Re: nettime The hoopla over the US election and democracy

[Fred Baube]

 If one wants to vote for a minor party, like the Greens, for example, 
 one is told that this is wasting a vote. Hence there is no way within 
 the party structures to extend the spectrum so that, for example, the 
 decision to take U.S. troops out of Iraq immediately, would be part of 
 the public discussion during an election campaign. Thus the campaigns 
 are dominated by the two major parties misrepresenting each other's 
 programs so as to avoid debating any real issues.

A third-party vote IS mostly throwing it away, and zero-sum games of 
mutual rhetorical destruction ARE ensured, until they change the rules 
of the game. But most of the suggested rules changes involve runoff elec-
tions and/or party lists, both of which Americans seem dead-set against. 

So ... how about STV ?  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Transferable_Vote


FBaube
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Re: nettime The hoopla over the US election and democracy

[Michael H Goldhaber]

Ronda,
You wrote;

 The primaries, similarly, only allow for voters to choose among candidates
 chosen  by for them by the parties.

I think that is an oversimplification. Generally, one has to meet  
some, admittedly often too onerous, requirement to run in a primary,  
but the parties as structures cannot limit who runs. I participated  
in a campaign this year to buck the Democratic Party's favorite in a  
Congressional district near here. We won by  a sizable margin against  
the Party bigwigs' favored candidate.  Our candidate has a good  
chance to defeat the incumbent Republican today. I am going off to  
help get out the vote shortly.
Best,
Michael


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