from the ballot, as we did in the above example, can never change the winner. And with no spoilers to undermine a growing political party, two-party reign could actually be ended.

If you're interested, there is more information available form the Center for Election Science: https://www.electology.org/approval-voting

I also write about this topic at The Least of All Evils: https://leastevil.blogspot.com/

Thank you for supporting election reform, and I hope this new information leads you to better methods!

IRV is fine for executive positions like governor, other constitutional offices, mayor and even president. However, legislatures like State Assembly and U. S. House of Representatives should represent the various constituencies in society. Therefore, the elections held in single member districts will not work for this purpose. We need to change the California Constitution to allow for the election of several members from each district. Then we can use Proportional Representation. For example: If we have a district where 10 members are elected, and a constituency receives 10% of the vote that constituency will have one of its members elected or 10% of the seats in the district. If another constituency receives 50% of the vote that constituency will have five of its members elected or 50% of the seats in the district. That way, the majority is protected and minorities are given a voice and representation. That is a win, win solution.

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Posted in reply to the post by Rogue:

Our voting system is broken. And the 2 party monopoly is an insult to democracy. It's ludicrous. We get stuck with politicians we don't want. There is a solution. Instant Runoff Voting.

I have started a petition with SignOn.org, which is affiliated with MoveOn.org. If you like the idea, pass it on to friends. Here is the link to sign it:

https://signon.org/sign/california-needs-instant

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is an extremely elegant solution to our voting dilemma. Why, for example, is the Green Party's influence in our country so insignificant? It's because they never get any votes because we are forever voting against Republicans instead of for who we really want. With IRV your votes are never wasted and your voice is heard. If many of us had been voting Green (for example) for decades, by now people would realize that they are a viable alternative in the eyes of the people.

The way IRV works is this. When you vote, you vote for any candidate or several candidates and rank them. This works for any amount of candidates in the race. The votes are tallied. If one candidate has over 50% of the votes, they win. If nobody has over 50%, the candidate who had the lowest vote count is eliminated and the people who voted for that person have their votes shifted to their next choice. This process continues until someone has over 50%.

It's simple, every vote for every candidate goes on the record, and there are no spoilers.

Let's light a fire under the desks of the people in our California government. I suspect the very people needed to change the law have a vested interest in the 2 party system so we need to turn up the heat.

Thanks, Roger

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