In the November 2016 election, Maine voters will vote on whether to use Instant Runoff Voting. The Kennebec Journal has this op-ed in support of the initiative.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
In the November 2016 election, Maine voters will vote on whether to use Instant Runoff Voting. The Kennebec Journal has this op-ed in support of the initiative.
PRESS RELEASE
MONTEREY CALIFORNIA USA
6/24/2015
The United Coalition of fifteen candidates for US President are pleased to announce the July 4th, 2015 “USA and International Parliament Virtual Picnic/Convention” which will be held from 2:15 to 4:20 in Monterey California.
Everyone is invited to this free speech event.
Three-minute statements will be video-taped, edited and released by the All Party System Co., USA Bureau.
The location is at Monterey’s famous Window by the Bay Park, located on Del Monte Avenue at Camino El Estero.
The United Coalition’s 15 Candidates for President of the United States (POTUS)
http://www.usparliament.org/pdc.php
James Ogle [Republican] for President
Scot Olewine [Republican- Green Energy] for President
Keenan Dunham [Libertarian] for President
Miss Joy Waymire [Decline to State] for President
Andy Caffrey [Democratic] for President
Roger Nichols [Unity] for President
Rhett Smith [First Freedom] for President
Ralph Beach [Independent] for President
James Le Sage [Humanitarian] for President
Ernest Wells [Communist] for President
Jonah Bolt [One] for President
Vanessa Davis [Defender of the Republic] for President
Tony Jones [Republican] for President
Tina Cook [Independent] for President
Verone Auzenne Thomas [Whig] for President
For more information, please contact the All Party System Co.’s Anthony Jamison at (831) 261-8476.
* * *
This would be great for local elections. This year in some states local primaries are in September with voting in November. We could skip the primary with this process and give candidates more time to campaign.
The Maine version will keep the partisan primaries. Both the primaries and the general election will be done by IRV.
Having seen how divisive single-winner IRV can be, only one person wins, the biggest civic group/vote getter, I do not support IRV at all.
Only through multi-winner districts is the team psychology generated and the IRV system for single-winners should be avoided because it’s the wrong solution for unity since it cements the two-party system requiring even higher thresholds than plurality elections.
In sum, IRV is no good.
Top Two is actually better in my opinion than IRV, although neither are muti-winner election systems.
At least Top Two gives you a threshold of 33.33% (plus one vote) as the minimum threshold for the primary, while IRV has a 50% (plus one vote) threshold (and has no primary).
But the way Maine is trying to apply IRV in the runoff which sounds like a plurality election in the primary where all parties’ top candidate wins (i.e. no specific threshold in the primary under plurality elections), and the among all major/minor/indepndent candidates in a IRV runoff, well that’s no good, because only the top vote getter wins in a IRV runoff.
So the winner will likely be a D or R, since 50% (plus one vote) is the threshold.
So, a Top Two system could get a third party or independent into the runoff, with 33.33% (plus one vote) which may be better than a plurality primary and IRV runoff.
The same problems continues with either system, and that is that single-winner elections are for power-grabbing egomaniac conceits and not good for the whole, the 100%.
The USA Parliament stumbled on this more than 20 years and it’s been working fine ever since:
http://www.usparliament.org
P.R. has been around since the 1820s-1840s — a mere 165 plus years.
The USA is in the gerrymander STONE AGE of monarchs and oligarchs.
It shows – genocide of the Indians to 1890, slavery to 1865, insane govt deficits and debts, rule by the top 1 percent super rich, destruction of older cities and suburbs, etc, etc.
James, there is not one single instance of a minor party member placing first or second in a top-two election if there were at least two major party members running. People don’t look seriously at minor party candidates until after they know who the major parties are running. That is the way it is in a two-party system.
If you want to see the list of the 115 instances, they are in the June 1 3013 print BAN and supplemented by the July 1 2014 issue, plus a few more examples since then. If you comment again, please acknowledge this information. It goes back 40 years now.
Richard, when unity is being created, it doesn’t have to be a third party or independent. I am promoting unity among all candidates, not just 3rd parties and independents.
I am interested in unifying voting systems, team players and it doesn’t matter to me if they are a “major” or “minor” party or independent.
Unlike you, I am ok with a D or R seeking unity and interested in unifying voting systems.
Being interested in the unifying voting system of pure proportional representation (PR), building an accountable team (accountability with TORQUE) and rising above divisive politics are the true signs of good candidates.
To reward good candidates and penalize hostile candidates is more easily done with mathematical perfection under PR. Multi-candidate teams create a fertile nursery bed for team psychology and single-winner elections do not help teamwork because one person isn’t a team.
Top Two does that, from my experience in 2010 and 2014, as I worked with state candidates before and after Top Two was implemented. By creating a positive environment where candidates can display the teamwork to build a bigger team.
It’s very easy to identify good team players from the hostile ones, simply by talking to them, using the dry mathematics of PR and and testing their interest in unity across partisan lines.
Top Two allows us to promote the unity and to build a bigger voter base, to reach the 33.33% (plus one vote) and then get recognition by that for potential victory in the Top Two runoff election in November.
