On 9/5/2011 1:27 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote:
Good Afternoon, Richard
I've just spent the last couple of hours going over the material at
www.NegotiationTool.com and www.votefair.org. I enjoyed my visit.
re: "As for promoting direct public participation in the
political process, first we have to develop election-
method 'tools' that support such participation."
Precisely!
When I said "I simply fear the purpose of reforming electoral methods is
lost in the verbiage engulfing the reforms", I was expressing my concern
that too much attention was being paid to the arcana of counting methods
and too little to the development of election-method 'tools' that
support public participation in the electoral process.
...
Thank you for expressing your appreciation of my websites!
The declaration now contains the following paragraph (which someone else
wisely added):
"Nothing in this statement should be interpreted to imply that we
believe that election-method reform is the only area of existing
political systems that currently needs reform. In fact, most of us also
support other reforms such as broader campaign-finance-reporting rules,
increased use of other decision-making aids such as deliberative
polling, and clearer ethics rules for officeholders. We believe that the
election-method reforms we advocate here would be synergistic with such
other reforms, both in terms of easing their adoption and multiplying
their beneficial effects."
Hopefully the mention of "other decision-making aids" and "deliberative
polling" points in the direction of the direct-participation reforms you
-- and I, and others here -- envision.
I think most of us on this forum agree more often than it might appear.
Ah, the ambiguity of words!
Richard Fobes
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