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a) 'Remote voting' allows for many more opportunities for fraud than in person voting does.

 

This all depends on how you organize your vote. Note also that I was talking specifically about voting by non-secret ballot in parliaments. It's practically impossible to fake votes in elections by non-secret ballot where only a few hundred people participate.

 

b) 'Remote voting' makes it easy for the otherwise uninformed/uncaring voter too lazy to get off their couch to influence things. Voting should not be as easy and convenient as pressing a button on your TV remote or sending a text from your phone (as some have suggested it should be). A lot of people, myself definitely among them, do not want attention span of a rabbit couch potato voters, who will only take time out of their Kardasian marathon or Snapchat sessions to vote if they don't need to spend more than a few seconds to do it. Whatever one's political leanings, if one isn't invested in them enough to spend a little time to physically get to the polls or arrange for an absentee ballot, one should not be voting.

 

This is especially rich coming from an American. The US has lower voter turnout than any other country I know of. What do you say about the countries which have 80-90% voter turnout? Has their democracy been destroyed by too many uninformed voters participating? The answer is no.

 

Besides, don't you think that if more people would participate, that politicians would be more eager to reach out to - and inform - more people?

 

Time consuming though it may be (and it really isn't all that time consuming in most cases), the best form of voting for a variety of reasons is in person and on paper ballots, with the option for absentee mail ins for those who really can't make it to the polls on election day.

 

New technology is not always better.

You do realize that it is far easier to fake absentee mail-in votes than it is to fake votes which are certified by cryptographic protocols?

Edited by Rostere

"Well, overkill is my middle name. And my last name. And all of my other names as well!"

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Time consuming though it may be (and it really isn't all that time consuming in most cases), the best form of voting for a variety of reasons is in person and on paper ballots, with the option for absentee mail ins for those who really can't make it to the polls on election day.

 

I'd settle for just "open this week, come by 8AM to 8PM" (or 10AM to 6PM if you want it to be 8 hours...or maybe 12AM to 8PM would be better, to make sure everyone's off work by then).

 

(e): Some states do do it this way (or at least close to)...but not enough.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart.

In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance.

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a) 'Remote voting' allows for many more opportunities for fraud than in person voting does.

 

This all depends on how you organize your vote. Note also that I was talking specifically about voting by non-secret ballot in parliaments. It's impossible to fake votes in elections by non-secret ballot where only a few hundred people participate. Impossible? No. Very unlikely, yes.

 

b) 'Remote voting' makes it easy for the otherwise uninformed/uncaring voter too lazy to get off their couch to influence things. Voting should not be as easy and convenient as pressing a button on your TV remote or sending a text from your phone (as some have suggested it should be). A lot of people, myself definitely among them, do not want attention span of a rabbit couch potato voters, who will only take time out of their Kardasian marathon or Snapchat sessions to vote if they don't need to spend more than a few seconds to do it. Whatever one's political leanings, if one isn't invested in them enough to spend a little time to physically get to the polls or arrange for an absentee ballot, one should not be voting.

 

This is especially rich coming from an American. The US has lower voter turnout than any other country I know of. What do you say about the countries which have 80-90% voter turnout? Has their democracy been destroyed by too many uninformed voters participating? The answer is no. This really depends on the nation we're talking about, though in many cases I would argue yes, as well as say that some really don't have much of a democracy to begin with (most nations, including the U.S. are less of a democracy than many believe (a fact that is becoming abundantly clear to many who didn't realize it before this election)). Low voter turnout in the U.S. is for a variety of reasons, #1 though is probably just how disenfranchised a great many voters are. Not everyone believes in voting for the lesser of two evils, and a great many people have felt unrepresented for a long time. #2 is probably just how many people really just don't pay attention and/or really don't care. You cannot make people care, and compulsory voting for the populace at large is evil. #1 very well could be #2 and vice versa.

