Re: Colorado voting reform - how do we proceed?
Jan Kok
> Excellent to see such progress in Colorado -- congratulations, Rep. Kefalas
> and others.
>
> I would be wary of Jan's suggestion for 2008 for a few reasons:
There's nothing wrong with being cautious, but remember the prize if
we succeed: a 2008 election free of spoiler effects.
>
> * I suspect it quickly would be found to violate the state constitution --
> some people would have more than one vote counting at full value in a race
> for one seat.
I just posted to the COVoterChoice group what I found by searching for
"vote", "voting", "elect" and "ballot" in the Colorado Constitution.
Summary: nothing in the Constitution prohibits Approval Voting, Range
Voting or IRV for most Colorado state and federal-level elections.
Except for the Governor/Lt. Gov. race where there could be grounds to
quibble (depends on how you define "a vote.")
>
> * It raises questions about whether you are accurately measuring voter
> intent -- for instance, in a four-candidate race, might a voter's marks for
> three people indicate that he or she really want one vote to count for the
> candidate with a blank (some other nations vote this way, where you
> indicate whom you don't want to vote for)
So Rob Richie is worried that if the instructions on the ballot change
from "Vote for one" to "Vote for one or more", that American citizens
will suddenly think they are supposed to mark all the candidates they
don't like???
>
> * it raises all the issues of tactical voting and majority rule that
> concerns FairVote about approval voting in general.
The question is whether we should try to replace Plurality Voting with
Approval Voting for the Nov 2008 elections. Is Richie suggesting that
Approval Voting is not a significant improvement over Plurality?
Would Richie prefer that we keep Plurality Voting for Nov 2008?
Cheers,
- Jan
>
> If one wants approval voting, I suspect you can't slip it in by the back
> door, but need to take it on directly by making the case for it and
> changing the state constitution.
>
> - Rob Richie, FairVote
>
> At 08:34 PM 5/1/2007, Jan Kok wrote:
> Contents:
> * Invitation to join COVoterChoice group.
> * Starting the discussion: how do we proceed?
>
> Invitation
> ======
>
> If you have any interest at all in voting reform in Colorado, please
> join the COVoterChoice group, which is intended for discussions
> related to State Rep. John Kefalas's Voter Choice Act.
>
> To join the group, go to http://groups.google.com/group/COVoterChoice
> and click on "Join this group" on the right-hand menu.
>
> COVoterChoice is a Google group. Google groups are similar in concept
> to Yahoo groups. You can send mail to all members of the group by
> sending to COVote...@googlegroups.com . Any mail you receive from
> the group has "[COVoterChoice]" at the beginning of the title, so it's
> easy to skip over it if you don't have time to read it.
>
> Please join! Your interest and participation is much appreciated!
>
> How do we proceed?
> ===============
>
> How should this group proceed? I suggest we prepare at least two bills
> to be introduced in the 2008 legislative session:
>
> 1. A bill that focuses on changes needed to get rid of the spoiler
> effect for the Nov 2008 election (effectively converts state and
> federal level elections in Colorado to Approval Voting). See
> http://groups.google.com/group/COVoterChoice/msg/796ae606e14ebb6d for
> details about why we should do this.
>
> 2. A bill that makes changes needed to implement one or more Advanced
> Voting Methods (AVMs, such as IRV, Approval Voting, Range Voting,
> Proportional Representation) probably after 2008.
>
> There are several Colorado Libertarians and several out of state
> voting reformers who are in favor of item #1. I'd like to hear from
> other Coloradoans and from IRV supporters. Do you/will you support
> item #1? If not, why not?
>
> Thanks,
> - Jan