No Selling, Buying Or Trading Of Votes Allowed
from the what-we-need-are-anti-votes! dept
It’s semi-official. It’s not quite legal to swap your vote with anyone (at least according to California). Actually, you can’t “broker the exchange of votes” which really just means that the websites that facilitate the process are illegal. Still, no one has really addressed the underlying issues of why people want to swap votes. Maybe we need to propose a new voting process….
Comments on “No Selling, Buying Or Trading Of Votes Allowed”
No Subject Given
DanDot posted a good link to why the whole electoral college system is skewed towards a 2-party system.. an interesting read. I mean, the whole electoral college thing is a vestige of older times.. why not just make it based on popular vote?
Re: No Subject Given
This was mentioned in the link ScooterBoy posted, but the link was busted. This quote, which I lifted from somebody’s online course notes, says it all:
Mathematical economist Kenneth Arrow proved (in 1952) that there is NO consistent method of making a fair choice among three or more candidates. This remarkable result assures us that there is no single election procedure that can always fairly decide the outcome of an election that involves more than two candidates or alternatives.
anti votes
As anyone who has spoken to me about the election knows, I am very intrigued by the idea of anti-votes. I don’t necessarily think it would work or that we should do it, but I think the idea is very interesting. The concept is that you still only have one vote but there is a “yes” and “no” next to each candidates name. Thus, you can specify that your vote is really “against” someone as opposed to for the lesser of two evils.
Yes, there are plenty of problems with this idea, and don’t attack me for bringing it up. I just think it’s cool to think about.
The fact is a lot of people will be voting for the lesser of two evils in order to keep the more evil person out of office, and it hardly strikes me as a valid “mandate of the people” to find you backed your way into office by being “less evil”.
Re: anti votes
Well, I *have* talked to you about anti-votes, Mike. (Look what dept the post comes from…) And I say, why not have a “maybe” category, too? The winner has the most “yes” votes, and in the event of a tie, the most “maybe” votes or the least “no” votes….? Pretty complex system, I must admit.