Alexander wrote: Approval and IRV would probably never elect a Green, since they're radical. Same for Libertarians, Buchananites, etc. I reply: We can't know that for sure, because we don't really know where the genuine voter median is. Sure, the media always refer to "the center" as somewhere between the Democrat & the Republican. But that's just the center of the Republocrats. The voter median is a better measure of the political center, and we'll have no way of knowing for sure where that is till we're using a better voting system. I suppose better polling could find it out too, but our political pollsters always ask people "Whom would you vote for if the election were today", instead of "Who's your favorite?", or "Rank the candidates in order of how good they are." How many people didn't vote for Nader only because they believed that Nader couldn't win? Nearly all those I spoke to who intended to vote for Gore. When Nader was villified by editorials, it was usually because he was a spoiler who was taking away votes that , supposedly, were rightly Gore's votes. How amusingly ironic for those newspapers to be advising about the best interests of people who prefer Nader's policies, policies that they've never themselves supported. Approval would quickly locate that political center. Also, the political center might not always stay where it is. With a better voting system, even if the Greens didn't win, their true support would show, and the media would no longer be able to ignore them. More people would take them seriously, due to their better votecount showing. With their ideas receiving more public attention, more people might realize that they prefer the Greens' positions and candidates. Of course likewise for the Libertarians. Mike Ossipoff _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
