[Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2016-14: Maine Question 5

[Joshua Katz]

I vote yes.

I would like to speak for this motion, but cautiously.  IRV is better than
FPTP; so is roughly everything in the world.  I favor things that move in
the right direction, so I'm supporting this motion.  I'm coming across
Libertarians, though, who think IRV would be a magic bullet for smaller
parties.  I respectfully disagree.  IRV is just as supportive of a
two-party system as FPTP.  The difference is that, while it maintains two
party control over the outcome, it allows more votes to be cast outside of
the two leading parties, on one condition - once a smaller party grows to
the point of being a challenge to the existing two, the wasted vote
syndrome kicks right back in.  It lets anyone climb the mountain, but kicks
you if you try to get to the top.

By contrast, FPTP tries valiantly to keep smaller parties at the bottom of
the mountain.  That's clearly worse.  IRV would at least make clear to the
public something we know very well - there is only one third party.  There
is only one party, other than the tired, collapsing parties, that has been
around for 40 years, that is a permanent fixture in DC, that has a
Presidential candidate polling in the double digits (and upset that it's
not higher), and whose chair is a regular guest on a variety of media
outlets.  Just yesterday, I heard an interview with Gary Johnson where the
interviewer pointed to recent exchanges without other journalists, both on
the part of Johnson and Sarwark.  Gone are the days when an interview would
begin with "who are you?"  It would not let us win consistently, but it
would show the world that there are 3 major parties, except that one is
held down by inertia, fear, and corruption.  It would make the case for
deeper electoral reforms that much more palpable and palatable - people
would see that such reforms wouldn't open the door for Neo-Nazis (unlike
one of the old, tired parties) but rather for sensible people speaking an
undeniable truth - men and women want, and deserve, to be free.

As we all know, there is no way to aggregate social preferences in a
welfare-maximizing fashion.  Every attempt to do so creates paradoxes, and
IRV is no exception.  We need deep reform, in my view, that goes beyond the
means of aggregating preferences.  The most obvious to me is multi-member
districts for state legislatures, together with a return to selection of
Senators by the state legislature.  Modifications to voting methods,
though, can help that process.  There is, of course, a uniquely bad
approach to aggregating preferences, which happens to be our current
method.

Joshua A. Katz
Westbrook CT Planning Commission (L in R seat)

On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Ken Moellman <ken.moellman at lpky.org> wrote:

>
> Region 3 Alternate votes Aye.
>
> ---
>
> Ken C. Moellman, Jr.
> LNC Region 3 Alternate Representative
> LPKY Judicial Committee
>
>
>
> On 2016-10-05 01:55, Alicia Mattson wrote:
>
> We have an electronic mail ballot.
>
>
> *Votes are due to the LNC-Business list by October 14, 2016 at 11:59:59pm
> Pacific time.*
> *Co-Sponsors:*  Redpath, Harlos, Demarest, McKnight, Katz, Bilyeu
>
> *Motion:* The Libertarian National Committee supports Question 5 in Maine
> on the ballot on November 8, 2016.
>
>
> -Alicia
>
>
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