Cartoon about single-mark ballots
On 9/23/2016 1:08 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:56 AM, VoteFair <ElectionMethods@votefair.org
mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org> wrote:
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
Before you publish that article, please check out VotePact.org
Even if two people agree to cast ballots that cancel each other out,
that's still leaving the decision up to the other voters in that state.
I don't understand your point. Whether you and another person vote for
Clinton and Trump, or make a pact and vote for Stein and/or Johnson
instead, the election is still decided by the other voters in the state.
Dilution. Why dilute the votes?
As an analogy, why put both sweet and sour into the same pot of soup in
hopes of balancing them out to be neutral?
I am not opposed to your underlying desire to find a way to make things
better. I just cannot imagine the logistics of your approach working
for more than a handful of people.
Another point that Robert Bristow-Johnson points out: vote trading of
any kind is illegal. I recall that vote-swapping sites were shut down
after they popped up in the Gore-Nader-Bush election. (I don't remember
if it was the Supreme Court who made that decision.) I think that if
your site got to be too popular, it would be shut down as illegal.
Yes, continue to pioneer, and push against unfairness. But be willing
to change course as needed.
Richard Fobes
The exception would be if enough people used the Vote Pact idea that
Stein or Johnson won. But that would be a good outcome from your point
of view, right? Otherwise, why did you enter into the vote pact?
Participating in your VotePact approach requires finding someone to
trust. And the trusting not only applies to trusting who the person
will actually vote for, but trusting that the person is not also
making a similar arrangement with yet another voter.
This is addressed at http://www.votepact.org/about/ under "The Issue of
Trust." You can get absentee ballots, fill them out in each other's
presence and mail them together. Or you can go to the polls together and
check each other's ballots before turning them in.
In other words, it's really, really hard to find someone you trust
who also has the opposite political preference.
In a swing state, it shouldn't be that hard to find your opposite. As
for trust, see above.
Expressed as a Venn diagram, the overlap between someone I trust and
someone who has the opposite political view is empty.
Here's part of what I hope to convey in the article:
A single-mark ballot is not asking for the voter's first choice. If
it was, it would also ask for a second choice.
Instead a single-mark ballot is equivalent to being given a marble
and being asked to put it into the bucket with their "preferred"
candidate's name on the bucket. And only the two heaviest buckets
will have their marbles counted. The other buckets might as well be
bottomless.
Richard Fobes
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 10:42 PM, VoteFair
<ElectionMethods@votefair.org <mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>>> wrote:
...
I will use the image as part of an article I'm writing that
explains
why voters in swing states should not vote for a
third-party candidate.
Before you publish that article, please check out VotePact.org
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for
list info
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: [EM] Cartoon about single-mark ballots
From: "VoteFair" ElectionMethods@VoteFair.org
Date: Fri, September 23, 2016 5:11 pm
To: "election-methods@lists.electorama.com" election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Another point that Robert Bristow-Johnson points out: vote trading of
any kind is illegal.
no it's not. � not in every situation and it's different in different states. �but Vermont required the registering voter to take a "Freeman's Oath" that seems to say that your vote is not placed as a favor to any other person.
i imagine that
vote buying and selling (for cash) is illegal everywhere. �this is one reason that, in Vermont, it is illegal for anyone to photograph someone's ballot. �even if the voter wishes to disclose, it is illegal to "prove" your vote to anyone else. �it must be kept secret.
�this is so that if anyone does offer a consideration (like money or a political spoils like a city job) for your vote, there is no way for that person to be able to verify that you delivered on his purchase.
I recall that vote-swapping sites were shut down
after they popped up in the Gore-Nader-Bush election.
no they weren't.
(I don't remember
if it was the Supreme Court who made that decision.) I think that if
your site got to be too popular, it would be shut down as illegal.
nope. �there was some controversy and there were several sites, but i don't recall that they were shut down.
--
r b-j � � � � � � � � �rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 3:11 PM, VoteFair ElectionMethods@votefair.org
wrote:
On 9/23/2016 1:08 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:56 AM, VoteFair <ElectionMethods@votefair.org
mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org> wrote:
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
Before you publish that article, please check out VotePact.org
Even if two people agree to cast ballots that cancel each other out,
that's still leaving the decision up to the other voters in that
state.
I don't understand your point. Whether you and another person vote for
Clinton and Trump, or make a pact and vote for Stein and/or Johnson
instead, the election is still decided by the other voters in the state.
Dilution. Why dilute the votes?
