I am writing this article with three basic purposes in mind:

1.) to inspire voters to abandon their political parties, party politics and all the related ills; and instead, register as an independent and vote as an independent voter for an independent voter platform;

2.) to inspire voters to support and implement approval voting; let's replace our current plurality voting system with an approval  voting system.

3.) Approval voting virtually ELIMINATES over-voting and spoiled ballots - a fraudster's paradise.

I could easily pontificate all day as to the virtues of abandoning your political party and registering as an independent voter and and voting for party-free candidates; instead, I present to you our Founding Fathers' words and thoughts on "party politics" and non-plural voting.

With Approval Voting 2-party dominance should be lessened, consistent with the expressed wish of George Washington.

A prescient quote from George Washington's final "farewell" presidential address in 1796:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy....

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party.

But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

Conclusion: Washington thought political parties and political party dominance was a very bad idea. He wanted it to be about the best candidate winning. Not about 2 parties taking over and preventing all other parties – no matter how good their candidates – from having a chance. Makes you wonder whether Washington is spinning in his grave.

A quote from Abraham Lincoln shortly before he was killed:

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) letter to Colonel William F. Elkins, 21 Nov 1864.

Do you think Lincoln's prophecy of moneyed/corporate-powered political corruption and control came true? Two parties makes for a much more-easily-corrupted government than if we had some real competition going on.  Approval voting = Range Voting

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For all of his good intentions, former Nirvana bassist turned political activist Krist Novoselic is rallying behind a broken cause in Instant Runoff Voting, under the false belief that IRV will prevent wasted votes and spoiler candidates. He should also be aware that IRV has resulted in two-party domination in all four countries where it has been extensively used: Australia, Ireland, Malta, and Fiji (we might have been able to add the US to that list, except that almost all of the two dozen US cities to have implemented IRV--the largest being New York City in 1936-- later backslid to plurality).  So with all the support Novoselic has shown for third parties, he might want to stop supporting a voting system that is _lethal_ to them.

One thing is certain.  We need a better voting method than plurality, if our species intends to  survive the impact of looming threats such as global warming, overpopulation, and the end of cheap oil.  But Novoselic is suffering the effects of mass propaganda if he thinks IRV is answer.  There is something better, but first let's take a closer look at this IRV hype.

Consider the following hypothetical election results:

% of Voters     How They Voted
37%     Nader > Gore > McCain
31%     Gore > McCain > Nader
32%     McCain > Gore > Nader

With IRV, Gore is eliminated first, giving 31% of the ballots over to their second choice, McCain.  McCain then wins with 63% of the vote.  But wait!  68% of the voters prefer Gore over McCain!  Imagine the outrage from the Gore and Nader voters if they were to discover that McCain was elected, even though 68% of the voters preferred Gore!  IRV chooses a "wrong winner" because it ignores the second choices of the Nader voters.  So much for the myths that IRV prevents wasted votes and "IRV makes your vote count."

Consider what happens if Nader drops out of the race.  The Nader supporters would vote for Gore as their first choice, and Gore would win.  With Nader in the race, McCain wins.  Nader is a spoiler!  So much for the myth that IRV eliminates spoilers.

In this example, Nader takes first-choice votes away from Gore, thus "splitting" the votes for Gore and causing Gore to be eliminated.  So much for the myth that IRV eliminates vote splitting.

Does IRV eliminate the incentive to vote strategically?  Sorry, that's another myth.  In the example, McCain wins, which is the worst outcome from the Nader voters' viewpoint.  But if a few of those Nader voters strategically vote Gore first, Gore wins, which is a better outcome for them.  Thus, strategic voting sometimes pays with IRV, just as it sometimes pays with plurality.  Note that strategic voting causes the first-choice vote results to be distorted; in this example, strategic voting reduces the number of first-choice votes for Nader and increases the number for Gore.  So much for the myth that IRV accurately measures the support for third-party candidates.

How about the claim that IRV ensures that the winner is chosen by a majority of the voters?  Unfortunately, that's both false and misleading.  In the example, if most voters vote for their first choice only, no candidate gets a majority of the votes.  Even if most voters indicate a first, second and third choice, it is possible that no candidate gets a majority of the votes, if there are many candidates.  The claim is misleading because there are multiple ways to manipulate the ballots to form "majorities."  In the example, IRV finds that McCain is supported by 63% of the voters.  But it is also true that 63% of the voters prefer Gore over Nader, and 68% prefer Gore over McCain.  Gore is supported by two different majorities.  Why shouldn't Gore be declared the winner?

