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Dave Ketchum | 1 Mar 2009 02:16

Re: language/framing quibble

I see that you are trying, and getting into long missives.  I will try for 
helpful thoughts.  I will speak from New York state, where some of the laws 
make sense.

Parties can be useful, but the framework needs to facilitate control by the 
party members.
      Part of this is for party committees being elected by party members. 
  Actually committee members could be nominated by the kind of committee 
you seem to fear - but with ability of voters to do their own nominating 
this can be corrected when such is needed.

While parties properly nominate candidates, voters should also be able to 
do nominations outside the party structure.

Candidate qualities should be visible to all voters with reasonable voter 
effort.  To me this is campaigning, and I do not understand your apparent 
fear of that word.
       Voters will decide for themselves how much effort they are willing 
to invest in elections - what is needed is maximizing the amount they can 
learn with reasonable effort.

As to election methods, we need to do better than Plurality.  I suggest 
more thought as to score, IRV, and Condorcet - which let voters vote for 
more than one candidate.

DWK

On  Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:21:00 -0500 Fred Gohlke wrote:
> Good Morning, Juho
>
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Juho Laatu | 1 Mar 2009 09:32
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Re: language/framing quibble

--- On Sun, 1/3/09, Dave Ketchum <davek <at> clarityconnect.com> wrote:

> As to election methods, we need to do better than
> Plurality.  I suggest more thought as to score, IRV, and
> Condorcet

I'd consider also PR methods (where
applicable).

Whatever one does must match the needs
and political situation of the country
in question. I note that the USA just
got a black president, and it was not
too far from getting a female president.
Change is possible, although it may be
slow and the steps may be small.

Fred Gohlke has promoted a low level
delegate based method. One approach
that may or may not be relevant in the
USA is to use the existing town/city
councils to make steps in this
direction.

I made some calculations on the Finnish
system (since I have that data available).
There are 400+ towns. Smaller towns have
more representatives per population than
the largest towns. The absolute number of
representatives varies between 13 and 85.
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Fred Gohlke | 3 Mar 2009 19:20
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Re: language/framing quibble

Good Morning, Juho

re: "In this case there are also opportunities in campaigning
      before nomination."

In which case?  In the case of the present system, where campaigning is 
used to 'sell' corrupt politicians to the people?

re: [my comment] "As you said to Kristofer Munsterhjelm on this
     thread (Thu, 26 Feb 2009), "The citizens should decide what
     to do, not just approve the proposals".  In the same way, the
     citizens should also decide who they want to represent them,
     not just approve the choices made by self-interested groups.
     [end of my comment]

     [To which you responded] "To me this is another independent
     and interesting question. (nomination vs. campaigning) (both
     can be party driven or party controlled)"

The point is that nominations should not be "party driven or party 
controlled".  If our electoral process is to be democratic, it must be 
controlled by the people, not by parties.

re: "I presented the one-dollar-one-vote principle as a bad
      practice for elections."

Indeed, it is.

re: "I don't see campaigning as a problem in itself (although
      there may be problems in it, particularly since some sort of
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Fred Gohlke | 3 Mar 2009 19:22
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Re: language/framing quibble

Good Morning, David

re: "... this is campaigning, and I do not understand your
      apparent fear of that word."

Fear is not quite the right word, I find campaigning repugnant.

Campaigning is a rabble-rousing technique.  It does not appeal to the 
voter's reason, it is designed by professionals to suppress reason and 
inspire an emotional reaction.  It results in a government controlled by 
passion at the expense of sanity.

The enormous cost of political campaigns requires candidates to sell 
their soul to a party.  The party, because of its control of a large 
number of politicians, attracts money from those who wish to influence 
the government.  Parties are nothing more than conduits for the 
corruption that pervades our legislative bodies.

Not only does the need for campaign funds invite financial corruption, 
the act of campaigning requires candidates to profess support for 
positions they do not hold and causes them to deceive by obfuscation and 
outright lying.  The insincerity of 'campaign promises' is a sick 
national joke.

When we devise an electoral method that eliminates the need for 
campaigning, we will eliminate the greatest cause of incompetence and 
corruption in government.

re: "While parties properly nominate candidates, voters should
      also be able to do nominations outside the party structure."
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Dave Ketchum | 3 Mar 2009 21:43

Re: language/framing quibble

So, you do not like the word "campaign".

Suppose I take an interest in becoming mayor of Owego.

This will require my neighbors learning this, and something of what I might 
do as mayor.

What shall we call this getting the word out, if not campaigning?

Because parties are usually involved, those of us sharing thought will call 
ourselves the "People's Party", though it does nothing outside our village.

My neighbors must learn this to be able to vote for me.

