Hello All, I have a board meeting tonight of a left/right/center group who among others has in it the Conservative Party, Justice Party (Rocky Anderson), IndeCan.org (largest collection of Independent candidates in the US), TJ Ohara (Modern Whig POTUS Candidate who was #5 on American's Elect), and myself. Stephen Erickson the Exec from RebuildDemocracy.org is also an interested party but not a board member. As you know, I'm the Editor of aGREATER.US.
We are considering making Ban Single Mark Ballots our first action. We would ask all past and present 3rd Party POTUS candidates (we also have access to Nader) to sign on, and other political organizations, which sort of sorts out the true believers from the make believe reformers—as I gather nothing protects the two party duopoly better than single mark ballots. Intellectually, no 3rd party would NOT sign onto this accept if we blow the details. So from your preamble I gather that after Single Mark Ballots are banned, the States or Congress should decide on whether to use... A. Approval B. Condorcet ( I gather there is now a tweaked version of this) C. Majority Judgement D. Range Voting It also appears that this would NOT need to be a Constitutional Amendment. Is that correct? My analysis has led me to believe the hole in this strategy is there is no position taken on primaries. Going back to the premise that the duopoly must be broken, it appears to me the whole "ball game" is how to structure primaries. Conservatives will want it left up the the States, liberals probably want Congress to pass something. Nevertheless, letting everyone vote, and having a diverse selection of viewpoints to choose from seems critical. I previously noted that in an open primary in CT for Senate I would have chosen; Hill (R) Byciewicz (D) and Passerell (L) probably in that order if I had to rank. I'm a staunch centrist (I) so don't read too much into a (R) being first; Brian is simply the best reformer of those running. BUT, what my choice is next week is Murphy (D) and McMahon (R). I'm NOT happy. Neither has any idea how economics actually work, and for that btw, as shocking as your work is to electoral reform, Modern Monetary Theory is to economics. So, here it is. Us activists may want to fly your flag, but what is on the flag? Cheers, Jon ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
