Wikipedia’s pretty good. I instituted this in our book group and stopped a lot of fighting about book selection with it.
Of course, I believe Kenneth Arrow proved even this has it’s flaws, as does every voting system. So don’t get to carried away by “mathematicians know best”.
He did. But as it turns out, plurality (first past the post) with certain modifications has outstanding formal properties that come very close to satisfying Arrow’s theorem without being dictatorial.
Approval voting is also fundamentally flawed, of course. The question is, what flaws are we as a society willing to tolerate? Democracies with run-off elections are willing to tolerate a little public irrationality in exchange for some fairness and equity. In the US, we are not. Who can really say which works out better in the end?
Amen. What a bunch of bullshit.
As for the OP, hell I do that every year on my All-Star ballot. 
Damn whippersnapper American League with their damnable designated hitter.
We used to have more or less that. Smoked filled back rooms with party big wigs choosing who they wanted to run. We have the primary system now as a reform from that.
gazpacho, I’m already of the opinion that the primary process has done little enough to make the election process more open. Now, instead of smoke-filled rooms being the true testing ground for votes for delegates, we have smoke-filled rooms being the major testing ground for election funding.
Evidently not. Evidently, the Republicans realize that McCain has it sewn up, so no need to vote for him. Do some homework before you spout out nonsense like that in an OP. But I have to wonder how much this even happens, anyway. It’s an open primary. So what? There are a bunch of those and both sides can play that game.
I did my homework, cowboy. I know Republicans like to respond to what they think is the point rather than the actual point though, so I won’t hold it against you. I’m not complaining about a lack of voting for McCain. I’m complaining about the Republicans who voted for Hillary specifically because they thought she was a weaker candidate to go against McCain. Yeah the other side would probably do the same thing, but that doesn’t make me like it any more.
That scenario is implausible. If one party really had the vast majority of voters, it would either split into two major factions, and you’d have essentially a multi-party system again, or it wouldn’t care who the other candidate was.
Besides, who could ever live down being in the half that had to nominate Carrot Top?
I bet Carrot Top would come up with some amusing contraption to capture Bin Laden. Hmmmm. Maybe in 2012?
I’m not a Republican, and I know what you’re complaining about. Others had already addressed the validity of that complaint, and I was pointing out that you had included something that was factually incorrect in your OP. If you don’t like that, then blame yourself-- you shouldn’t have put it in there in the first place. Evidently.
I can’t see the problem here. In 2000, Al Gore was the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, so a vote for him was superfluous. On the other hand, GWB looked like he was going to be pure evil in a well tailored suit, while McCain looked to be better - either he could be beat by Gore, or he would be tolerable as President. Of course, voting here in Massachusetts and with the Democratic party having no discernible strategy, voting for McCain was useless. It honestly didn’t seem likely that GWB could be derailed. But I voted for McCain in the primary anyway.
Turnabout is fair play.
Nah, the Republicans in Texas voted for the Republican of their choice.
It’s all the lameass Yankee transplants down here that are doing the crossover crap.
Count me as another who’s not sharing the OP’s ire. I’m traditionally a Democrat voter, but if the Dem nomination were all sewn up I could easily see registering Republican to vote for the candidate I thought would either most hobble the party, or whom I found most tolerable.
That just seems like a basic strategy for getting the most return for one’s investment.
I for one would prefer the return of the smoke-filled room.
After all, that’s how parties pick their candidates in most democracies. I like this because it builds in an automatic vocal base for the President and therefore advances governance.
We’re not choosing a President during the primaries. We’re choosing the candidate that we think should run for President. If I were a Republican, supporting the weakest Democrat possible might very well reflect my preferences.