Re: CHAT (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Now that you describe it, I do remember learning about it in high
> school. Sounds like a pretty good system. But, is one required to rank
> all the candidates, or a certain number? Given the large number of
> candidates, that might be kinda hard to do, especially of parties I've
> never heard of before. Like, on the ballot here for Prez, we had:
It really needs most people to number all candidates in order to work
properly, so you're right - it doesn't work well with large numbers of
candidates. But I don't think ten is too large (twenty would be).

If you haven't heard of the minor parties, then probably no-one else
will have either, so they'll get eliminated fairly quickly. Therefore
how you number minor parties probably won't matter.

> > The one where we decided that we don't want to become a republic or have
> > a president (at least, not until we get a better offer). If you're
really
> > curious, I can provide some information.
>
> Yes, please.
The referendum was in November 1999. It lost, quite badly. The proposed
system (which had been developed by members of a partially elected
convention) had a lot of holes - mostly unnecessary complexity. Lack of
transparency was another troubling feature.

A feature of Australian politics that is considered critical is that
government is elected while the executive and judicial branches are
appointed. Many people would like an elected President in theory, but
serious thinkers agree that this would disrupt the balance of power
and the stability that our system enjoys. So in the proposed system, a
President would have been appointed, not elected. The problem is in the
complexity of the appointment process.

A committee would have been established to scrutinise public nominations
for President and to create a shortlist of candidates. This committee
would contain appointed community figures, plus state and federal
parliamentary representatives.  The shortlist produced by this committee
would be given as advice to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister must
nominate a candidate, get the approval of the Leader of the Opposition,
and of 2/3 of the House of Representatives. After all that, you finally
get a President.

Much complexity for little gain - undoubtably many overheads in time and
effort. But the really laughable bit is this ... the shortlist would be
kept confidential on the rationale that a person could be embarrassed if
they made the shortlist but not the PM's selection ... as if a person
"embarrassed" at coming second, so to speak, is suitable President
material anyway.