Anthony,
I agree completely. I don't think that eliminating primaries should be
an objective of choosing an election method.
Yes, an "ideal" election method, if one exists, might make primaries
somewhat less important, but I seriously doubt any method can render
them completely unnecessary.
As an example, Approval would make primaries somewhat less important. If
the Republicans have, say, three candidates, then Republican voters can
simply vote for all three of them and avoid splitting the vote. But
different Republican voters will obviously favor different Republican
candidates, thereby splitting the vote anyway -- albeit to a lesser
extent than would happen under plurality. That's why primaries are
needed: to consolidate the party behind one candidate.
--Russ
Anthony Duff anthony_duff-at-yahoo.com.au |EMlist| wrote:
--- Araucaria Araucana <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
But sneaking approval in this way doesn't solve the more general
problem of eliminating the primary. I *do* want to eliminate the
primary, since it is merely an artifact of plurality/SVFPP.
The primary is not "merely an artifact of plurality/SVFPP." More
fundamentally, it is the mechanism for the party to choose a single
candidate.
It is not reasonable to force a party not to choose an official
candidate. Is this what you want? For example, do you think you
should have been able to vote for McCain as well as Bush in 2000?
Having both run as republicans in the real election would not be in
the interests of the republican party or of either McCain or Bush.
Even if the election method doesn't have the the vote splitting
problem, there is still the problem of splitting public recognition
of the party's candidate, and of splitting the party's campaign
funding base.
Perhaps there was something specific about the primary that you want
eliminated, but every party has to be able to choose a candidate.
Anthony
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