In a message dated 8/4/2004 2:53:37 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


> 1) That IRV is a confusing and convoluted system of voting.
> 2) That our current system is less confusing - when a voting for 
> Ralph Nader is the same as voting for George Bush.
> 
> I could just as easily argue that our current system of voting is 
> convoluted and has been proven to send people away from the polls. 
> After all, why should people even bother to vote, when their 
> candidate has been declared dead and their votes declared "wasted" 
> months ahead of the actual election. Its pretty clear, from the Nada

No, the current system is pretty simple you vote for one person that you want 
to be, President, or Senator, or Council Member.  As I said this isn't a 
parlor game - you don't get vote a protest vote and then get a second option for 
who you really think should run the country.  You actually have to make a real 
decision and live with it.  It is about running the government not what 
stimulates your intellectual curiosity - "I wonder what would happen if everybody's 
first vote didn't really count, do you think my guy would win then?"  

IRV would never give me a second vote.  I have no interest in candidates that 
pop up on the third party flavor of the month and then disappear into 
obscurity.  I wouldn't put a second choice down, I actually vote for the person that 
I think is best qualified for the office.  I wouldn't want Nader to be 
president!  He is an egomaniac, what else is driving him for Pete's sake.  

Back to Saint Paul - the last hotly contested elections for City Council.  
There would be only one election with multiple candidates, no time for the voter 
to focus on the remaining two after a primary.  No chance for candidates to 
do direct compare and contrast.  Only the one shot and then those who vote for 
the bottom candidates get first shot at determining where their second votes 
go.  So, back to my beloved ward 2 - the first votes that get highest priority, 
the ones that get counted over first, are the brilliant people who voted for 
Bill Dahn and Sharon Scarrella Anderson.  They decide the fate of the 
election!  We reopen the ballots of those folks and spread them around and see where 
they go!  

Help me, your killing me!  

An exercise in democracy, sure, but not much of a way to select someone to 
run the City or the Country.

Just My Opinion Not Those Of My Employers Past Present Or Future

Chuck (I always thought an exercise in democracy was door knocking) Repke
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