Even if improving public elections is the statement's primary aim, that
needn't be its only aim -- nor, I'm convinced, should it be.
One point I've tried to make is that one of the best practical means for
improving the prospects for reforming difficult-to-change public
elections would be to promote the use of alternative voting and
representation methods for use in non-public elections and other kinds
of decisionmaking processes (both public and non-public), including not
only formal ones such as organizational and formal meeting elections and
decisions but also informal ones that involve small and temporary groups
-- and for not only critically important decisions such as presidential
elections and constitutional referendums but also much less important
decisions such as groups of friends and co-workers deciding where to eat
lunch together. (For the latter, I believe approval voting and other
quick and simple methods are, in virtually all cases, indisputably
better than more complicated and time-consuming though maybe technically
superior ones.)
The important things to keep in mind regarding this point are, first,
that it is much easier to experiment with alternative voting and
representation methods in other than public elections and, second, that
doing so has the great added advantage of helping educate people about
alternative methods and (hopefully) helping persuade much larger numbers
of people that some alternative methods would be great improvements over
plurality voting and single-representative legislative districts for use
in public elections.
-RS
On 8/28/2011 12:45 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
I question adding this collection of paragraphs to the major
declaration, which seems more aimed at improving public elections.
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