[SimeSublime]

What's the deal with Nader? I understand that he was a third choice, but he wasn't taken seriously, to the point of not being on the ballot papers at certain places, or something.

[Amber-Nicole]

We were looking at that mp in marine biology Friday. The grey ones had not been counted yet. It does look pretty scary, doesn't it?

Sime, this country is so divided into republican or democrat, that a third party just can't get enough support to ever have a chance of being elected. Alot of people were saying "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush because it's not a vote for Kerry." No, you stupid fuckers, a vote for Nader is a vote for Nader. Honestly, I think people like Nader could have more support, except for it's ground into everyone's head that if it's not a republican or a democrat, then they don't have a chance and they shouldn't even bother voting for a different party.

[SimeSublime]

We had a similar thing here. Didn't hear much about the Democrats or Greens as Liberal and Labour parties drew all the attention. Though I heard quite a bit about Family First, but thats because they declared lesbians were witches and should be burnt at the stake. I'm not joking. They also said that if elected they would seek to remove Satan's strongholds in society, such as mosques, synagougs and bottle shops. In their after election coverage, The Chaser Decides did a bit saying that 2% of the vote went to Family First, and that the other 98% of the vote was won by Satan. They then dressed one of their members up as the Prince of Darkness and sent him to their after election party to rub it in

[SimeSublime]

To lighten the mood a bit:

http://www.livejourn.../kim_jong_il__/

[Jane Sherwood]

In their after election coverage, The Chaser Decides did a bit saying that 2% of the vote went to Family First, and that the other 98% of the vote was won by Satan. They then dressed one of their members up as the Prince of Darkness and sent him to their after election party to rub it in

That is pure brilliance.

[SimeSublime]

Example of a Tragedy


President Bush was visiting a primary school. One of the classes was in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meaning. The teacher asked the president if he would like to lead the discussion on the word "tragedy." So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a tragedy. Little Jimmy stood up and offered, "If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs him over and kills him, that would be a tragedy. "No", said Bush, "that would be an accident." Little Suzie raised her hand: "If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy." "I'm afraid not." explained the president. "That's what we would call a great loss." The room went silent. > >No other children volunteered. > >Bush searched the room. "Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of tragedy?" > >Finally at the back of the room little Johnny raised his hand. In a quiet voice he said: "If Air Force One carrying Mr. and Mrs. Bush was struck by a "friendly fire" missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy." > >"Fantastic!" exclaimed Bush. "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?" > >"Well," says little Johnny, "it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be an accident either."

[reiner]

bravo~

[Slade]

Heh.

The problem with lots of different partys running at once is that with 3, you'd only need to get 34% of the vote (180 electoral votes) to win. It's bad enough having a president roughly half the country did not vote for in office. Imagine having one that two thirds dislikes? That would suck even if my canidate won. What do we do about this? I have no clue. Get better canidates in our major parties... I dunno.

[SimeSublime]

Try preferential voting. That way, half the country would prefer the guy voted in over the other.

[J m HofMarN]

I think all parties should be allowed to run. Representation in the senate and such will be decided on percent of vote gained per state. For instance if the socialists win 20% of the popular vote and the republicans win 40 and the democrats win 20 and the greens win 20 and the state has ten representatives then 2 will be socialists, 2 democrats, four republicans, etc. That way everyone's vote counts.

For the presidential election all parties that hold seats in the senate and house will be able to select a candidate to run in a national open primary. The top two candidates will then run for the presidency. If neither of them gains a majority a new election will be held with the third place finisher from the primaries allowed in.

Failing that I say we just make the election a reality show where we vote off candidates.

[Laura]

Well, I think the simplest thing to do would be to turn what is now the Primaries into the free-for-all election, with every party sending one or two candidates. Then the top two winners face off in a traditional two party election. That way

- The two finalists could be from any party, depending on who is more popular
- You won't feel like your vote is wasted voting for the candidate you really like; vote for ANYONE you want the first time.
- Since there will only be two people in the final election, there will be no splitting of the vote.

My other idea for a multi-party system was positive and negative voting. You can vote FOR the candidate you like the most and AGAINST the candidate you hate the most. Elections could end in negative numbers!

In the same vein, you could give everyone two votes.

But I think the double elections thing is the winner.

[J m HofMarN]

Laura- I very much like the idea of positive or negative. That way if a candidate does something that horribly hurts some people but he also helps other people he's still going to be screwed. That would have helped a LOT in this election. People could have just voted against Bush and not even had to vote for jack-ass Kerry or unwinning Nader.

Why is it necessary to have a president anyhow? Would it be cool to just elect a parliament and then have the parliament select a prime minister who would serve as leader of the Parliament?

[civilian_number_two]

The multi-party system works where you don't just sweep out all the losers when it's over.

Not to preach about Canada again, since I know it's flawed, but when you vote in your riding, you are voting for a local representative in parliament.

Whichever party gets the most representatives gets to name the Prime Minister, and whichever party gets the next greatest number is the "official opposition." But get this: if your party only wins one seat, it gets to keep it! That guy gets to keep his job, and show up in parliament, and voice the concerns of his constituency. Add to which he gets a vote whenever Parlaiment puts something to a vote.

Hence the weakness of the minority government: you name a Prime Minister, but you don't have total authority. In most cases, you need to get the permission of the official opposition, or make deals with all the little parties that won small numbers of seats, in order to get your majority decision. And of course we know some cabinets are divided, and a Prime Minister won't get all of his own party's votes. The good thing is that a minority government would never be able to declare war without the agreement of other parties.

That's the bit I like.

Also: And I know we don't have a good track record of late, but in a multi-party system, new parties can actually rise to power, and established parties can actually fade away. In fact, it happens fairly often. A two-party system will never allow for that.

[J m HofMarN]

I agree Civilian, a multi party system would work better. You might well imagine that it would prevent cooperation but in fact by making sure that no party has a majority it would actually force cooperation. For instance in the 50/50 split that usually occurs in the US each side is pretty much deadlocked so nothing changes. However in a 10/30/20/15/25 split at least three parties would have to join together and cooperate in order to have a chance at passing anything and, while those three parties would balance eachothers ideas (such as, say, comitting genocide on a small arabic nation) they'll also have a definite majority due to their cooperation. So even if a party had only 10 representatives it would still be an important part of the ruling government.

[Slade]

When I rule a province (assuming I survive Ragnarok), you guys are all invited for free cake. Just follow the rumors of Slade Southpaw and his revolvers and UZIs.