[candidate-development] some thoughts on CDLC memo

[Ralph Walton]

Grace & Dave, 

I'm not sure which of you framed the original idea in
this argument but it occurs to me that an option for
implementing the spirit of IRV in a representative
form could be to recruit delegates who clam to have
voted for the withdrawn candidates in approximate
proportion to their turnout in the primary election
results.  When they got to the convention they would
have to make their individual judgments of second
choice among the then available options (there could
even be some new options).  I would buy into either
having a withdrawn candidate listing specific people
as delegates with instructions to vote on the first
ballot for another candidate still running or having
the withdrawn candidate instruct us to select
delegates from the list if the successor candidate.  I
am honoring a candidates power to throw his or her
support to another candidate in an organized manner
just because it seams to be such an established
political maneuver not necessarily because it is or is
not democratic.  The thought of trying to recruit the
substantial number of party members who voted
"write-in" gets kind of "interesting".  There would be
in a sample of party members who wrote in a larger
number who would have written in Jesse Johnson than
the voters which we assume were not all party members.
 Non party members may have been likely to have listed
Kusinisch or obama or Kermitt.  So trying this is not
exact science but may get some of the likely suspects.
 Again when they get to the convention they will have
to select from the options then left on the table, but
if selected may do something representative.  

     - Ralph walton
--- Gracegrnrnbw at aol.com wrote:

> Dave - I am sorry for the half-baked quality of this
> response but I have 
> nothad time to think this through particularly.  
> Given the short time line, here 
> are some thoughts on the proposal to apportion votes
> whose preference is not 
> now a candidate:
> 
> I still need to do more research but here is the
> problem with this proposal
> > from the position of a party that has put IRV
> front and center...
> >
> >  Say we have six options - if we do this as a
> blind formula.
> >
> >  People go vote
> >
> >  Option 1 gets X votes
> >  Option 2 gets Y votes
> >  Option 3 gets Z votes
> >  Option 4 gets A votes
> >  Option 5 gets B votes
> >  Option 6 gets C votes
> >
> >  In our Massachusetts voting system, we don't rank
> so if Option 5 gets
> > removed, which other option gets their votes?  We
> don't know who the folks
> > who voted for Option 5 would have voted for. 
> Given that we don't know, we
> > can still assume that it is unlikely that everyone
> who voted for Option 5
> > would have all voted for, say, Option 4 or any
> other option - right?  In
> > fact if we know nothing at all (and we don't
> re-ballot) then don't we have
> > to assume that our pool of all voters are more
> like each other than
> > different politically?  Don't we have to
> distribute the votes that went to
> > Option 5 along the same distribution as all the
> other votes cast?
> >
> >  In reality, there may in fact be information in
> the "blank" ballots, since
> > most "blank" ballots are simply not counted
> because the machine could not
> > count them (these are not being counted at all). 
> second, there is some
> > information in the "write-ins" which I suspect the
> Secretary of the
> > Commonwealth has to give us since it is in our
> delegate selection
> > plan which htey accepted- but they did not.
> >
> >  However, we don't have that information.
> >
> >  What we do know is that everyone who voted for
> Brown, Ball & Nader had the
> > options equally to choose: Swift, Mesplay,
> McKinney, No Preference or to
> > write someone in.  All we know is that they did
> not choose those options.
> > We cannot assume that any one of those options
> would have been those 
> voters'
> > second choice (if we knew that then we would not
> believe in nor fight for
> > IRV).
> >
> >  IF No Preference were not an option on the
> ballot, you could argue that
> > assigning those who voted for B,B or N to No
> Preference was not unfairly
> > advantaging or disadvantaging any other option. 
> However, on our ballot No
> > Preference actually ran as a candidate against all
> other candidates (and 
> did
> > pretty well actually).  So how can you give No
> Preference the huge 
> advantage
> > of getting all votes that went to those who now
> are not in the race?
> >
> >  And I guess the same argument could apply as to
> why write-ins as a group 
> don't go
> > to No Preference?
> >
> > What I think this means is that assigning the
> votes that went to those who 
> are not now running in
> > any way except proportionally is both questionable
> math-logic and not
> > legally even-handed.
> >
> >  Someone tell me why I am wrong here?  Love, Grace
> PS. one advantage of handling the apportionment this
> way is that the 
> Secretary of the commonwealth cannot object since it
> is how the Mass Democrats do:
> "If a presidential candidate is no longer a
> candidate at the time of 
> selection of the at-large
> delegates, then those at-large slots that would have
> been allocated to the 
> candidate will be
> proportionally divided among the remaining
> preferences entitled to an 
> allocation. (Rule
> 10.C.)"
> 
> 
> **************
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