[Dave D]

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Namely that it isn't really fair to defer to the majority in cases where a large minority have a STRONG reason to take the other side and the majority is close to neutral.


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Mr. S- Did you ever take a constitutional history type class in your formative years? Or any sort of civics related class? If you had, you'd know that we don't really have a democracy in this country, we have a representative republic. The PRECISE reason we have things like 2/3 votes in the house, 2 legislatures and 3 bodies that have to agree that something is good law (or really 4 I guess, if you count the Supreme Court) is to make sure lots of people agree the law is a good thing.

This is also why politics is a SLOW process. It's slow because it's deliberate, for every bill that's passed there's usually a couple feasability studies done, then it gets debated etc. It takes a while, but the idea is to get it right that time.

We don't really have a tyranny of the majority in this country because the minority can do things like filabuster.

If there's a strong minority on an issue, it won't pass because at some point you're going to need to get a 2/3rd majority, or thereabouts.

This is usually true for state and local legislatures as well. Usually local legislatures are smaller, and have a smaller constituancy to govern, so they're better at governing anyway, so it's less than an issue.

Seriously, you should read the federalist papers some time, or take a constitutional history/law class at a GOOD university.

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1.Only allow people to cast a vote on a fraction of the total candidates/issues to be decided. Say half. They choose how to spread their votes.


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There's no way this would ever pass constitutional muster. You're effectivly disinfranchising people, and bringing up all kinds of 14th amendment issues there.

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2.Allow the total votes for any person to be equal to the total of the decisions, but voters can give something more than one vote while ignoring other issues. Perhaps with a limit such as four.


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I think other people have already explained why this is a bad idea. Also, there's a reason we have a 2 party system in this country, it's so you can vote party line on issues you don't know about. You trust your party because it's their job to be informed on the issues, not as much yours. Also, this is what interest groups are for, they study issues and tell you what's up and how to vote. That's why we don't vote on everything, because we entrust other people to make the decisions for us who's job it is to be knowledgeable on issues.

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Is it against the law for a small city to try something like this out in a minor election? They could even perhaps simultaneously do this with a standard election just to see how the results differ. Am I being naive to think that such a suggestion has any chance of ever being implemented?

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Like I said, it's probably going to have serious 14th amendment issues if it were ever really tried, and rightfuly so. 1 man, 1 vote.

If what other people have suggested is true, that you're trying to think of a system that rewards smartness, then I should remind you of something you sort of lived through, it was called "poll tax" and "literacy tests", and it's kind of bad.

What all the weirdo voting system people fail to understand is the principle (like I've already said) of why we elect leaders to represent us. We elect professional politicians (yes, even ones that stay there 20 years are good) to make our decisions for us to some extent, so we can better allocate our time to thing's we're all better at. Politians are providing a service, namely governing, just like any other professional.


It's amazing how some people just rehash the SAME problems that were thought of 225 years ago, and answered then, as some sort of new fangled thing.