Monday, January 31, 2005

Krist: Nevermind the Old Electoral Process

"Once music becomes predictable and a formula to sustain the establishment, people tune out, they become cynical and they stop buying records. But then a new wave of bands come in, and that restores vitality to the music scene," Novoselic told Reuters after a recent appearance at a Washington think tank.

"What we need is a new wave of democracy, because elections are predictable and they're formulas for sustaining the establishment," he said.

In a slim book, "Of Grunge and Government: Let's Fix This Broken Democracy!," Novoselic outlines two approaches that he believes would breathe new life into politics.

Instant-runoff voting allows voters to pick several candidates for the same office, ranking them in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority of first choices, second choices are considered.

Supporters of third-party candidates like Ralph Nader (news - web sites) could feel like they're not throwing their votes away because their secondary choices would be considered in a close election, Novoselic said.

The second method, known as proportional representation, would allocate legislative seats based on the percentage of votes a party receives -- if the Republicans win 60 percent of the vote in a district, they would get 6 seats out of 10 available.


- from Grunge-Rock Pioneer Stumps for U.S. Election Reform

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

He's got good philosophy, but that idea about rating secondary candidates means it could take weeks to determine the outcome of an election.

History has said time and again that our government, the US government, is TERRIBLE.

But it's the best thing going.

http://mooremarjo.blogspot.com

Arethusa said...

National elections need to share less similarities with the Oscar campaign.

SugarDuck said...

I guess the proportional representation is the closest thing to getting rid of the electoral college, which I never understood anyway.

John said...

I'm going to vote for Pedro to make my wildest dreams come true.

SugarDuck said...

Yessss!!!

RC666 said...

Unfortunatly I don't think Pedro can be president. I don't think he was born in US. I don't understand the electoral college either. I thought I did but then found out if one person has the majority of a state the votes could still go to the other. ?! Oh well. I say JOHN FOR 2008!!!! he will make you wildest dreams come through and I will even do an interpretive dance. I have been working on my funky crazy dance skillz!

SugarDuck said...

If the Arnold amendment gets passes then Pedro can be prez. So start practicing! Also I think you should grow a white man's fro.