Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU!mwm
From: mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike  Meyer, I'll think of something yet)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Electoral systems (Was: Big Brother)
Message-ID: <8901010855.AA11720@violet.berkeley.edu>
Date: 1 Jan 89 08:55:36 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 28

>> In Canada and the US we have governments/leaders that the majority of
>> the people voted against.  (Probably in britain too) The crisis lies
>> in the inability of constitutions and electoral procedures to come up
>> with a way of translating that into a defeat of the government.  Call
>> it fractured and divided opposition.

We might consider "Australian rules" voting ("'s becuase that's what
I've heard it called - I have no idea what, if any, relation it has to
Australia). By this system, all voters rank the choices. The votes for
#1 are then counted. If nobody achieves a majority, the least popular
candidate is eliminated, and all those who had that as the #1 vote
have all the other choices moved up by one. This process repeats until
some candidate has a majority.

In the US, this probably woulnd't change much - the press doesn't seem
to realize that there are more than two parties. However, it would
certainly help solve the "Voting against the other person" syndrome
(polls showed that roughly 50% of the people voting for either Bush or
Dukakis were actually voting against Dukakis or Bush). Care to comment
on how it would effect the Canadian system?

In a national election, you'd just about have to have a computer-aided
voting system. Maybe others would care to comment on that?

And I'm not sure what kind of tweaks it would take if you wished to
keep the electoral college - have that applied in each state?

	<mike