Dear Craig, Thank you for your message directly to me, especially as (regrettably) you are not now on the EM list.
I myself was reinstated just a few weeks ago. Months ago I was dropped from the list, because my email program allegedly or actually couldn't handle the volume of list-generated emails. In fact, from my own viewpoint I was in fact getting too many such emails to read and digest (and such is again threatening to happen). In all honesty, some of the unwanted messages were yours. I have found your email messages - and, for another signal example, Demorep's - unusually difficult to comprehend. (In your case, the reason may owe not only to unique differences between our writing styles but also to differences between NZ and USA vocabularies in matters of voting and elections.) Anyhow, I simply don't have the time and stamina and bent to devote as much energy and focus to election methods as apparently you do. In particular, I'm often not up to reflecting and commenting even on proposals which clearly merit heed, let alone on proposals which strike me as unmotivated (in terms of a clearly stated problem to be solved), or as gratuitously vague or long-winded, or as too ludicrous. In your present message I note both an apparently main point and a notable lesser point. I would like now to comment on both points. (1) Your main point is objection to use of proxies - a device whose promotion you ascribe especially to Demorep. To quote your message, such proxies would be "super-citizens with perhaps 10,000x the voting power of other citizens." You rightly note that my brief list-posted comment (on 22 Oct.) skirted the main issue as to whether the use of proxies truly is a good idea. In one sense, I really don't know. However, if I reject use of proxies, I have got to find - and be able to support as at least marginally better - some alternative which is radically non-'traditional' - in terms of the last two hundred years of practice in almost all non-dictatorial societies. After all, every nation which uses a 'parliament' or 'assembly' or 'congress' or other 'representative body' is thereby using an institutionalized body of proxies. The proxies in such a body not only typically have far more than '10,000x the voting power of other citizens' but moreover have this power on issue after issue, not merely on a single matter such as choice of a chief executive. (2) You also seem to dislike Approval Voting (AV) (which I like) and moreover equate it (to my mind inscrutably) to IRV (Instant Runoff Voting, which I intensely dislike - indeed I heartily endorse the proposed alias title 'insane results voting'). In particular, you complain that in an election with 4 seats to be filled and 1000 available candidates, an Approval ballot will present 1000 checkboxes. My rejoinder is that - regardless of election method used, AV or other -NO electoral system should allow presentation to the voter of an unreasonably huge ballot for any one contest. One of many possible screening (i.e., ballot-size-reduction)devices would be to require each candidate to file a nominating petition signed by 1 percent of the voters; with no signature counted if on more than one petition. A further or alternative screening device would be to allow only at most the top (in terms of number of valid signatures on their petitions) twenty candidates. Maybe you have a better screening idea. In the interest of sharing these comments, I am taking the liberty of posting to the EM-list a copy of this reply message. Sincerely, Joe Weinstein Long Beach CA USA _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