 

Besides, don't you think that if more people would participate, that politicians would be more eager to reach out to - and inform - more people? Absolutely not. Not on the national level in the U.S. anyways. There's a few reasons for this, but #1 is certainly the sheer number of people each elected person (be it house or senate (senators used to represent the States prior to the 17th amendment (one of the worst amendments we have by far)) is representing. Which has allowed for congressmen and Senators to largely ignore large swaths of the population they are supposed to be representing. [Though it affects everyone to a degree at the national level, this is a perennial and somewhat especially true situation in some places like California and New York (Californians probably have it the worst though as their state government has the same # of senators as they did in the mid 19th century, despite having by far the largest population growth in the nation).]

 

Repealing the 17th amendment and ratifying what was originally meant to be the 1st amendment (capping the # people each congressman represented), something that isn't like to happen soon,  would go a very long way to changing this at the national level.

 

Time consuming though it may be (and it really isn't all that time consuming in most cases), the best form of voting for a variety of reasons is in person and on paper ballots, with the option for absentee mail ins for those who really can't make it to the polls on election day.

 

New technology is not always better.

You do realize that it is far easier to fake absentee mail-in votes than it is to fake votes which are certified by cryptographic protocols? No, it isn't, not by a long shot.

 

Also, the number of absentee ballots in any given election is generally quite low. So even if every single one of them was subjected to fraud, there'd still be much less potential fraud an election overall vs an election where a majority if not all of the voters were voting electronically. On top that, if fraud is suspected, finding it and proving it happened will be oodles easier in almost every imaginable case when a physical copy of a vote exists vs when one does not exist.

 

Comments inline.

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Time consuming though it may be (and it really isn't all that time consuming in most cases), the best form of voting for a variety of reasons is in person and on paper ballots, with the option for absentee mail ins for those who really can't make it to the polls on election day.

 

I'd settle for just "open this week, come by 8AM to 8PM" (or 10AM to 6PM if you want it to be 8 hours...or maybe 12AM to 8PM would be better, to make sure everyone's off work by then).

 

(e): Some states do do it this way (or at least close to)...but not enough.

 

 

Yea... I'm cool with that.

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This really depends on the nation we're talking about, though in many cases I would argue yes, as well as say that some really don't have much of a democracy to begin with (most nations, including the U.S. are less of a democracy than many believe (a fact that is becoming abundantly clear to many who didn't realize it before this election)). Low voter turnout in the U.S. is for a variety of reasons, #1 though is probably just how disenfranchised a great many voters are. Not everyone believes in voting for the lesser of two evils, and a great many people have felt unrepresented for a long time. #2 is probably just how many people really just don't pay attention and/or really don't care. You cannot make people care, and compulsory voting for the populace at large is evil. #1 very well could be #2 and vice versa.

You know. Implicit in my comment was the fact that the US has low voter participation because of inherent disenfranchisement in the winner-takes-it-all system.

 

Saying that this is a matter of compulsory voting is misrepresenting the issue. The issue is that the US has a system which is stuck 200 years in the past, which disenfranchises a lot of voters due to game theory. If your voter turnout is lower than 50% and you try to convince yourself that 50% of the population are just uninformed voters who should not vote anyway, you're basically just the same as the Colorado Republicans who ban Trump delegates from their convention.

 

Still. Name one country which has been destroyed due to it being too easy to vote. All other democratic countries have higher voter turnout than the US, so it shouldn't be hard for you to find an example if you really think that is the case.

 

Absolutely not. Not on the national level in the U.S. anyways. There's a few reasons for this, but #1 is certainly the sheer number of people each elected person (be it house or senate (senators used to represent the States prior to the 17th amendment (one of the worst amendments we have by far)) is representing. Which has allowed for congressmen and Senators to largely ignore last swaths of the population they are supposed to be representing. [Though it affects everyone to a degree at the national level, this is a perennial and somewhat especially true situation in some places like California, Illinois, and New York (Californians probably have it the worst though as their state government has the same # of senators as they did in the mid 19th century, despite having by far the largest population growth in the nation).]

