[geeks] California Proposition 14

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

gsm at mendelson.com wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 11:50:32PM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> 
>> Several of the alternate systems have corner cases in which they can
>> generate weird results, but they *are* unusual corner cases.  Also, it's
>> been mathematically proven that it is impossible to create a completely
>> fair voting system.  But all of them are a hell of a lot better than the
>> system we have in place now, for which both major parties have
>> fine-tuned their game-the-system skills (and optimized the system for
>> gaming) over more than a century of practice.
> 
> For example, the electoral college.
> Geoff.
> 

The original voting system in place worked well, though it too was
imperfect.

Senators were not directly elected, they were chosen by the states
themselves to represent the states themselves and as a check on the
power of the Federal Government.

The entire system was designed to smooth out any faddish notions by
having different parts come into power over different lengths of time.

My view is that USA would be fine if

1. Federal government employees were prohibited from voting.  It is
always in their economic best interest for the size and scope of
government to increase.

2. Any person who had received welfare during the past 4 years would
automatically become ineligible to vote.  Since they cannot take care of
themselves, they cannot possibly be competent to vote.

I am realist enough to know it will never happen...

--Patrick