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| View Poll Results: Devils vs Hurricanes | |||
| Carolina (2) |
   
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11 | 21.15% |
| New Jersey (3) |
  
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41 | 78.85% |
| Voters: 52. You may not vote on this poll | |||
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#1
12-06-2006, 10:17 PM
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Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
Forget for a moment the logistical problems with this idea. Lets just talk political theory.
One of the problems with democracy is that some idiots vote and some genuises don't. I'll be talking about that elsewhere at a later date. But I feel like that there is another problem. 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. If I'm right (do you agree?) how can things be rectified? I can see two possible solutions, at least in theory. 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. 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. 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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#3
12-06-2006, 10:24 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
David,
this issue has been studied by economists. You should google 'Clarke Tax'. Dean
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#4
12-06-2006, 10:26 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
Seems like you could slip all kinds of stuff past some people while they spend all their votes opposing gay marriage instead of your thing.
But actually, I think this is an interesting idea and I would love to see it tried somewhere sometime. Don't know if it would be legal/constitutional in the US, but I'm sure it's possible somewhere.
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#5
12-06-2006, 10:31 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
[ QUOTE ]
Am I being naive to think that such a suggestion has any chance of ever being implemented? [/ QUOTE ] They can't even count the vote accurately. It's really <u>+</u> 0.03% in many states.
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#6
12-06-2006, 10:44 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
[ QUOTE ]
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. 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. [/ QUOTE ] I'd like to interject a possible number 3. That is, not voting at all but rather selecting candidates like we select jury members. I would also be for candidates first having to meet some general criteria that I haven't fully thought out, like having a college education perhaps, although this may be troublesome as well.
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#7
12-06-2006, 10:59 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
Number 2 has been proposed before by Lani Guinier, the law professor who Clinton nominated for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. It's been a while since I've read her book Tyranny of the Majority, but I recall that it proposed giving voters multiple votes that they can either case for separate candidates or use to strongly support a few or just one candidate in a general election for multiple seats.
Wikipedia claims that this sort of cumulative voting scheme has been done before, such as in an Alabama county commission where it led to women, blacks, and Republicans winning seats that had previously been held by white male Democrats.
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#8
12-06-2006, 11:05 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
Oh OK. Every once in a while someone thinks of something before I do. So is it a good idea, in theory at least?
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#9
12-06-2006, 11:09 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
Anarcocapitalism.
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#10
12-06-2006, 11:22 PM
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Re: Should Mild Preferences Have Equal Weight?
solution number 3, the market.
For instance marihuana. Suppose we have 3 persons. A, B & C. A loses 2 happy points if pot is legalized. B loses 4 happy poitns if pot is legalized. C wins 13 happy points if pot is legalized. On democracy pot is going to be illegal. On the market, person C gets to have pot because person A and person B are not going to bother on enforcing anti-marihuana laws, specially because they are going to find a lot of resistance on C. Even C is by himself he is willing to do a lot more for his right to smoke weed, he is willing to spend more resources, etc.
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