 

Repealing the 17th amendment and ratifying what was originally meant to be the 1st amendment (capping the # people each congressman represented), something that isn't like to happen soon, would go a very long way to changing this at the national level.

No, what you talk about would basically not change anything at all.

 

If you increase the number of people in a legislative body to make everyone "get a voice", you might allow some representatives for opinions which would otherwise not register, but the increased number of representatives would also devalue their importance.

 

In an proportional democratic system, any vote is just as important as any other vote. For a large enough number of representatives in a legislative body, there is no issue of people not being represented, because every vote contributes to the final distribution of representatives. Every vote contributes to your total share of representatives, and so you can't completely piss on people of other opinions if you're sure that your party will get a plurality in your district or whatever. In fact, tying representatives to particular districts (in FPTP) ensures that representatives have zero reason to care about the interests voters in other districts, while in a proportional system 10000 votes are always 10000 votes no matter where they are located, and so will always be a carrot for the politicians.

 

I assume you are referring to the problem which arises in the FPTP system when you have a "permanent" majority of either party in some district. Then, if you can count on getting 200000 votes for party R, it doesn't matter if party D gets 100000 votes or 0 votes. By design, the system completely disenfranchises the permanent minority. But this only has to do with your system, not with how many representatives there are. In the FPTP system, more districts would only lead to the exact same balance in the legislative body (if districts are split with equal voter distribution as their parent district) or disenfranchisement of the other side (if voters are split by opinion, giving the other side a district where they have a permanent majority). And if you try to create a new district with 50/50 distribution, then voter disenfranchisement will only be even greater in the parent district! Surprise surprise, there is no way to fix a fundamentally retarded system.

 

No, it isn't, not by a long shot.

 

:mellow:

"Well, overkill is my middle name. And my last name. And all of my other names as well!"

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In an proportional democratic system, any vote is just as important as any other vote. For a large enough number of representatives in a legislative body, there is no issue of people not being represented, because every vote contributes to the final distribution of representatives. Every vote contributes to your total share of representatives, and so you can't completely piss on people of other opinions if you're sure that your party will get a plurality in your district or whatever. In fact, tying representatives to particular districts (in FPTP) ensures that representatives have zero reason to care about the interests voters in other districts, while in a proportional system 10000 votes are always 10000 votes no matter where they are located, and so will always be a carrot for the politicians.

 

Unfortunately, no part of our election system, from Congress to party primaries/caucuses to presidential elections is fully proportional, either... :p

Edited by Bartimaeus
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How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart.

In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance.

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In an proportional democratic system, any vote is just as important as any other vote. For a large enough number of representatives in a legislative body, there is no issue of people not being represented, because every vote contributes to the final distribution of representatives. Every vote contributes to your total share of representatives, and so you can't completely piss on people of other opinions if you're sure that your party will get a plurality in your district or whatever. In fact, tying representatives to particular districts (in FPTP) ensures that representatives have zero reason to care about the interests voters in other districts, while in a proportional system 10000 votes are always 10000 votes no matter where they are located, and so will always be a carrot for the politicians.

 

Unfortunately, no part of our election system, from Congress to party primaries/caucuses to presidential elections is fully proportional, either... :p

 

Yeah, that was the point.

"Well, overkill is my middle name. And my last name. And all of my other names as well!"

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First Sanders got his votes socialized and now Colorado RNC skipped their caucus completely, effectively giving 34 delegates to Cruz without a single vote casted.

 

http://archive.is/al78o

 

...and of course everything went as good as the DNC primary in Arizona:

 

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/04/disgusting-colorado-trump-delegate-scratched-list-gop-convention-cruzers-take-delegates/

An even bigger problem is going to be when Pennsylvania elects a bunch of non-committed delegates. But them's the rules. There's really nothing which tells a state party how the delegates have to be selected. Which would've been OK if they were private parties, but the system is rigged for two parties, so they're not really private.

