[EL] FW: An Electoral College Tie?

[Joe La Rue]

Trevor and Paul,

First, obviously Paul is right: a system cannot have a goal. Rather, people
have goals, and an implemented system should further goals. I spoke
imprecisely, though I think everyone knew what I meant.

Second, I think the goal of the people who vote for president *is *to elect
the best person for the job. Republicans vote for Republicans because they
believe that a Republican president will be better than the alternative,
and Democrats do the same. As for what the Chinese Communist told you,
Trevor, you can do what you want, but I don't put much stock in a Communist
appraisal of our system.

Joe
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On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Trevor Potter <tpotter at capdale.com> wrote:

> like Paul, I was struck by the assertion that the "goal" of our election
> system was to "elect the best person for the job.".
>
> That may have been the goal of the drafters who conceived of  the
> electoral college, but post G. Washington it has never had that function.
>
> I was recently told by a Chinese Communist Party official that the "goal"
> for their political system was the selection of the best possible and most
> qualified  persons to lead their country--and that they did not believe
> that our western  democratic systems had either that goal or those results!
> The official was quite clear that he thought there was a tension between
> majoritarian voting systems and the selection of the "best" leaders--and
> China knew which way they wanted to  resolve that tension....
>
> Trevor Potter
>
> Sent by Good Messaging (www.good.com)
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From:   Paul Lehto [mailto:lehto.paul at gmail.com]
> Sent:   Friday, December 16, 2011 11:19 AM Eastern Standard Time
> To:     Joe La Rue
> Cc:     JBoppjr at aol.com; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu;
> BSmith at law.capital.edu
> Subject:        Re: [EL] FW: An Electoral College Tie?
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Joe La Rue <joseph.e.larue at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> >
> > "[...] I think what he said was, *the goal* of a national *election* for
> > president is *to elect the best person *for the job. The goal should not
> > be [...]" (emphasis added)
> >
> >
> >  "Elections" do not, in and of themselves, have "goals" other than the
> following: *to objectively measure the intent of the voters* as expressed
> by their ballots, after a process called campaigning structured such that
> voters may become reasonably informed.
>
> Thus, it is a purpose of campaigns and competing media to facilitate an
> informed electorate, because  no rational person with the best interests of
> the country in mind would want the electorate to be uninformed when they
> are acting in their sovereign capacity to delegate their power to
> representatives, via election.
>
> *Elections, in and of themselves, do not have a "purpose" or "goal" of
> electing the "best" person for the job.  A free people, in order to be
> considered free, must be able to make a mistake and elect the "worst"
> person for the job* -- if that is their free, considered, choice.   There's
> no alternative consistent with freedom because a populace whose choices are
> either constrained or "managed" in any way for goals or purposes other than
> simply objectively measuring the intent of the voters is a populace whose
> freedom is being constrained.
>
> Consequently, while everyone is free to, for example, support a given
> electoral system on the grounds that it "encourages a stable, two party
> system", it is not the purpose or goal of elections or of liberty to
> encourage a stable, two party system.  The goal of liberty is liberty.
> All considerations named as the "goal" or "purpose" of elections that are
> outside the scope of objectively measuring voter intent after a process of
> reasonably informing voters via campaigning are collateral or ulterior to
> the actual purpose of elections:  Measuring voter intent, and thereby
> guaranteeing SELF-government by We the People.
>
> A freedom-loving person reserves the right to themselves to make mistakes
> (and to take responsibility as appropriate, for those mistakes), and
> respects and tolerates that same right with all others, including the right
> of We the People to elect the "wrong" candidate - however
> *subjectively*one measures that quality.
>
> Some of the interesting discussion in this thread, on all sides, smuggles
> into the purpose of elections things that in fact constrain the freedom of
> We the People (no matter how good, meritorious and wise those purposes may
> seem to be).  Whoever manages or constrains the sovereign (the voters) is
> to that extent usurping the role of the sovereign and putting a thumb on
> the scales of elections, to some degree or another.
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
> --
> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
> P.O. Box 1
> Ishpeming, MI  49849
> lehto.paul at gmail.com
> 906-204-4026 (cell)
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