Of course, we can compare the individual properties of voting systems ad infinitum, but that's a bit like comparing the engines, tires, and aerodynamics of two race cars.  The ultimate metric we seek is simply, when you put them on the race track, which one performs better?  The analogous test for a voting method is called "Bayesian regret".  In lay language, it is simply the avoidable human dissatisfaction produced by an election process.  A theoretical process that could read the voters' minds, and choose the candidate who would bring about the greatest average happiness, would have a Bayesian regret of zero, by definition.  Rigorous experimentation has shown that Range Voting (RangeVoting.org) produces about 20% as much Bayesian regret (or five times as much voter satisfaction) as IRV or plurality, even when voters are extremely strategic instead of honest.  This also shows us that Range Voting gives us as much improvement over plurality and IRV as either of those methods gives over non-democratic random selection of the winner.  This means that Range Voting effectively doubles the happiness brought about by democracy!  This also means that using Range Voting would produce a far greater improvement to our democracy than the total eradication of fraud.  Incidentally, in highly strategic electorates, IRV tends to produce slightly higher Bayesian regret (lower voter satisfaction) than even plurality.  That should be the nail in the coffin for IRV, for anyone who sees the significance of Bayesian regret, and knows how poor plurality voting is.

With Range Voting, each voter simply assigns a score (say from 0-9) to each candidate, and the candidate with the highest average score wins.  It's simple and intuitive, and suffers far less harm from the use of strategic ("insincere") voting than other known methods, like plurality and IRV.  It also has the enormous benefit of giving third party supporters a chance to always express their sincere first choice preferences (or put another way, with Range Voting, a vote for Nader is NOT a vote for Bush, as it easily can be with plurality or IRV).  And unlike IRV, Range Voting can be implemented on all standard U.S. voting machines.  Novoselic doesn't mention the gorey details of vote tabulation with IRV, nor the fact that it produced as many as seven times the usual number of spoiled ballots in San Francisco.

It's time for voters to get educated about the various alternative voting methods that exist.  I encourage voters to read more deeply into the facts and myths surrounding election reform.  Not every idea associated with reform is a good one, and IRV happens to be particularly problematic.  There are those who say, "But IRV has so much more momentum than anything else."  Well, global warming has more momentum than global cooling.  Does that mean we should support global warming?

Voters who care about choosing the candidate who will bring about the greatest overall satisfaction for society should push for the adoption of Range Voting.  Meaningful, quality democracy _requires_ that we do.

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ron@roncorvus.com

Please visit and review the following websites:

http://rangevoting.org

http://www.corvusblog.com/rangevoting-ff.htm

http://www.corvusblog.com

http://www.projectfilibuster.com

U.S. Constitution
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.txt

Range Voting Explained:

Our government, by imposing that poor form of voting upon us all, has over the years too much become a festering sore of permanently entrenched, immoral, big money funded, self-satisfied, 2-party duopoly! And how the heck is the government "securing your God-given right to liberty" by forcing you to either vote Democratic, vote Republican, or resign? What kind of "liberty" is that? Basically, the plurality system prevents you from expressing your opinions anywhere near as fully as you want to (or if you try, it is futile and self-defeating). Range voting would have let you.

Range voting would not punish you for expressing your true opinions in your vote. If you vote Constitution, right now that actually makes the country worse because it denies your vote to the most-Constitutional among the two major candidates, helping the other win! Or if you vote major party, then the Constitution party gets no votes and dies out! See what we mean when we say the plurality voting system is "diabolical"?

But with range voting, you can both support the least-evil major party and support the Constitution candidate, with exactly as much or as little support as you want for each. Either way, you are working toward what you want, and not having to be dishonest about anything – and this is not a trick and not unfair to anybody.

That is why you've got to work to enact range voting. This is God's work. It brings true freedom and democracy to us all. Not fake freedom. Not fake democracy.

Third parties: Duverger's law says: enact range voting or die

Political scientists call self-reinforcing 2-party domination in plurality-voting governments "Duverger's law" after Maurice Duverger, a French political scientist.

In any voting system in which Duverger's law holds, third parties are going to be permanent doormats, and the corporate-corrupted and moneyed top-2 parties are always going to crush everything before them. And the rest of us consequently are going to suffer from massively reduced voter choice, massive idea-deficit, and massive quality deficit in our government.

Duverger's law is an experimental fact supported by immense amounts of data from governments around the world and across time. Several political science books present convincing tables and graphs of such data. Duverger holds both in plurality systems and in the IRV voting system. So third parties who want to break out of this vicious cycle should not support IRV or plurality. They should support Range or Approval voting. But as you can see from the real world data, range voting leads to a lot more pro-third party votes, at least initially. I mean, a lot more. That is enough to get third parties off the ground. It won't be enough by itself to make them actually win, but it will level the playing field allowing them to win if they have the best candidate once they have acquired enough funds and organization.

So in summary, the question for Constitutionalists when they consider "should we support range voting?" really is "do you like survival?" If you think survival is top priority, then range voting should be your top priority. And I mean top. Survival-priority. More important than every single lesser issue.