That said, and correct me if am wrong here you could not have voted for Peter Beattie as Premier either. He wins a seat like any other Member and his party appoints him Premier. Sure, they tell you beforehand, but it’s not so different from Anna Bligh: Holds seat; appointed to Premier by her party. The difference? They didn’t tell you beforehand. Probably didn’t know.
Peter Beattie’s election campaign was also based very much around the idea of “Team Beattie”- ie, “Vote for my [del]minions[/del] fellow party candidates in your respective seat, and I, Peter Better, shall be the [del]El Presidente[/del] Premier of Queensland!”
In short, you are (indirectly) voting for the PM/Premier (as I explained in the latter part of my post). I didn’t know Anna Bligh from a bar of soap until the day she got made Premier of Queensland (Yes, I know she was Deputy Premier from 2005-2007, but do you know what the Deputy Premier does? I’ll give you a hint: Nothing), and frankly I felt more than a little pissed off when Beattie quit and a week later someone whose previous political experience wasn’t much more than Standing At The Back Looking Silly- and, just as importantly, has a number of political views I disagree with- is in the Big Swivelly Leather Chair at Parliament House in Brisbane. That’s not how a democracy is supposed to work.
Look, here’s the thing: Knowing that a vote for the Labour Party would be a vote for Peter Beattie, an informed voter could then decide whether or not they wanted to vote for the Labour Candidate or someone else under those circumstances. That isn’t (IMHO) a Carte Blanche for the Labour Party to put whoever they like in the Big Swivelly Leather Chair of Power if the leader at the time of the election resigns later on after successfully being elected to power.
I mean, if the Member for Little Dunny On The Woad (from the Blackadder Party) resigns their seat to go and become Trade Commissioner to Monaco or whatever, then the Blackadder Party don’t get to say “Oi, Baldrick, you’re up” and appoint the new Member for Little Dunny On The Woad. There has to be a by-election so that the constituents there can pick their new Member (who may or may not be from the Party that currently holds the seat). Why should it be any different if the PM or Premier resigns? It affects everyone, so everyone should get to vote for their replacement, IMHO.
In the introduction to “Profiles in Courage,” John F. Kennedy (or his ghostwriter, actually) discusses the role of public opinion in deciding how a senator ought to vote. He came to the conclusion that being elected to public office means not acting like a thermometer, taking the temperature of the public on issues and then voting how the masses feel. Instead, an elected representative uses his/her own judgment: sometimes you must follow the people, because you have to be a politician before you can be a statesman; and sometimes you must rely on your own study, recognize that you were elected because a majority of the voters trusted your judgment above others, and lead through better informed example. Kennedy then went on to write about a half-dozen or so senators who defied the will of the public, and in so doing, went down in history as taking principled stands on the most controversial issues ever before the country.
In short, there is absolutely no question that congressmen tend to rely on their own judgment rather than voting the way the loudest of their constituents want.
You keep using derogatory terms for centrist positions. And then using that to justify your opposition to approval voting.
But if those centrist politicians get elected, it’s because they have more support than other candidates. That is, they better represent the will of the people. And if enough people agree with you, they won’t get elected. Either way, the people decide, without being forced into a false dilemma.
Don’t we all agree it’s more important that the government represent the people than implement our own favorite policies?
And you keep making the assumption that a system that trends towards the less unpopular is more “democratic” than one that trends towards the most popular.
My problem with approval voting is that we end up with “meh” candidates, with whom people don’t have a strong problem. I don’t think that benefits a country.
You need to show there is a significant difference between “most popular” and “least unpopular”.
And even if there is a meaningful distinction, approval voting allows voters to express exactly which candidates they approve (or disapprove) of. Compare to the current system, where they can only express approval for one (or disapproval for all but one). Both systems allow voters to express approval or disapproval. The difference is that approval voting gives the voters more options. The increased voter choice of approval voting over exclusionary voting is what makes it more democratic.
I think the benefits of giving voters finer control over their votes outweighs the possible drawbacks of their choices.
And I don’t accept that “meh” candidates will necessarily win. Voters are smart enough to vote for who they think is best.
Honestly, if you can’t see the difference between these two there is no basis for discussion.