"Moral indignation is a standard strategy for endowing the idiot with dignity." Marshall McLuhan

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That's not a real argument. Just because something is "fair" - theoretically equal to both sides - does not mean it is not stupid. Here are some examples of "fair" systems:

Yeah, nah.

 

All your examples are the height of speciousness- the equivalent of responding to a statement that a game isn't that complicated and just has set rules you have to live by by saying "well then, why don't people play it standing on their head while playing a trombone and juggling nitroglycerine if it's so simple?" You've added processes utterly unrelated to voting, presumably because you don't actually have any other argument. Come back with something relevant, please, not something I'd expect from RostereVC.

 

The process was known to everyone, some people chose to commit to it and then didn't fulfil their obligations. It's their fault for being lazy and making commitments they cannot follow. The actual delegate count is decided at the end of the process, thems the rules and always have been. It's fair, everyone has the same rules and process to follow and they don't involve unrelated guff like having to skydive off a Las Vegas skyscraper naked while yodelling or anything similar.

 

 

If half the government MPs didn't turn up in a Westminster system and they lost some votes it wouldn't be the fault of the system, it would be their fault because they didn't turn up.

 

 

No, MPs are elected as political representatives of the people and letting democracy be subverted by arbitrary minutiae like whether or not MPs can move their lard asses to a particular building should not be allowed. An MP can suffer from a debilitating disease of be hindered by accidents or traffic jams. Letting this have any bearing on important decisions is a farce, not democracy.

 

200 years ago, democracy would have required people to meet in person for votes. Technology allows for remote voting today. The only reason we still insist on the old ways is inertia.

 

Yes, it would be such an improvement to route voting through... Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, whoever; and that after the Arizona clusterasterisk happened. That's... yeah.

 

Most parliamentary systems have an alternate system for sickness, official duties such as overseas meetings and other legitimate reasons. In our case they need to be and are routinely cleared through the speaker and either a proxy is cast or one of the opposition pairs with them and don't vote. However, simply don't turn up and... diddums, no vote. You may be amazed, but there was an alternate system for Nevada caucuses as well. Most of those that turned up as alternates were Berniebods as well, while there were not enough Hillaryites.

 

There's also the question of the logical conclusion of your ideas which you really haven't thought through at all, compulsory voting for citizens, and compulsory voting for MPs. The first is utterly undemocratic as democracy should be a free vote, a compelled vote is not democracy in any real sense- and that counts for representatives too. If someone is absent from a vote, who votes for them? The Party/ Whips? Congrats, you've just handed even more power to the entrenched political parties. The old joke about ministers 'wanting to spend more time with their families' becomes rather more sinister when their absence means that the party leader or his direct appointment gets to cast their vote for them. If there's a dichotomy between party and electorate is the MP compelled to vote for the party position, or his electorates, or does the leader/ whip just arrange for them to be absent and vote for them? If they do vote against the party does that mean they've impugned the democratic process- after all, people voted for their party- or does voting with the party impugn democracy- after all, the electorate voted for the member. And who decides which is the case, because if it's the party leader then you know which one they'll pick, every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

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The people (Wall St) hath spoketh:

 

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/06/wall-st-is-pretty-certain-who-will-be-president.html

Edited by Meshugger

"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
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"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

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Is this supposed to be a revelation? The futures/prediction/betting markets have been pretty clear about a Clinton victory for a while now.

"Things are funny...are comedic, because they mix the real with the absurd." - Buzz Aldrin.

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Here you have everything in one short video: Rigged electoral system, influence of the special interests of the military-industrial sector, the treatment Ron Paul, stagnated wages, the treatment of Bernie and even a nod to him for identifying the problems.

 

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"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

- Some guy 

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Ok, this has to be one of the few videos that actually tries to understand why the phenomenon Trump even exist to begin with, without dwelving into infantile platitudes like "hate", "-ism" and such.

