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

[Daniel Hayes]

I, Daniel Hayes, ABSTAIN on the Maine Question 5 vote.


Our first past the post system creates numerous challenges for a smaller party to break through. I am uncertain that different mechanisms for voting are the solution. As Joshua Katz mentioned a lot of people seem to think that this is a silver bullet for many of our woes at the polls. Like Joshua I am not sure that is the case. While it seems like this motion is going to pass I am always reserved about these "new"  voting schemes.  While I would like to see it succeed, since it is a motion up in an affiliate's realm,  I am reticent to get involved. It is with that in mind that I abstained on this motion.

Daniel Hayes
LNC At Large Member

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 8, 2016, at 2:05 PM, Patrick McKnight <patrick.joseph.mcknight at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>> 
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20161008/30a7dfca/attachment-0002.html>