This might be too much for a “single change”, but I would replace the federal government entirely with regional governments along the lines of the Nine Nations of North America. No national president means no getting mixed up in wars that we have no business getting into. Social issues could be decided at the region level so the single issue voters would have to actually vote for the best candidate and not the one that pays lip service to the anti-abortion crowd or kneels before the Second Half of the Second Amendment.
I see the difference, but I don’t think it is significant. You need to make a case for why we should care about the difference. And then you need to make a case why approval voting makes the difference worse when compared to the current single-exclusive voting system.
Saying you don’t like the politicians you think would win under approval voting says more about your political preferences than the strengths or weaknesses of the system. I may not like who gets elected under approval voting either, but I wouldn’t blame the system, I’d blame my fellow citizens for making poor choices. Saying we shouldn’t use the system because the electorate will make bad choices is undemocratic.
By its definition, approval voting gives the electorate finer control over who they support at the ballot. That by itself makes it more democratic. It is also easy to implement and easy to explain. It is harder to exploit than instant runoff voting. Do you deny any of these? These factors make it an excellent choice for a voting system.
You don’t think it is significant because you are a centrist. And centrists almost inevitably are the least unpopular.
As I have said repeatedly I don’t like approval voting because it has an in built bias towards middle of the road candidates. That is a weakness of the system - it has an inherent bias towards a particular group based on a factor (lack of active dislike) that I feel is far less important towards a healthy democracy than positive support. I’ve seen approval systems used. And they are a fucking disaster.
No it simply doesn’t. You are making this up. Finer control my ass. You have just simply stated this multiple times, and stuck your fingers in your ears. First past the post is easier to implement and easier to explain. It is no harder to exploit than instant runoff elections, and in fact tends towards negative campaigning, because you don’t have to convince people of your positive merits, just convince them someone else is worse.
It is a system that is only ever justified by middle of the road people, because it only ever benefits middle of the road candidates.
The approval voting system itself does not have a bias–it merely selects the candidate with the most non-exclusive votes. If that candidate tends to be middle of the road, then that reflects the bias of the electorate. You remember that that’s the purpose of elections, right?
And while you fear that centrists might win under approval voting, the fact is that third parties will get more votes under it. That is important for directing the public conversation.
Please give examples, then.
Uh, voters choosing to vote for one or more candidate is pretty obviously more choices than choosing exactly one candidate. “One or more” is greater than “exactly one”.
So, you accept that approval voting is easy? I never said it was easier than the current system.
Yes, those are the drawbacks of the current system. Approval voting makes negative campaigning less effective–pushing down the ratings of another candidate is not enough to win because it’s not a simple either-or situation. And it is resistant to exploits–choosing to vote for a minor candidate (one that cannot win) in our current system can spoil the election of a major candidate, and changing the rankings of minor candidates in instant runoff voting can change the result between the major candidates, but choosing to vote for a minor candidate in approval voting cannot affect the result between the majors.
Some kind of public forum debate with legislators. Similar to the British Parliament, but this will include a randomly selected group of citizens asking questions and demanding answers, like getting picked for jury duty except a hell of a lot more entertaining. Politicians make careers out of being evasive but I’ll bet your rank and file American wouldn’t toss up predictable softball press conference questions.
It should become a capital crime to receive campaign contributions without complete public disclosure.
And a big ‘Yup’ on the term limit thing.
Ya think? I’d say it would present at least nine times the risk.
Just because you say something, doesn’t make it so. You are presuming the purpose of an election is to select the individual with least strong feelings against them, rather than the individual with most strong feelings for them. The fact that the overwhelming majority of electoral systems are organized under a systems where a person has limited numbers of votes (usually one, though also sometimes in multipost elections one per post, is somewhat indicative that “the purpose of elections” is more to find out who people actively want, rather than are willing to tolerate, right?
I don’t necessarily think that “directing the public conversation” is the purpose of elections, right. I also don’t think that ensuring third parties get more votes is the purpose of elections, right.
Maybe the fact that you are so obsessed with these goals is the product of your views, and the attempt to tailor an electoral system that gives your views the best chance of success.