 

 

Most importantly is 3:10-3:52. Leaders in the EU should take heed as well or they will face the same trouble.

"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

- Some guy 

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Yeah, nah.

 

All your examples are the height of speciousness- the equivalent of responding to a statement that a game isn't that complicated and just has set rules you have to live by by saying "well then, why don't people play it standing on their head while playing a trombone and juggling nitroglycerine if it's so simple?" You've added processes utterly unrelated to voting, presumably because you don't actually have any other argument. Come back with something relevant, please, not something I'd expect from RostereVC.

 

The process was known to everyone, some people chose to commit to it and then didn't fulfil their obligations. It's their fault for being lazy and making commitments they cannot follow. The actual delegate count is decided at the end of the process, thems the rules and always have been. It's fair, everyone has the same rules and process to follow and they don't involve unrelated guff like having to skydive off a Las Vegas skyscraper naked while yodelling or anything similar.

So, you're essentially saying "Yeah, your examples were VERY stupid. This is only a little bit stupid".

 

That's still not an argument for allocating delegates at repeated levels of conventions.

 

Can you really not see that requiring elected delegates to turn up to different levels of conventions is the "unrelated guff" you speak of? It has nothing to do with democracy in any way and is completely unrelated to voting. The only function it adds is that some delegates might not show up, because they are lazy, because they have work to do, or because of ill intent. This is exactly equivalent to voters being required to fold their votes into paper planes and hit the ballot boxes for their votes to count. It is a completely and utterly arbitrary layer of randomness added that will invalidate some people's votes. Just because all people must obey the same rules does not mean the system is not arbitrary and undemocratic.

 

Yes, it would be such an improvement to route voting through... Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, whoever; and that after the Arizona clusterasterisk happened. That's... yeah.

I realize that you probably know nothing at all about cryptography, but to give a pedagogical example everyday folks can relate to: have you ever wondered why nobody is (practically) able to make counterfeit bitcoin?

 

You should think about that for a while and then maybe you realize that you shouldn't so eagerly blurt out opinions about things you know nothing about.

 

The old joke about ministers 'wanting to spend more time with their families' becomes rather more sinister when their absence means that the party leader or his direct appointment gets to cast their vote for them.

If someone should be unavailable at any time, having a chosen second cast votes for them is strictly better than them casting no vote at all. What would be sinister is that votes could be decided by people being sick or at the toilet.

 

If there's a dichotomy between party and electorate is the MP compelled to vote for the party position, or his electorates, or does the leader/ whip just arrange for them to be absent and vote for them?

 

He is only obliged to vote for his own positions, as usual. Also, lol at "arranging for them to be absent" when this is also possible to exploit - tinfoil hat on! - when absence would mean you cast no vote. By this logic, you could exploit any modern parliament by just arranging for your political opponents to be absent.

 

If they do vote against the party does that mean they've impugned the democratic process- after all, people voted for their party- or does voting with the party impugn democracy- after all, the electorate voted for the member. And who decides which is the case, because if it's the party leader then you know which one they'll pick, every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I have no idea in which democratic system this hypothetical question takes place. Anyways, the answer is very simple in the system where I live - the individual representative votes completely as he/she sees fit. Parties are responsible for who are on their lists, people are responsible for which individual representatives are chosen, and representatives are simply themselves.

"Well, overkill is my middle name. And my last name. And all of my other names as well!"

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So, you're essentially saying "Yeah, your examples were VERY stupid. This is only a little bit stupid".

 

That's still not an argument for allocating delegates at repeated levels of conventions.

 

Nah. It's the same as selecting a pool of candidates, then selecting further. The delegates are actually determined at the end of the process, you want them determined at the beginning instead. Think of it as run off elections, if it helps, and it's no more complicated than what happens on Survivor. It's not the way I'd do it, but it's fair which is by far the most important thing.

 

 

Yes, it would be such an improvement to route voting through... Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, whoever; and that after the Arizona clusterasterisk happened. That's... yeah.

