Hi, this is James, replying to Michael Rouse's comments on systems of succession for fixed-term public offices
My opinion is that the current office-holder should always be in charge of choosing their successor(s), assuming of course that the term of office is fixed. (Obviously it wouldn't make sense for retiring supreme court justices to choose their successors, and so on.) That way, theoretically, the successor is an 'extension' of the previous office-holder, and does more or less what they would have done, and thus the remainder of the term is carried out more or less in line with the voters' original intent. As you mentioned, it doesn't make sense for the successor to be ideologically very different from the original office holder. This gives a fairly strong incentive for assassination, which we don't want. I think it used to be that the vice president of the US was the person who finished second in the election, but they got rid of that system, and I'm glad that they did. For example, if they kept it like that, Nixon would have become the president as soon as JFK was shot. So, I'm not interested in writing any new algorithms for succession. I think that every holder of a fixed-term public office should be required to name their potential successor, or better yet an ordered list of potential successors. In some cases it might make sense for the list to be sealed from public view unless the person actually died in office (again, this is to avoid giving anyone an incentive to assassinate the person); in other cases (perhaps most cases) it makes sense for the candidates to formally announce their successors before they get elected, as with vice presidents today. my best, James Green-Armytage fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/voting.htm ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info