Springtime for T110 and the Americas

The_Chieftain: As to the matter of politics, and the slight beating up of Pot's advocacy of preferential vote, I am an absolute advocate of the system, and I'm well used to it as we use it in Ireland as well. It removes the American problem of voting against people you don't want in office, as opposed to the proper way of voting for the person you -do- want in office.   For example, if we were to look at the national scale in the US, there are four potentially significant parties. Dem and Green on the left, Rep and Libertarian on the right. Given how close the D and R are to each other, and both have a viable shot of winning any election, you will find that a lot of people who would -like- to vote Green in fact vote for the Dem, because they realise that if they don't vote for the Dem, who they're not entirely keen on, there is a better chance that the Rep will win, who they absolutely abhorr. After all, there's no chance that the Green guy will actually -win-. So to ensure that the Rep doesn't get in, they vote D, and not Green. As a result, the Greens will always be 'also-rans' with a ridculously small portion of the vote. And the same happens on the other side for the Libertarians.   With the transferrable vote, however, that problem does't occur. You can vote your conscience. Vote Green. Let the world know that the Green party has your support. And if, in fact, the green party candidate still is an 'also-ran' in the big scheme of things, your vote will then transfer to your second-place candidate, the Dem. So you are still voting against the guy you really want to not be in office, whilst also voting for your preferred candidate. And who knows? Maybe you will find that the Green party actually has a lot more support than common convention would lead one to believe. That may result in a viable third party.   California has recently implemented a system which takes some of these elements, we call it an 'open primary'. Our primary elections here put onto the November ballot the two most popular people who were running. Not the most popular D vs the most popular R vs the most popular G. The two most popular people. The Republican party in particular were not happy about this because their complaint was that it in effect meant that there was a good chance that there would be no Republican candidate on the November ballot at all. My perspective is, 'tough.' If their support is so poor that a split democtratic vote still gives two D candidates more votes individually than the best R, they don't deserve to be on the November ballot anyway.   The bonus we're seeing in California now is that a lot of entrenched 'extremists' are suddenly finding themselves vulnerable. No longer are the incumbents (Let's say a D) able to rely on the entire vote of their party simply because they have a "D" after their name in the November election. That they would have the nomination of their party was pretty much inevitable unless they were complete screw-ups. Now, though, the people voting in the primary can now vote their conscience for the D that they really want to represent them, on the basis that, frankly, the D vote is so strong that there -will- be a D candidate on the November ballot. Even if it's not the D that they really wanted. And that 'new D' may prove to be more moderate than the incumbent D. Even if this 'new D' got fewer votes than 'incumbent D', it is entirely possible that in the November ballot, 'New D' will get not only the original 'new D' supporters, but also the votes of everyone else in the population who would honestly prefer a Republican, Libertarian, or whatever, but will vote for moderate New D because it's the more preferred choice over Incumbent D. As a result, several incumbent politicians, who under the old system would have their tenure assured, have found themselves turfed out by newcomers.