[Coco] OT: Re: Reminder: Halloween Party (Chat) tomorrow night 7:PM PDT

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Sat, 2004-10-30 at 17:32, Torsten Dittel wrote:
> > Is the scary part "naked", or is it "libertarian"?  (Just wondering).
> 
> Well, scary is the US election system. Voting e.g. Libertarian looks
> like a lost voice to me. I wonder how long it will take to change the
> system to some more democracy. I understand the people were voting that
> way 250 years ago, but in these days it makes no sense if one candidate
> is getting more voices (that means: the mayority of the American people
> voted for him) but the other one wins. Like I said, scary...
> 
> Torsten
> 

Yes, that is why we need some from of instant runoff voting. In such a
system, you rank your candidate preferences, and if you voted third
party, and they didn't even come close, your vote could be counted for
one of the more popular candidates.

So say if you wanted a Libertarian most, a Republican second most, etc.
you might vote Badnarik, Bush, Nader, Kerry for example...

But Badnarik probably wouldn't win, so you'd end up voting for Bush.

(I'd be voting Nader, Kerry, Badnarik, and Bush wouldn't make the
cut...)

Basically this prevents you feeling like you are "throwing away your
vote" when voting third party.

The two parties have esconced themselves in government however, and it
will be a very difficult to unseat them. But some type of runoff system
would be a good start.

-- John.