DWK

On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:22:53 -0500 Fred Gohlke wrote:
> Good Morning, David
> 
> re: "... this is campaigning, and I do not understand your
>      apparent fear of that word."
> 
> Fear is not quite the right word, I find campaigning repugnant.
> 
> Campaigning is a rabble-rousing technique.  It does not appeal to the 
> voter's reason, it is designed by professionals to suppress reason and 
> inspire an emotional reaction.  It results in a government controlled by 
> passion at the expense of sanity.
> 
> The enormous cost of political campaigns requires candidates to sell
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Kristofer Munsterhjelm | 3 Mar 2009 23:07
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Re: language/framing quibble

Dave Ketchum wrote:
> So, you do not like the word "campaign".
> 
> Suppose I take an interest in becoming mayor of Owego.
> 
> This will require my neighbors learning this, and something of what I 
> might do as mayor.
> 
> What shall we call this getting the word out, if not campaigning?
> 
> Because parties are usually involved, those of us sharing thought will 
> call ourselves the "People's Party", though it does nothing outside our 
> village.
> 
> My neighbors must learn this to be able to vote for me.

I think his point is that by using other methods, you may get around 
this apparent necessity. For instance, Owego might pick a 
"Representative House" by lot (Athenian model) and that House elects the 
mayor in a parliamentary fashion; or it might use a recursive selection 
process where you convince a small council you're the best among them to 
stand, then a small council made up of the suceeding candidates of the 
previous councils, and so on up to mayor. In both cases, you "get the 
word out" to a subset of the people - in the former, to the random 
assembly, and in the latter, to the intersection of councils that you 
end up being a part of.
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
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Juho Laatu | 3 Mar 2009 23:40
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Re: language/framing quibble

--- On Tue, 3/3/09, Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke <at> verizon.net> wrote:

> re: "In this case there are also opportunities in
> campaigning
>      before nomination."
> 
> In which case?  In the case of the present system, where
> campaigning is used to 'sell' corrupt politicians to
> the people?

I meant that there is always "before".
If there is no campaigning after
nomination then one can try to make
oneself or one's favourite known
already before the nomination.

I didn't refer to present practices
of any country.

> re: "I don't see campaigning as a problem in
> itself (although
>      there may be problems in it, particularly since some
> sort of
>      campaigning or at least "active information
> sharing" seems
>      unavoidable.)"
> 
> Campaigning, in itself, is a problem because politicians
> must 'sell their soul' for campaign funds and
> because the act of campaigning debases the candidate.
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Michael Allan | 4 Mar 2009 00:09
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Re: Time of trouble - Premise 2

Juho Laatu wrote:
> There may be several IT systems and
> trust in one of them may not yet
> mean quorum at society level.
> Having several IT candidates may be
> a sufficient reason in general not
> to achieve quorum in any of them.
> You could either make the numerous
> alternative IT systems visible or
> assume that there will be one
> dominant IT system.

(So you still think?  But this is just one item in your list - see
 below.)

> > ...  Are there any strong reverse mechanisms, or blocks, that
> > would be likely to prevent a quorum?
> 
> - Having too many too uninteresting
>   elections
> 
> - Having several competing IT systems
> 
> - The opposite of novelty, getting
>   bored with the system
> 
> - Involvement of party and other
>   plotting
> 
> - Fights between individuals (e.g. on
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Juho Laatu | 4 Mar 2009 21:20
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Re: Time of trouble - Premise 2


--- On Wed, 4/3/09, Michael Allan <mike <at> zelea.com> wrote:

> > > ...  Are there any strong reverse
> mechanisms, or blocks, that
> > > would be likely to prevent a quorum?
> > 
> > - Having too many too uninteresting
> >   elections
> > 
> > - Having several competing IT systems
> > 
> > - The opposite of novelty, getting
> >   bored with the system
> > 
> > - Involvement of party and other
> >   plotting
> > 
> > - Fights between individuals (e.g. on
> >   whose proposal will be voted on)
> > 
> > - Unclarity and fights on the results
> >   achieved with th IT systems
> > 
> > - Low quality of proposals and
> >   discussions
> > 
> > - Fears related to presenting one's
> >   opinion in a public vote
> >
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Fred Gohlke | 5 Mar 2009 14:23
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Re: language/framing quibble

Good Morning, David

re: "Suppose I take an interest in becoming mayor of Owego.

      This will require my neighbors learning this, and something
      of what I might do as mayor."

The essence of democracy is not what you want, it is what the people of 
Owego want.

The only way we can find out who the people of Owego want to be their 
mayor is to ask them.  Our present electoral methods do not ask the 
people who they want, they tell the people what choices they have. 
Campaigning is not asking, it is telling.

The failure of our political system is that it is not an asking 
mechanism, it is a telling mechanism.  In spite of the advances in 
transportation, communication and data processing over the past 200-odd 
years, we have not yet devised a means of asking the people to make 
their own political decisions.  We have the means, but not the method.

My purpose is to devise a practical method of asking the people of Owego 
who they want as their mayor.

Fred Gohlke
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
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