As an analogy, why put both sweet and sour into the same pot of soup in
hopes of balancing them out to be neutral?
Sorry for being so dense, but I still don't understand your point.
It seems to me that Clinton and Trump are the sweet and sour, when some of
us want neither. Why get into a contest, dumping more sweet and sour into
the pot?
If you like either Clinton or Trump better than any other candidate
regardless of electability, then go ahead and vote for Clinton or Trump.
Vote Pact is not for you.
Vote Pact is for people who would prefer some other candidate over both
Clinton and Trump, but feel compelled to vote for the lesser evil to keep
the greater evil from winning. Find your opposite, then each of you vote
for who you really want.
I am not opposed to your underlying desire to find a way to make things
better. I just cannot imagine the logistics of your approach working for
more than a handful of people.
Another point that Robert Bristow-Johnson points out: vote trading of any
kind is illegal. I recall that vote-swapping sites were shut down after
they popped up in the Gore-Nader-Bush election. (I don't remember if it
was the Supreme Court who made that decision.) I think that if your site
got to be too popular, it would be shut down as illegal.
It's not my website. I just think it's a great idea, an idea that could
have a huge, positive impact if it became widely known and practiced.
As for legality, I think laws against it are unenforceable, as a practical
matter. How can you prevent people from filling out absentee ballots
together?
The website helps to spread the idea, but without the website, anyone can
still promote and discuss the idea on public forums.
(more below)
Yes, continue to pioneer, and push against unfairness. But be willing to
change course as needed.
Richard Fobes
The exception would be if enough people used the Vote Pact idea that
Stein or Johnson won. But that would be a good outcome from your point
of view, right? Otherwise, why did you enter into the vote pact?
Participating in your VotePact approach requires finding someone to
trust. And the trusting not only applies to trusting who the person
will actually vote for, but trusting that the person is not also
making a similar arrangement with yet another voter.
This is addressed at http://www.votepact.org/about/ under "The Issue of
Trust." You can get absentee ballots, fill them out in each other's
presence and mail them together. Or you can go to the polls together and
check each other's ballots before turning them in.
In other words, it's really, really hard to find someone you trust
who also has the opposite political preference.
In a swing state, it shouldn't be that hard to find your opposite. As
for trust, see above.
Expressed as a Venn diagram, the overlap between someone I trust and
someone who has the opposite political view is empty.
Here's part of what I hope to convey in the article:
A single-mark ballot is not asking for the voter's first choice. If
it was, it would also ask for a second choice.
Instead a single-mark ballot is equivalent to being given a marble
and being asked to put it into the bucket with their "preferred"
candidate's name on the bucket. And only the two heaviest buckets
will have their marbles counted. The other buckets might as well be
bottomless.
Not exactly. All the buckets will be counted. Only the two heaviest buckets
will be widely reported, but you can certainly find detailed data about all
the buckets if you look.
As for the "bottomless" comment, if you vote for Clinton and Trump wins,
Clinton's bucket might just as well be bottomless as well, wouldn't you
say? And if you liked someone better than Clinton, you missed your
opportunity to show your support for that candidate when you voted for
Clinton. You wasted your vote on someone who didn't win.
I think there are two reasons for voting: One is to influence the outcome
of this election in a direction that you want. The other is to show your
support for the candidates/parties you like, encourage them to run again,
and attract attention to those candidates/parties by giving them large vote
counts, thus increasing their chances of success in future elections.
Vote Pact can help with both of those things.
Richard Fobes
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 10:42 PM, VoteFair
<ElectionMethods@votefair.org <mailto:ElectionMethods@votefa
ir.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>> wrote:
...
I will use the image as part of an article I'm writing that
explains
why voters in swing states should not vote for a
third-party candidate.
Before you publish that article, please check out VotePact.org
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for
list info
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
On 9/23/2016 3:47 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
Vote Pact is for people who would prefer some other candidate over both
Clinton and Trump, but feel compelled to vote for the lesser evil to
keep the greater evil from winning. Find your opposite, then each of you
vote for who you really want.
Apparently I don't understand the website. But admittedly I don't see
the importance of voting for a third-party candidate in a swing state if
the voter has a preference between Clinton and Trump.
Yes, voting for a third-party candidate is tempting for all of us. But
it is not effective as a way to say "None of the above, start over, try
again."
Getting better ballots and better counting methods adopted is what will
solve the problem. And making that happen in primary elections, where
the biggest corrupt results occur, is what's needed first and foremost.
