Here's a couple links that talk about this terrible "solution" to the spoiler problem: http://www.nmef.org/solution.htm http://www.blueoregon.com/2006/07/new_party_pushe.html
Ok, yeah, no journalistic integrity, I'm pre-biasing you all against this stuff, oh well. The short short version: "Fusion Voting" fixes the spoiler problem by allowing 3rd parties to nominate one of the candidates of the two major parties. There's some group called the "Working Families Party" < http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/ > who seems to have this electoral deform as their primary issue. They seem to think that the 2000 US President ballot might have looked something like this: __ Bush, Republican Party __ Gore, Democratic Party __ Bush, Libertarian Party __ Gore, Green Party __ Bush, Total World Domination Party __ Gore, Working Families Party A) Great way to continue to ensure the irrelevance of 3rd parties. B) Yeah, right, like the Greens/Libertarians would ever go along with this. C) No improvement in choice. Still only 2 choices on the ballot. (Though some see this as an improvement since then there won't be spoiled elections.) Ideally this will just fade away and never catch on, but it's something to watch out for. I ran across the first reference to it I've seen today while reading my church's national magazine. I'm sure the author was well meaning, and I'll now write them a nice letter about how election reform ought to be, with more than two choices and with rankings or ratings ballots and all that. Brian Olson http://bolson.org/ ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
