In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in sci.stat.edu, Robert J.
MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Everything *else* about this process is mad enough. (Consider: if 45%
>support the governor, 35% support the Terminator, and 20% support Mickey
>Mouse, the Terminator wins. That's unles the governor's supporters were
>smart enough to vote _en_masse_ to remove him and then make him his own
>replacement, in which case he'd win.
Unless things have changed very recently, by law he is not allowed
to appear as a candidate on the recall ballot.
Indeed, it would be silly to let him appear on the ballot. (Hear me
out, please, before you react.) If a majority want to remove him,
then obviously a majority doesn't want to retain him.
But here's the rub, and why your proposal (even if illegal) is _not_
silly: the system of plurality election is fundamentally wrong. If
the number of candidates is 2, it's equivalent to a majority
election anyway; if the number of candidates is more than 2, a
plurality election is a terrible way to find out the will of the
people, even when not complicated by a simultaneous recall. Everyone
her is probably familiar with standard examples.
In my darker moments I wonder whether the folks who engineered the
recall planned this -- with so many candidates, the one favored by a
tiny but disciplined splinter group is at a great advantage.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
It's not necessary to send me a copy of anything you post
publicly, but if you do please identify it explicitly to avoid
confusion.
.
.
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