I realize that you probably know nothing at all about cryptography, but to give a pedagogical example everyday folks can relate to: have you ever wondered why nobody is (practically) able to make counterfeit bitcoin?

 

You should think about that for a while and then maybe you realize that you shouldn't so eagerly blurt out opinions about things you know nothing about.

 

 

Yeah, nah. Who writes the code? Is the code public? Who collates the results? Who tabulates the results? Who audits them? Can they audit them effectively? Who edits the required databases, who audits them, are they secure? How do you check any of these steps effectively?

 

There's far more in play than haxxoring teh AES256 with my 1337 scripting and five computer botnet to change a few individual votes. After all, it wasn't the votes themselves that got altered in Arizona, it was the party affiliation as that was all that was required for disenfranchisement.

 

 

If there's a dichotomy between party and electorate is the MP compelled to vote for the party position, or his electorates, or does the leader/ whip just arrange for them to be absent and vote for them?

 

He is only obliged to vote for his own positions, as usual. Also, lol at "arranging for them to be absent" when this is also possible to exploit - tinfoil hat on! - when absence would mean you cast no vote. By this logic, you could exploit any modern parliament by just arranging for your political opponents to be absent.

 

Right, so he votes for his own positions, as determined at the time of the election. And the people who voted because he was in a party with positions that end up contradicting his own positions are then disenfranchised. Plus there's no flexibility for changing circumstances. Asterisks knows what happens if he decides that another party better represents his views after the election, logically since he's obliged to vote for his own positions I suppose it'd be OK, even if it ends up with an identical situation practically to the multi tier voting in Nevada you were complaining about...

 

Sure, arranging absence is a way to manipulate votes as well, but it's half as effective. Going from No to abstaining is a 1 vote change, going from No to Yes is from -1 to +1, effectively a 2 vote change. And, most parliaments have quorum rules where a minimum number of votes must be cast for precisely that reason, and that's why pairing and proxies are usually granted only in specific circumstances, historical precedents where votes have been manipulated ensure it.

 

At its heart though you seem to be very concerned about 1st round Nevada peeps being disenfranchised because second round voters they selected failed to turn up, but you're very keen to have other people then cast their representatives' vote for them once they have been elected. That's a fundamentally inconsistent position.

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Nah. It's the same as selecting a pool of candidates, then selecting further.

 

... which is idiotic and completely and utterly unneccessary. And which opens up for arbitrary changes in the end result. This is about comparing "vote on X" versus "vote on X through a proxy, which might or might not invalidate your vote depending on a particular randomized property of your proxy". One of these systems is retarded, the other is OK.

 

Right, so he votes for his own positions, as determined at the time of the election. And the people who voted because he was in a party with positions that end up contradicting his own positions are then disenfranchised. Plus there's no flexibility for changing circumstances. Asterisks knows what happens if he decides that another party better represents his views after the election, logically since he's obliged to vote for his own positions I suppose it'd be OK, even if it ends up with an identical situation practically to the multi tier voting in Nevada you were complaining about...

 

Nobody votes for anyone because they are in a particular party. You vote for a person, then pool together votes with other party members to determine who gets elected (although you can possibly vote for just a party, in case you add your vote to a pool which is distributed among party members on your district's ballot according to some scheme).

 

As long as you are guaranteed that your representative is not stripped of their vote because they happen to not be able to be present or something similar, anything that your representative does is OK. If the above is guaranteed, a Nevada situation cannot happen by definition.

 

At its heart though you seem to be very concerned about 1st round Nevada peeps being disenfranchised because second round voters they selected failed to turn up, but you're very keen to have other people then cast their representatives' vote for them once they have been elected. That's a fundamentally inconsistent position.

No, I'm not keen for other people to vote for elected representatives (although anyone should be able to have a list of seconds), I'm keen for them to not be required to be physically present, which is entirely arbitrary and a pointless obstacle to democracy. Since votes occur by non-secret ballot, this is a rather trivial issue in this case.

