[LINK] Why Electronic Voting?

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Sat Nov 18 14:55:56 AEDT 2006


On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 12:26:39PM +1100, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> At 11:07 AM 18/11/2006, Stewart Fist wrote:
> >4. I think the problem with the Australian electoral system lies
> >much more in the party's selection of candidates, than in the voting
> >system itself.
>
> Agree totally! The fact that a candidate in some elections can be
> dropped into a seat as a reward is abhorent to me. They could never be
> considered representatives of the voters in the specific electorate in
> that case. Thankfully Victorian rules require that reps live in their
> electorates. We had two cases in my time here (Narre Warren North for
> anyone who cares) where one lower house member had fudged on this and
> was embarrassed and ousted, and I can't remember the specifics on the
> other one, but it had to do with using a parent's address.

in theory, the members of the party's local branch elect ("pre-select")
their candidate.

in practice, they're often told who to pre-select by the party machine,
and/or the branch is stacked by one faction or another.


> Agree totally! Once I learnt how it works in practice, not just the
> technical aspects of preferential, I think this concept would be a
> terrific improvement in the US. The secret ballot and women voting
> was exported from here. Why not preferential voting as the modern
> contribution? :-)
>
> 'Splitting the vote' because of third candidates is always a danger in
> the US.

which is why the two major parties would never agree to it. they've
got a cozy system which effectively keeps out other parties and
independants. a vote for them is worse than a wasted vote, it actively
harms whoever would have been your second preference.

actually, i can see the US Democrats having some support for it -
they're the ones most often hurt by protest votes when "progressives"
can't quite bring themselves to vote 1 for them.

craig

ps: another concept that the US needs to import is the idea of voting
for the lesser of two evils. there's no point in voting for someone good
(because odds are that by the time they get to be a candidate they are
well and truly corrupted by the party system), so the rational choice
is to vote for the least bad. if one of them has got to win, it may as
well be the one that will (likely) do the least harm. defensive voting,
a form of minimaxing the system.

this, of course, means voting according to policies and track record
rather than on personality or party.

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)



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