Ranked Vote: Discussion Thread

You must be operating with a definition of 'regular' with which I am unfamiliar. There has been one election since WW2 when a government (not parliament) was elected with less than 40% of first preference (first ranked) votes. In that instance (1990) the government got 39.44% of the vote. So, not very 'regular'.

You also seem to be confused about how our electoral system works. The reason governments get elected with less than a majority of first preference votes is the same reason you can have Presidents elected with less than a majority of the popular vote, or why the composition of Congress in does not necessarily reflect the popular vote. It has nothing to do with preferential voting.

Given your confusion about how government here works I'll assume that the 'extreme problems' you refer to in a later post are more imaginary than real.

 

I didn't see any of this before now, but I've been in favor of ranked voting for decades. I think what it does is solve the spoiler problem where the success of a candidate will be hindered by having more candidates similar to themselves. The most infamous examples include Perot or Nader helping the mainstream candidate most similar to themselves to lose. If one values democratic principles (which I admittedly don't, but the alternative here is worse), then avoiding the spoiler effect is desirable. A simple example I suppose would be seeing which kind of ice cream people want with plurality voting and having 5 different kinds of chocolate ice cream which spoil each other and cause vanilla to win with 20% of the vote (while 80% of people voted for some variety of chocolate). That kind of result is just stupid, and it's what plurality voting can lead to.

The problem with ranked voting is it can get complicated, and voters may struggle with it. I think to account for this some flexibility is needed, so if they only have one candidate they like, they can input one name. If they're a diehard republican (for example), they can list all of the republicans in order of preference and names left off the list would be assumed to be tied for last choice.

You're thinking of proportional representation, which doesn't necessarily involve ranked voting and certainly can involve plurality voting (the opposite in this discussion). The last problem you mentioned is actually better in ranked voting than plurality voting, since in plurality voting your voice is only heard regarding one candidate as opposed to more than one of them.

The word of the founders isn't some kind of infallible thing. They are to be admired because of their courage and pioneering of a better system of government, but that doesn't mean it should be presumed they did everything optimally. In fact, they asked us to NOT presume that by having a process of amendment.

 

So far this century, only 1 president was installed by the will of the people. EVERY other president lost the election only to be installed by a simi-secret cable of Party leaders.

 

The president is chosen by electors who are appointed by the states. "The people" have nothing to do with the process.

 

I prefer the Athenian system. They chose their leaders by chance. It gets rid of the systematic error that defines modern political processes.

 

Which is a problem. The president is the representative of the people, not the states (that's the Senate's job).

 

A monarchy achieves the same goal.

 

The president isn't a representative. The president is the executive.

 

The EXECUTOR the laws democratically enacted. State power is manifested in the Senate (and to that end I oppose the 17th) but the president is responsible to 'We the People'. The EC subverts this by placing power in the hands of Party leadership. Either the EC goes or the US needs to stop calling itself a liberal democracy.

 

Actually, the president is responsible for executing the laws that we the people enact through our legislature.

 

That's... What I said.

 

Well its not the Senates job since the 17th amendment and the President is President of the United STATES and is to be concerned with making sure the government runs properly and represents the country in foreign policy.
Where doea the Constitution say he is the representitve of the people it does not even mandate a vote of the people for the office.