 

A second round voter in Nevada has only one purpose with regards to the candidate nomination: to vote for the candidate he/she has been elected to vote for in the next round. That should ideally be the case anyway, in reality they can actually change their mind. Since the vote is only about one issue (nomination), there is no point in electing a representative and having a second (and third, and so on) round, since you have already made your choice. When you elect a representative for parliament, the idea is the opposite: that you might not at all know what your representative will vote about, but you trust in his/her ideology and moral conviction. A system like Nevada's would make more sense if the first round voters didn't know anything at all about the different candidates. As it stands now, it's just a completely redundant step which will inevitably change the will of the voters randomly. It is stupid dumb****ery and should be removed.

"Well, overkill is my middle name. And my last name. And all of my other names as well!"

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Nah. It's the same as selecting a pool of candidates, then selecting further.

 

... which is idiotic and completely and utterly unneccessary. And which opens up for arbitrary changes in the end result. This is about comparing "vote on X" versus "vote on X through a proxy, which might or might not invalidate your vote depending on a particular randomized property of your proxy". One of these systems is retarded, the other is OK.

 

It's not arbitrary- arbitrary implies changes for no reason, or at least no reason related to the democratic vote per this example. People not being bothered to turn up is an implicit part of democracy- even when voting is compulsory like Australia it still happens. There were alternates in Nevada (and again, most of Hill's didn't turn up) and it's no more complicated than multiple other systems that get an end result after multiple rounds of voting.

 

 

Right, so he votes for his own positions, as determined at the time of the election. And the people who voted because he was in a party with positions that end up contradicting his own positions are then disenfranchised. Plus there's no flexibility for changing circumstances. Asterisks knows what happens if he decides that another party better represents his views after the election, logically since he's obliged to vote for his own positions I suppose it'd be OK, even if it ends up with an identical situation practically to the multi tier voting in Nevada you were complaining about...

 

Nobody votes for anyone because they are in a particular party.

 

 

Well, that's certainly an opinion. I don't think it reflects reality, and I'd suspect I'm not alone in that.

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Here you have everything in one short video: Rigged electoral system, influence of the special interests of the military-industrial sector, the treatment Ron Paul, stagnated wages, the treatment of Bernie and even a nod to him for identifying the problems.

 

I actually went to this. It exceeded my expectations in number of ways, in particular in regards to entertainment value. I don't know who the speaker before Trump was but he was damn amusing. There was only one protester that I saw. A 50-60 something year old bearded guy standing on the side of the road into the event with a '.... feels the Bern' sign.

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The system is rigged... complained the billionaire. Heh, irony.  :cat:

Well, it's okay that the financial system is rigged, because it's rigged in his favor. The primary system being rigged is bad because it's rigged against him.

"Good thing I don't heal my characters or they'd be really hurt." Is not something I should ever be thinking.

 

I use blue text when I'm being sarcastic.

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The system is rigged... complained the billionaire. Heh, irony.  :cat:

Well, it's okay that the financial system is rigged, because it's rigged in his favor. The primary system being rigged is bad because it's rigged against him.

 

 

Trump made most of his fortune in real estate, not via Wall Street.

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The system is rigged... complained the billionaire. Heh, irony.  :cat:

Well, it's okay that the financial system is rigged, because it's rigged in his favor. The primary system being rigged is bad because it's rigged against him.

 

 

Trump made most of his fortune in real estate, not via Wall Street.

 

I was joking.

"Good thing I don't heal my characters or they'd be really hurt." Is not something I should ever be thinking.

 

I use blue text when I'm being sarcastic.

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LbrDJGg.jpg

"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

- Some guy 

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I'm confused, is Bernie a Druid breaking into Hillary's bubble?

"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"I'm gonna hunt you down so that I can slap you square in the mouth." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"Am I phrasing in the most negative light for them? Yes, but it's not untrue." - ShadySands

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