That's the bigger goal of the article, to enlighten people that we are
using primitive ballots.
Part of the concept is to convey that we are not being asked for a first
choice, because that would imply we are also being asked for a second
choice.
Instead we are being asked whether we want Clinton or Trump. Only
people in non-swing states have the luxury of voting for a third-party
candidate as a "protest" vote.
Richard Fobes
On 9/23/2016 3:47 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 3:11 PM, VoteFair <ElectionMethods@votefair.org
mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org> wrote:
On 9/23/2016 1:08 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:56 AM, VoteFair
<ElectionMethods@votefair.org <mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>>> wrote:
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
Before you publish that article, please check out VotePact.org
Even if two people agree to cast ballots that cancel each
other out,
that's still leaving the decision up to the other voters in
that state.
I don't understand your point. Whether you and another person
vote for
Clinton and Trump, or make a pact and vote for Stein and/or Johnson
instead, the election is still decided by the other voters in
the state.
Dilution. Why dilute the votes?
As an analogy, why put both sweet and sour into the same pot of soup
in hopes of balancing them out to be neutral?
Sorry for being so dense, but I still don't understand your point.
It seems to me that Clinton and Trump are the sweet and sour, when some
of us want neither. Why get into a contest, dumping more sweet and sour
into the pot?
If you like either Clinton or Trump better than any other candidate
regardless of electability, then go ahead and vote for Clinton or
Trump. Vote Pact is not for you.
Vote Pact is for people who would prefer some other candidate over both
Clinton and Trump, but feel compelled to vote for the lesser evil to
keep the greater evil from winning. Find your opposite, then each of you
vote for who you really want.
I am not opposed to your underlying desire to find a way to make
things better. I just cannot imagine the logistics of your approach
working for more than a handful of people.
Another point that Robert Bristow-Johnson points out: vote trading
of any kind is illegal. I recall that vote-swapping sites were shut
down after they popped up in the Gore-Nader-Bush election. (I don't
remember if it was the Supreme Court who made that decision.) I
think that if your site got to be too popular, it would be shut down
as illegal.
It's not my website. I just think it's a great idea, an idea that could
have a huge, positive impact if it became widely known and practiced.
As for legality, I think laws against it are unenforceable, as a
practical matter. How can you prevent people from filling out absentee
ballots together?
The website helps to spread the idea, but without the website, anyone
can still promote and discuss the idea on public forums.
(more below)
Yes, continue to pioneer, and push against unfairness. But be
willing to change course as needed.
Richard Fobes
The exception would be if enough people used the Vote Pact idea that
Stein or Johnson won. But that would be a good outcome from your
point
of view, right? Otherwise, why did you enter into the vote pact?
Participating in your VotePact approach requires finding
someone to
trust. And the trusting not only applies to trusting who
the person
will actually vote for, but trusting that the person is not
also
making a similar arrangement with yet another voter.
This is addressed at http://www.votepact.org/about/ under "The
Issue of
Trust." You can get absentee ballots, fill them out in each other's
presence and mail them together. Or you can go to the polls
together and
check each other's ballots before turning them in.
In other words, it's really, really hard to find someone
you trust
who also has the opposite political preference.
In a swing state, it shouldn't be that hard to find your
opposite. As
for trust, see above.
Expressed as a Venn diagram, the overlap between someone I
trust and
someone who has the opposite political view is empty.
Here's part of what I hope to convey in the article:
A single-mark ballot is not asking for the voter's first
choice. If
it was, it would also ask for a second choice.
Instead a single-mark ballot is equivalent to being given a
marble
and being asked to put it into the bucket with their
"preferred"
candidate's name on the bucket. And only the two heaviest
buckets
will have their marbles counted. The other buckets might
as well be
bottomless.
Not exactly. All the buckets will be counted. Only the two heaviest
buckets will be widely reported, but you can certainly find detailed
data about all the buckets if you look.
As for the "bottomless" comment, if you vote for Clinton and Trump wins,
Clinton's bucket might just as well be bottomless as well, wouldn't you
say? And if you liked someone better than Clinton, you missed your
opportunity to show your support for that candidate when you voted for
Clinton. You wasted your vote on someone who didn't win.
I think there are two reasons for voting: One is to influence the
outcome of this election in a direction that you want. The other is to
show your support for the candidates/parties you like, encourage them to
run again, and attract attention to those candidates/parties by giving
them large vote counts, thus increasing their chances of success in
future elections. Vote Pact can help with both of those things.
