Subject: Re: [EL] problem with winning strategy in IRV elections
From: Jon Roland
Date: 11/12/2010, 9:46 AM
To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Reply-to:
"jon.roland@constitution.org"

On 11/12/2010 11:27 AM, Sean Parnell wrote:

Might I suggest the press, and independent expenditure groups, might be the ones to fill the void if candidates themselves do not?

Yes, once upon a time. In the Early Republic a candidate didn't have to spend money to get elected. All he had to do was make speeches, and there was enough demand for them that it was profitable for newspapers to print the speeches verbatim and completely. Somewhere along the way, that demand fell off, and news media discovered campaigns would pay for advertising, so there was no longer profit in providing free coverage. When I ran for Congress in 1974 the formula was that to get a column inch of free coverage one had to pay for a column inch of advertising.

The days of the commercial press filling that role are ending. Now is the era of the Internet. But voters have to search online for the information. If they don't, we are at an impasse.

As I have long said, if you want to reform the situation, insert into every election a "mystery candidate" that, if he gets elected, he will lock you up and take all your stuff. That would motivate voters to make sure they don't elect that candidate. Wait. We already have such mystery candidates. They are called Republicans and Democrats.

-- Jon

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