Heisman Trophy Winner

Some pundit from a website called Blue Oregon has published an article http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/12/what-politicos.html claiming the recent Heisman Trophy vote is a good example of why IRV would be an improvement.  The following is the response I entered in the comments portion of the site:

This is just more smoke and mirrors from the pushers of this unconstitutional vote ranking scheme. They must have alot of money – or friends in the media, to be able to keep spewing out this bilge.

The Heisman Trophy isn’t a vote, it’s a measurement of qualification for the award. To try to make an anology between the Heisman and an election is sheer idiocy. The award goes to the best player, not the most preferred or popular.

IRV people constantly claim that it would assure that election winners would be “preferred by a majority of voters.” Yet in practically every case, unless a candidate wins a majority of FIRST CHOICES, the end result is still a second choice candidate.

The pro IRV arguments are false and disingenuous. They claim it will help 3rd Parties, yet they also claim it will eliminate the 3rd Party spoiler effect. Huh? How can it help “3rd Parties” if it is designed to eliminate their influence?

IRV wouldn’t even be a good choice for picking America’s next top model, because even something as frivolous as that has certain qualifications that must be met. IRV solves nothing. It just adds another layer of confusion to a process that is usually pretty straightforward: whoever gets the most votes wins.

- Matt Marchetti

Universal Totalitarianism

  According to an article entitled ‘Momentum Builds for Universal Registration’, “Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Election Assistance Commission Chair Rosemary Rodriguez, have advocated for establishing a voter registration system where the government, not each individual citizen, is responsible for ensuring full and accurate voter rolls. The voting rights community has put universal voter registration at the top of its legislative agenda…”

The “Voting Rights Community”?  There’s a “community” of people who are FOR voting rights and anyone not part of it is AGAINST voting rights?  Demagoguery much? 

Notice how they want “The Government” to “ensure full and accurate voter rolls”? And just how are they going to do that without some omnipotent govermental bureaucracy overseeing it all?

Of course we can’t expect citizens to do their duty and take the responsibility to register to vote or to verify their identity at the polls.  Democracy is too hard, I guess… 

One question for the Totalitarians who are pushing this nonsense:  If voters can’t be trusted to get themselves registered,  how can we trust their choices on Election Day?  

And another thing; they suggest this “universal registration” begin at age sixteen.   Why 16?  Why not 12?  Or 5?  Or registration at birth? 

In fact, why not just dispense with the vote and have a government agency determine who election winners should be?  I suspect that is exactly what they want. 

- By Matt Marchetti

Con-Fusion?

The Star-Tribune article entitled ‘How to have minor parties that are more than spoilers’, advocates combining party fusion (where candidates can be endorsed by more than one party) and IRV (where voters rank choices instead of picking one favorite candidate).

One hundred years ago, republicans objected to fusion because they saw it as giving an unfair advantage to their opponents. But I see no problem with parties endorsing anyone they want. The DFL is a fusion party. Farmer-Labor used to be a separate party – unless I’m mistaken… The Republicans could benefit by working with the Libertarians, the Populists and the Constitutionals, etc…

The Independence Party endorsed Tinklenberg – so they were foolish to run their own candidate. If the IP agrees with the DFL, they can join them. Then it could be the Democrat – Farmer- Labor – Independence Party – DFLIP!

Fusion and IRV are two very different ideas. One seeks to allow more interaction between parties with similar views, whereas the other is a voting method that makes it difficult for voters to “cast an effective vote,” as the Brown v. Smallwood case determined.

It should be obvious to informed people that the Big-Government Liberal elite want to combine party fusion with IRV in order to guarantee that the top two or three ranked candidates will be one of their endorsees – One Party rule here we come!

This is simply more proof that IRV is an attempt to solidify power for the Left-leaning big-government political establishment…regardless of and in spite of the will of the people. And so-called “fusion” will simply add more Con-Fusion – which can only help the power-grabbers.

- by Matt Marchetti