Richard Fobes
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 10:42 PM, VoteFair
<ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>>>> wrote:
...
I will use the image as part of an article I'm
writing that
explains
why voters in swing states should not vote for a
third-party candidate.
Before you publish that article, please check out
VotePact.org
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see
http://electorama.com/em for
list info
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for
list info
(My emails are not getting through to electorama right now, so thank you,
Richard, for replying to electorama and keeping my text intact.)
On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 11:02 PM, VoteFair ElectionMethods@votefair.org
wrote:
On 9/23/2016 3:47 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
Vote Pact is for people who would prefer some other candidate over both
Clinton and Trump, but feel compelled to vote for the lesser evil to
keep the greater evil from winning. Find your opposite, then each of you
vote for who you really want.
Apparently I don't understand the website. But admittedly I don't see the
importance of voting for a third-party candidate in a swing state if the
voter has a preference between Clinton and Trump.
Let's say that Alice prefers Stein>Johnson>Clinton>Trump (meaning she
really would prefer that Stein or Johnson win instead of Clinton or Trump)
and also feels strongly enough that Clinton is better than Trump, that she
feels compelled to vote for Clinto to keep Trump from winning.
And let's say Bob prefers Johnson>Stein>Trump>Clinton and feels compelled
to vote for Trump to keep Clinton from winning. (A minor detail is that it
doesn't matter how he ranks Stein if he doesn't think she has a chance of
winning.)
Alice would really rather vote for and show her support for Stein, instead
of holding her nose and voting for lesser-evil Clinton.
Similarly, Bob would really rather vote for Johnson, instead of voting for
lesser-evil Trump.
If Alice and Bob and millions of other like-minded people vote for Clinton
and Trump, then Clinton and Trump get a huge number of votes, Stein and
Johnson get vote totals that greatly understate their true level of support
among the voters, and Clinton or Trump wins.
BUT, if Alice and Bob (and millions of other pairs of people) find each
other and make a pact to not vote for either Clinton or Trump, then they
are both free to vote for whoever they really like best. And they can do it
knowing that their action didn't cause their greater evil to win. Clinton
or Trump will probably still win, but they both get fewer votes, and the
third party candidates get the votes that they really deserve.
If enough people apply the Vote Pact idea, it's even possible that Johnson
or Stein could win, which would be good or great from Alice and Bob's
standpoint.
Yes, voting for a third-party candidate is tempting for all of us. But it
is not effective as a way to say "None of the above, start over, try again."
No, it's not intended to say "None of the above." Some of us would really
prefer Johnson or Stein or some other over both Clinton and Trump.
In Florida 2000, pre-election polls found that more than 11% of voters
preferred Nader as their first choice. But as we know, he only got 1.6% in
the actual election. Where did the rest of that 11% go? The Nader
supporters bailed and voted for their lesser evils!
Since the election was so close, it's hard to say whether Vote Pact would
have changed the outcome. But the major effect, if Vote Pact had been
applied widely, would have been to give Nader much greater vote totals.
Getting better ballots and better counting methods adopted is what will
solve the problem. And making that happen in primary elections, where the
biggest corrupt results occur, is what's needed first and foremost.
I agree, that's important. What I disagree with is that voters in swing
states who prefer third party candidates should just give up and vote for
the lesser evil, when the Vote Pact idea can save them from that. From the
title of your article it sounded like you were advising people to vote for
the lesser evil.
That's the bigger goal of the article, to enlighten people that we are
using primitive ballots.
Part of the concept is to convey that we are not being asked for a first
choice, because that would imply we are also being asked for a second
choice.
We're just being asked to "vote for one". The ballots are counted and the
winner chosen.
Instead we are being asked whether we want Clinton or Trump. Only people
in non-swing states have the luxury of voting for a third-party candidate
as a "protest" vote.
Again, some people might protest-vote, but others of us would seriously
prefer a third party candidate. I think even protest voters (some of them)
might be interested in the Vote Pact idea.
If you really want to indicate "none of the above" and you don't want to
indicate support for anyone, the best way may be to spoil your ballot by
marking a line through all of the candidates' checkboxes.
Richard Fobes
On 9/23/2016 3:47 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 3:11 PM, VoteFair <ElectionMethods@votefair.org
mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org> wrote:
On 9/23/2016 1:08 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:56 AM, VoteFair
<ElectionMethods@votefair.org <mailto:ElectionMethods@votefa
ir.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>> wrote:
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
Before you publish that article, please check out VotePact.org
Even if two people agree to cast ballots that cancel each
other out,
that's still leaving the decision up to the other voters in
that state.
