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

[Patrick McKnight]

Yes.

Patrick McKnight
Region 8 Rep

On Oct 8, 2016 1:48 PM, "Joshua Katz" <planning4liberty at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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