voting systems

This is going to be coming up at some point, so to set things off, a few links: Jennifer Cohn on Diebold/Premier/Global/E&S/Dominion white collar crime & computer tampering, and current types of voting machines used in the USA: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1115650020710072325.html...

Most people who post on this forum are smarter than me, so I thought I'd see how people would feel about Ranked-Choice voting in the US. I know a couple states have tried to skirt the Electoral College with the proportional award (ME, NE, and CO are the only ones so far, right?). But Maine...

That is an alternative to first-past-the-post and delayed runoffs. One ranks the candidates by preference, and the ballots are counted by removing the candidate with the fewest highest preferences and then recounting with the preferences for that candidate being absent. Let's look at this very...

California Primary Kamala Harris, Loretta Sanchez advance in U.S. Senate race http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article82406532.html Sen. Barbara Boxer is retiring. 34 candidates ran to fill her seat. I think that Sen. Dianne Feinstein is retiring in 2018...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuKDXeJt7KA Year after year I hear so many complaints about voting systems, but have not seen much dialog about good alternatives. I would appreciate a careful critique of Range Voting, perhaps in contrast to Approval voting, or other such weighted systems...

On another thread, in the USA Politics forum, Sez replied to another poster who said they wouldn't vote in the 2012 elections: "Here" is the Arlington Cemetery, which is where US servicemen and women are buried. Do you think that people should vote if they can? If you are allowed to vote in...

What do you think it would be like if ballots let people rate their support for a proposition on a scale of 1 to 10? Would it make any difference? I'm asking this because, in reality, people often feel split about an issue. They're "for" because of x, y, and z, and feel "against" for p and q...

What I hadn't thought of before today is that the opponents of gay marriage are making a deep assumption: that the matter can be solved by a simple majority vote. The assumption, it seems, runs something like this: Living in a democracy means that the majority rules, even simple majorities that...

I've often thought it would be good if we (the populace of a modern state) voted on issues, relatively often (even kind of continuously), instead of what we do now, which is every four or five years having an expensive and largely meaningless festival of lies, advertising and ego projection that...

Why are a large amount of elections around the world held every four years? Is it perhaps too short, leading to desperate popularising attempts to get Government departments to improve their individual fields within that time cycle (Even if it would be better for the system to move at a slow...

Browsing several News-Sites each day, I wonder why there is so much focus on the electoral map. Basically, the popular vote decides the election, so why is the electoral Map even mentioned and who tracks these "electors" of the Electoral College? :confused: Electoral Maps...

At least in the presidential race. Somebody by all means tell me if my logic is off, but my state's demographics and the 'winner take all' system in general conspire to render my vote for president purely symbolic because I live in Nevada but I don't live in Las Vegas. Simply put more than two...

The July 29, 2007 episode of Media Matters with Bob McChesney (not to be confused with the other Media Matters) featured 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate, David Cobb. What really interested me was their discussion of instant runoff voting (IRV). I'd heard the term before but never...

You've all heard me complain how they keep raising property taxes in my state. Well, we got another measure on the ballot this week to raise them again. The people who voted in favor of the measure outnumbered the number of people who opposed it by about a 3 to 2 margin. So it passed, right...

which system is more unhealthy....? compare the US democratic and the Italian democratic system.... the US model is set up to ensure a two party system - basically if ur not a democrat or a republican you've no chance..... the Italian model is a multi-party free-for-all - with an absolute...

I've been reading a Heinlein book ("For Us, The Living") and he raised an interesting idea. The story is set in the future, after the twenty-seventh amendment has been past. That amendment is that before congress can declare war, it must be supported by a referendum among the population. This...

This November, Coloradans rejected a Constitutional amendment that would have assigned Colorado's electoral votes proportionally by the popular vote in the state. If every state did this, how different would the election have been? Of course, if this had actually been the case, the strategies...

John Mica was "elected" to the House of Representatives without receiving a single vote. And I do mean "elected" not appointed. In Florida when you run unopposed, you are "automatically reinstated in Washington." You name does not appear on the ballot. There is no opportunity for a write in...

I've ranted and argued against the Electoral College in past posts. Do all of us now agree that this worthless, anti-democratic anachronism should be totally abolished after the election? Surely I do not have to review the feeble arguments in favor of this out-dated institution or the obvious...

Interesting site. The idea is that a "safe state" Kerry supporter gets paired with a swing state "third party" sympathizer. The Kerry supporter then votes third-party while the third-party sympathizer votes Kerry. The idea is to get Kerry elected and, in return, third parties get more votes...

I'm posting this here rather than in the U.S. election forum because it's not limited to the U.S. In fact, it might apply even more to other countries. In an election year, you can't so much as turn on a television without seeing a "public service" announcement telling people to get out and...

Urgent note to Tricky! Would you consider moving to New Mexico (at least for a few months)? You're one of the few people I can think of who might be able to make this interesting idea for IRV a reality. If you haven't already seen this, it's from the July 12 issue of The Nation (available...

Ok, I know votes by individuals 'count', I know that all too well having education in economics and statistics, so I'm not saying my vote doesn't count or anything like that. But, my point is, how can an individual be informed truthfully about candidates' background and what they have to offer...

I am looking for input about the upcoming elections. Not who but how. With the mess in Florida during the last presidential the Help America Vote Act was introduced into my world. I hear a great deal about people wanting paper ballots, that touch screen voting is unreliable and punch cards...