I'm voting for MA Question 2 Ranked Choice Voting. There's more than one kind of Ranked Choice Voting, and it matters, and "Instant Runoff Voting" is just about the worst, but it might help Massachusetts break out of some ways it's stuck in its Democratic Party machine lock-in on local politics. I don't want Charlie Baker or Scott Brown, I want something else and RCV gives us more of a chance. Right now in 2020 we're facing a US Senator election where the real race was in the primary and the general election is a really likely win for the incumbent Democrat Ed Markey (who I think is doing a fine job). But I don't love the D party and don't want to be stuck with it and don't want people on the other side feeling stuck with the R party. Ranked Choice Voting gives us a potential way of stepping outside the two party system, and locally and nationally the two parties are an increasingly vitriolic rotting mess. So, Yes on MA-2 RCV, let's try it, and maybe make it better soon?
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Friday, October 9, 2020
Monday, April 25, 2016
Democracy Still Needs Fixing
Hundreds of thousands of people wanted to vote in the primaries this year, but were denied by the parties, and we let this happen. We let private clubs determine if someone can vote. Isn’t that absurd?
I’d kinda like to get rid of publicly funded primaries. Why do we spend millions of dollars of public money to run a private club’s organizational internal vote?
Maybe we make a deal, in exchange for public funding of the primary vote, the party has to let anyone vote in their primary (regardless of registration in that or any other party). If the X party want a closed primary, they can run it (and pay for it) themselves. Maybe the Internet Party will have an online primary, that’d be cool, eh?
Furthermore, people should be insulted that they didn’t get to vote in the primary because a Party didn’t want their vote, didn’t want their participation. The parties should be worried that they’re insulting and driving away people. Except that actually they both seem happy to play the game of trying to disenfranchise as many voters as possible (who might possibly vote for the other side).
I want the answer to be more democracy, not less. We could break the lock held by The Two Parties if we changed ballot access laws and used a rankings or ratings ballot in the general election. A ‘primary’ would be a private function of a party that gets a slot on the ballot because it has some number of registered members. Anyone else can get on the ballot by signature petition. On the ballot you get to rank your choices 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc…; or rate them on a scale of 0..10. Our current focus on primaries is an artifact of needing to get down to two choices on the final ballot, but that’s not necessary with a better ballot where you can express yourself on the whole field (or as much of it as you care to).
Break the two party duopoly. Another rant, because it’s Monday.
I’d kinda like to get rid of publicly funded primaries. Why do we spend millions of dollars of public money to run a private club’s organizational internal vote?
Maybe we make a deal, in exchange for public funding of the primary vote, the party has to let anyone vote in their primary (regardless of registration in that or any other party). If the X party want a closed primary, they can run it (and pay for it) themselves. Maybe the Internet Party will have an online primary, that’d be cool, eh?
Furthermore, people should be insulted that they didn’t get to vote in the primary because a Party didn’t want their vote, didn’t want their participation. The parties should be worried that they’re insulting and driving away people. Except that actually they both seem happy to play the game of trying to disenfranchise as many voters as possible (who might possibly vote for the other side).
I want the answer to be more democracy, not less. We could break the lock held by The Two Parties if we changed ballot access laws and used a rankings or ratings ballot in the general election. A ‘primary’ would be a private function of a party that gets a slot on the ballot because it has some number of registered members. Anyone else can get on the ballot by signature petition. On the ballot you get to rank your choices 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc…; or rate them on a scale of 0..10. Our current focus on primaries is an artifact of needing to get down to two choices on the final ballot, but that’s not necessary with a better ballot where you can express yourself on the whole field (or as much of it as you care to).
Break the two party duopoly. Another rant, because it’s Monday.
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