We played around with approval voting in some student elections. It never got any degree of support from the people I knew who studied electoral systems - I will see if I can email a friend of mine whose life work has been to study such things and see why he found approval voting so laughable.
Except that isn’t what you said. You didn’t say more choices. You said the following:
I responded to finer control. Now you claim, falsely, you said “more choices.” You didn’t.
I never said it was easy. I said first past the post is easier. If ease of voting is a benefit, then it loses out to first past the post. It is easier than some systems - STV for example is a cluster fuck to explain and count. AV on the other hand is just as easy as approval voting, though a little more complex than first past the post.
Approval voting (or what is should be called, Disapproval voting) is tailor made for negative campaigning. Your aim is not to tell people “Support me to the exclusion of others.” Your aim is to tell people “Don’t support my closest rival.” So you want to fly under the radar, while convincing the voters that your rival eats children.
If you want to avoid the “wasted vote” phenomenon, why not go for a transferable vote system, that does it FAR better.
But each region would only have one ninth the army. So if the head of the most hawkish region wants to wage a war, he’s got to sell it to enough other regions to make a go of it.
Why would each region only have one ninth the army? If (and I forget the nine regions in the book) the South has a lot of people who want to recruit, and New England doesn’t, then won’t the South’s army end up being a lot bigger than New England’s? It sounds like your plan involves dividing the US up into 9 different countries, each with their own government.
But it also means that special interest groups have an easier chance of gaining ground.
I agree. Corruption is the essential problem in Washington. Too many people want to work as lawmakers to learn how Washington functions and then get hired to lobby, an extremely lucrative living. Former lawmakers should not be allowed to work in the lobby trade or the news media.
Elected officials should be required to sell personal stock before holding office. Lawmakers with multimillion dollar stock investments are not likely working for the public. The Center for Responsive Politics has access to the stock investments of the richest Members of Congress. http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/overview.php
And you saying something doesn’t make it so, either. You keep saying that approval voting selects the least unpopular rather than the most popular and have not given any reasoning for it. By definition, approval voting selects the candidate with the most votes. The simple reading of this is that more votes means more popular. You claim otherwise; please explain.
And once you have made an argument about why approval voting works the way you say it does instead of the obvious way, you then need to make a case as to why least unpopular is less democratic than most popular.
Martini, seemingly little changes make a big difference.
Your plan to directly elect the leader of a government like Queensland (whether on all occasions or just when the previous leader resigns mid-cycle) leads to the prospect of the election of a leader who does not have the confidence of the majority of Parliament. Indeed, it is positively likely to occur, given the tendency of voters to punish governments mid-term. That puts the new leader in an impossible position. That’s why, if we assume a Parliamentary system, it has to be the way it is, or it wouldn’t be a Parliamentary system at all. It would be presidential (which comes with its own problems).
This instability is not merely theoretical. You will be aware of the unsatisfactory difficulties that occurred when the Lord Mayor of Brisbane was of one political stripe, but the Deputy Mayor and the majority of Council was of another. (The Lord Mayor of Brisbane is directly elected, unlike Premiers and Prime Ministers who are selected by Parliamentarians from among their number, but the Lord Mayor also sits on the City Council).
This hybrid arrangement was a political experiment imposed on the City Council for historical reasons, and is only successful where the Lord Mayor also has the majority of the Council. A recognition of this is largely why I suspect the electorate rationalised the position at the last Council election so that the Mayor and the majority are now of the same stripe.
For mine, the risk of this level of instability is worse than the occasional election of someone who was not on the front page of the advertising brochure of the party the electorate last voted for. Bear in mind that in a Parliamentary democracy, one doesn’t (or oughtn’t) just vote, cargo cult fashion, for a Leader. One votes on the basis of a whole range of things including the strength of the back-up team that comes with the leader, and the unlikely possibility that the back-up team may be called up to First Grade. It’s in the fine print, so to speak.
That is why parties criticize each other for being a One Man Band, or “lacking depth of talent”. The alleged lack of a suitable VP was a strike against McCain in the US - the identity of the understudy is supposed to matter. You balance the strength of the advertised leader against the risk that s/he will fall under a bus and leave the show to the B-team.