I don't understand your point. Whether you and another person
vote for
Clinton and Trump, or make a pact and vote for Stein and/or
Johnson
instead, the election is still decided by the other voters in
the state.
Dilution. Why dilute the votes?
As an analogy, why put both sweet and sour into the same pot of soup
in hopes of balancing them out to be neutral?
Sorry for being so dense, but I still don't understand your point.
It seems to me that Clinton and Trump are the sweet and sour, when some
of us want neither. Why get into a contest, dumping more sweet and sour
into the pot?
If you like either Clinton or Trump better than any other candidate
regardless of electability, then go ahead and vote for Clinton or
Trump. Vote Pact is not for you.
Vote Pact is for people who would prefer some other candidate over both
Clinton and Trump, but feel compelled to vote for the lesser evil to
keep the greater evil from winning. Find your opposite, then each of you
vote for who you really want.
I am not opposed to your underlying desire to find a way to make
things better. I just cannot imagine the logistics of your approach
working for more than a handful of people.
Another point that Robert Bristow-Johnson points out: vote trading
of any kind is illegal. I recall that vote-swapping sites were shut
down after they popped up in the Gore-Nader-Bush election. (I don't
remember if it was the Supreme Court who made that decision.) I
think that if your site got to be too popular, it would be shut down
as illegal.
It's not my website. I just think it's a great idea, an idea that could
have a huge, positive impact if it became widely known and practiced.
As for legality, I think laws against it are unenforceable, as a
practical matter. How can you prevent people from filling out absentee
ballots together?
The website helps to spread the idea, but without the website, anyone
can still promote and discuss the idea on public forums.
(more below)
Yes, continue to pioneer, and push against unfairness. But be
willing to change course as needed.
Richard Fobes
The exception would be if enough people used the Vote Pact idea
that
Stein or Johnson won. But that would be a good outcome from your
point
of view, right? Otherwise, why did you enter into the vote pact?
Participating in your VotePact approach requires finding
someone to
trust. And the trusting not only applies to trusting who
the person
will actually vote for, but trusting that the person is not
also
making a similar arrangement with yet another voter.
This is addressed at http://www.votepact.org/about/ under "The
Issue of
Trust." You can get absentee ballots, fill them out in each
other's
presence and mail them together. Or you can go to the polls
together and
check each other's ballots before turning them in.
In other words, it's really, really hard to find someone
you trust
who also has the opposite political preference.
In a swing state, it shouldn't be that hard to find your
opposite. As
for trust, see above.
Expressed as a Venn diagram, the overlap between someone I
trust and
someone who has the opposite political view is empty.
Here's part of what I hope to convey in the article:
A single-mark ballot is not asking for the voter's first
choice. If
it was, it would also ask for a second choice.
Instead a single-mark ballot is equivalent to being given a
marble
and being asked to put it into the bucket with their
"preferred"
candidate's name on the bucket. And only the two heaviest
buckets
will have their marbles counted. The other buckets might
as well be
bottomless.
Not exactly. All the buckets will be counted. Only the two heaviest
buckets will be widely reported, but you can certainly find detailed
data about all the buckets if you look.
As for the "bottomless" comment, if you vote for Clinton and Trump wins,
Clinton's bucket might just as well be bottomless as well, wouldn't you
say? And if you liked someone better than Clinton, you missed your
opportunity to show your support for that candidate when you voted for
Clinton. You wasted your vote on someone who didn't win.
I think there are two reasons for voting: One is to influence the
outcome of this election in a direction that you want. The other is to
show your support for the candidates/parties you like, encourage them to
run again, and attract attention to those candidates/parties by giving
them large vote counts, thus increasing their chances of success in
future elections. Vote Pact can help with both of those things.
Richard Fobes
On 9/19/2016 12:00 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 10:42 PM, VoteFair
<ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org
<mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org>>>> wrote:
...
I will use the image as part of an article I'm
writing that
explains
why voters in swing states should not vote for a
third-party candidate.
Before you publish that article, please check out
VotePact.org
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see
http://electorama.com/em for
list info
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for
list info
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Thank you for the clarification about how the VotePact website works.
In theory, the logic seems to make sense, but ...
In reality your ideal of actually changing who wins a presidential
election is incompatible with the fact that very very very few voters
would pair up under the conditions you specify.
