In New York, we are a closed primary state were over 2 million non-party voters can not take part in the most important first phase of the candidate selection process. In New York City there is 1 million minor and non-party voters who also can not take part in their municipal primary candidate selection process that counts.
In New York City we are fighting to have Non Partisan Municipal Elections or Top Two as some call it. If you read my blog you know the details of this voting method. So this part of the book was so interesting.
The mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace was born in 1749 in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy. First studying in a Benedictine school and the University of Caen he soon discovered his love for mathematics. Finally in 1773 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences. In 1784 Laplace was an examiner in the Artillery Corps and passed a sixteen year old cadet by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte.
In 1796 the Academy had to decide how to vote for new members after reopening from the 1793 French Revolution. The voting method of the time had a shortcoming brought to every ones attention by now a general, Napoleon Bonaparte. What Laplace and Napoleon found unsavory was the method of "voting by merit" which was open to a subtle sort of manipulation that is now called "strategic voting". The ability to put forward unelectable candidates to make sure your candidate wins.
In 1812 Laplace put in writing what he talked about in his classes. He advocated the majority vote with a twist. An issue or leader would not be elected by a simple majority but by an absolute majority; the candidate would have to garner at least half the votes plus one. But there still was a problem. You could not leave a country without a leader for a very long time. And this is where Laplace really exhibited his more pragmatic side. If there is no winner in the first round of voting, the top two would go to a run off two weeks later.
Another interesting fact: The problem of apportioning seats in Congress after a census. It took the rhetorical skills of Senator Daniel Webster to convince Congress to adopt the course of action that reasonable people would have found most sensible had they not been caught up in looking out for themselves so their state would not lose any seats. It consisted of finding a divisor for the populations of the states, such as the result, when rounded up or down to the nearest whole number, gave the desired amount of seats. The "method of major fractions", as it came to be known was an unbiased way to even out the results each ten years. In 1842, Congress adopted Webster's method.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us 
3 comments:
A very interesting blog Michael. Thanks for sharing it with us.
The proposal for non-partisan elections in New York city should not be called "top-two." The New York city proposal says that the first round is an election (i.e., someone can get elected at it). There is only a run-off if no one gets 50%.
Top-two systems are different. In a top-two system, the first round is not an election, because no one can get elected in the first round. In a top-two system the first round is only a screening device to limit ballot access to the actual election.
The version that we presented to the Charter revision commission was a Top-Two. We wanted the primary to be open or non-partisan with all registered voters able to vote. All the candidates from all parties, independents, and write-ins would be on one ballot.
The candidate had the option to indicate the logo of their registered party and the logos of all parties that supported them.
This would allow parties to still hold their conventions, caucus, or any other method to select their supported candidate.
After the primary the Top-Two candidates would then go to the General Election in November.
Post a Comment