Creating damaging hostilities against the Top Two concept is counter-productive to unity. Any hostile act rhetoric or action is a turn-off for voters. Everyone wants to improve and almost everyone (especially team players) undertand that working together is stronger than fighting.
When California had a blanket primary in 1998 and 2000, in those contests where the candidates in the primary and in the general election were the same, because no party had more than one candidate seeking the party nomination, the minor party candidates did worse in general election than they had in the primary.
Are you making the claim that because voters knew who the major party candidates would be before the primary, they took the minor party candidates seriously in the primary? And if that is the case, why then did they do worse in the general election?
The statement that minor party candidates did worse in the general election in California blanket election years is not true.
It was a good article! And, despite the allegations of Republican James Ogle, ranked choice voting would be an improvement over what we have now. While not perfect, it would be worlds better than Top Two which only perpetuates the Democans and Republicrats in their duopoly of the electoral process.
The standard fatal IRV example — for math MORONS on this list.
The mysterious Middle is highly divided — Gee – all elections since 1992.
34 L-M-R
33 R-M-L
16 M-L-R
16 M-R-L
99
With IRV, M loses.
L beats R 50-49
L Stain clone, R Hitler clone
M George Washington clone.
M has a mere 99 1st and 2nd place votes.
IRV is FATAL to Democracy — regardless of ALL of the moron hype about IRV.
IRV is one more EVIL plot by the usual suspect COMMUNISTS to get CONTROL of the USA.
——
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — pending Condorcet Head to Head math.
This is a true statement:
When California had a blanket primary in 1998 and 2000, in those contests where the candidates in the primary and in the general election were the same, because no party had more than one candidate seeking the party nomination, the minor party candidates did worse in general election than they had in the primary.
Please cite one race in 1998 or 2000 that this is not true.
Why are you confining your generalization to such a limited sample? California had partisan elections for 164 offices in 1998, and 154 in 2000, and hundreds of blanket primaries for special elections 1967-2010. Out of those 400 or 500 races, in the vast majority, minor party candidates got a higher percentage in the general than in the primary. Most notably, Audie Bock got 8.5% in the special 1999 Assembly election, but 51% in the runoff, so she won. But top-two rules would have kept her out of the runoff.
Let’s look at the 1998 statewide results.
Of the 36 minor party candidates, all finished behind Undervote. In four of the races, the collective total of minor party candidates finished behind Undervote.
The collective share of votes for minor party candidates declined between the primary and the general election.
If voters were paying more attention to minor party candidates in the general election, why were they performing worse?
You choose the 1998 statewide results because that small sample of all the results fits your thesis. If you looked at all the results, instead of cherry-picking a small sample, your point wouldn’t be true.
When third parties are registering 1% to 5%, how can you expect them to achieve votes beyond all others (a plurality or a majority), when all that the third party candidates can do is say “The Rs and Ds are bad, but I am good.”?
How will they attract votes when they say everyone is bad but them? That’s exactly what all single-winner elections will do.
Top Two allows the candidates to create alliances because two people win. So instead of saying “The Rs and Ds are bad, but I am good.” they are saying “Should I be one of the Top Two, I can work with the other winner to have good discussions between now and the general election.”
That’s what we have now. I am working with fourteen other candidates from many different political parties (and independents) because we have a mechanism under which to make decisions and elect names called pure proportional representation (PR).
The USA and International Parliament use this and it works fine. We’re able to synchronize under debate rules, we’re all friends and we’re all contributing to a bigger ball of unifying activity.
Working together with the 100% is more satisfying than anything else. Nobody has it as good as out team.
http://www.usparliament.org/
http://www.international-parliament.org/
When minor parties win partisan elections, it is quite common that they have tiny registrations, compared to the major parties. A party’s tiny registration does not mean it can’t win. The Working Families Parties of New York and Connecticut have both won legislative elections this year even though both parties (especially the Connecticut WFP) have very small registrations. When the Conservative Party of New York elected its nominee for US Senate in 1970, it only had registration of 1%. When the Green Party elected Audie Bock to the California Assembly in 1999, it only had 1% registration. When the Progressive Party of California elected its nominee for US House from San Francisco in 1936, it only had one-tenth of 1% of the registration.
When Raymund Burr ran with only the progressive nomination in 1934, he received 3.46% of the vote. Frank Havenner had both the Progressive and Democratic nominations in 1936, and received 58.46% of the vote. In 1938, he reversed the nominations and got 61.2% of the vote. In 1940 he lost despite having both the Democratic and Progressive nominations with 44.44% of the vote.
You may have forgotten that the primary was in late August and that candidates regularly ran for the nomination of all parties.
Had California had Top 2 Open Primary in 1936, Havenner would have advanced to the general election.
Havenner received 21.9% of the vote in the Republican primary, and Kahn, the Republican candidate received 18.7% of the vote in the Democratic primary.
Before the primary, newspapers were publishing editorials claiming that 100s of Kahn’s friends were re-registering as Progressives. Had Havenner lost his “own” primary, he would have been denied a place on the general election ballot despite having 47% of the Democratic vote, and 38.1% of the total vote.
Top 2 does away with such nonsense by doing away with formal party nominations.