Even here in Oregon where everyone votes by mail (and even if it were a
swing state) the pairing-up process either requires trust or is
time-consuming to confirm.
Frankly I can imagine lots of people participating based on claiming
that they have the opposite preference between Clinton and Trump
compared to their actual preference, and using the website to scam
voters away from the voter's intended goal.
There is a good reason for making ballots secret.
Historically it came from the days when employers and newspapers
supplied filled-out ballots and then observers at polling places watched
to see which form (often color-coded or otherwise recognizeable) the
voter put into the ballot box.
Richard Fobes
On 9/25/2016 12:52 AM, Jan Kok wrote:
(My emails are not getting through to electorama right now, so thank
you, Richard, for replying to electorama and keeping my text intact.)
On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 11:02 PM, VoteFair <ElectionMethods@votefair.org
mailto:ElectionMethods@votefair.org> wrote:
On 9/23/2016 3:47 PM, Jan Kok wrote:
Vote Pact is for people who would prefer some other candidate over
both
Clinton and Trump, but feel compelled to vote for the lesser evil to
keep the greater evil from winning. Find your opposite, then each
of you
vote for who you really want.
Apparently I don't understand the website. But admittedly I don't
see the importance of voting for a third-party candidate in a swing
state if the voter has a preference between Clinton and Trump.
Let's say that Alice prefers Stein>Johnson>Clinton>Trump (meaning she
really would prefer that Stein or Johnson win instead of Clinton or
Trump) and also feels strongly enough that Clinton is better than Trump,
that she feels compelled to vote for Clinto to keep Trump from winning.
And let's say Bob prefers Johnson>Stein>Trump>Clinton and feels
compelled to vote for Trump to keep Clinton from winning. (A minor
detail is that it doesn't matter how he ranks Stein if he doesn't think
she has a chance of winning.)
Alice would really rather vote for and show her support for Stein,
instead of holding her nose and voting for lesser-evil Clinton.
Similarly, Bob would really rather vote for Johnson, instead of voting
for lesser-evil Trump.
If Alice and Bob and millions of other like-minded people vote for
Clinton and Trump, then Clinton and Trump get a huge number of votes,
Stein and Johnson get vote totals that greatly understate their true
level of support among the voters, and Clinton or Trump wins.
BUT, if Alice and Bob (and millions of other pairs of people) find each
other and make a pact to not vote for either Clinton or Trump, then they
are both free to vote for whoever they really like best. And they can do
it knowing that their action didn't cause their greater evil to win.
Clinton or Trump will probably still win, but they both get fewer votes,
and the third party candidates get the votes that they really deserve.
If enough people apply the Vote Pact idea, it's even possible that
Johnson or Stein could win, which would be good or great from Alice and
Bob's standpoint.
Yes, voting for a third-party candidate is tempting for all of us.
But it is not effective as a way to say "None of the above, start
over, try again."
No, it's not intended to say "None of the above." Some of us would
really prefer Johnson or Stein or some other over both Clinton and Trump.
In Florida 2000, pre-election polls found that more than 11% of voters
preferred Nader as their first choice. But as we know, he only got 1.6%
in the actual election. Where did the rest of that 11% go? The Nader
supporters bailed and voted for their lesser evils!
Since the election was so close, it's hard to say whether Vote Pact
would have changed the outcome. But the major effect, if Vote Pact had
been applied widely, would have been to give Nader much greater vote totals.
Getting better ballots and better counting methods adopted is what
will solve the problem. And making that happen in primary
elections, where the biggest corrupt results occur, is what's needed
first and foremost.
I agree, that's important. What I disagree with is that voters in swing
states who prefer third party candidates should just give up and vote
for the lesser evil, when the Vote Pact idea can save them from that.
From the title of your article it sounded like you were advising people
to vote for the lesser evil.
That's the bigger goal of the article, to enlighten people that we
are using primitive ballots.
Part of the concept is to convey that we are not being asked for a
first choice, because that would imply we are also being asked for a
second choice.
We're just being asked to "vote for one". The ballots are counted and
the winner chosen.
Instead we are being asked whether we want Clinton or Trump. Only
people in non-swing states have the luxury of voting for a
third-party candidate as a "protest" vote.
Again, some people might protest-vote, but others of us would seriously
prefer a third party candidate. I think even protest voters (some of
them) might be interested in the Vote Pact idea.
If you really want to indicate "none of the above" and you don't want to
indicate support for anyone, the best way may be to spoil your ballot by
marking a line through all of the candidates' checkboxes.
Richard Fobes