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Real democracy, real solutions
Democracy in Massachusetts is in trouble. And we’re in trouble too, since democracy is essential for solving the critical problems – from health, to jobs, to energy costs – confronting the families and communities of the Commonwealth. I am running for Secretary of the Commonwealth to help build the democracy we urgently need.
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Government by influence-peddling has become the norm on Beacon Hill. Massachusetts spends more on lobbying than any other state, and the number of lobbyists has increased seven-fold in the last decade. And over 80% of the money funding political campaigns is coming from less than 1% of voters, with the leading contributing groups representing the powerful special interests – health insurance, pharmaceutical companies, financial services, real estate development and others.
As a result, critical policies – from health care to the budget – are being written in the backroom by lobbyists and insiders. Bills are routinely kept secret until just before the vote so even legislators don’t have time to understand what they are voting on. And unanimous votes commonly protect legislators from accountability for misguided policies that are literally driving people out of Massachusetts. Though there is widespread discontent, our money-driven system ensures that legislators are re-elected an astounding 98% of the time.
The lack of democracy has consequences that are real and painful:
• The health care system serves insurance and drug companies instead of our families, the sick and elderly.
• The costs of higher education sky-rocket, denying growing numbers of students the education that is essential for economic security.
• Overdevelopment consumes green space, pollutes our air and water, and causes flooding. Yet new bills waste hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for poorly-planned new development. And support for sustainable, community development has been slashed.
• Urgent affordable-housing needs are unmet, while more luxury housing is built.
• The gap between rich and poor is rising faster in Massachusetts than almost any other state.
• Taxes have been shifted from corporations and the wealthy to ordinary people. As a result, low income families now pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes as the very rich. Meanwhile the things ordinary families need – education, health and safety, public transportation and the environment – are unraveling for lack of adequate funding.
• Corporate profits sky-rocket, while the lack of jobs and affordable housing forces families to leave Massachusetts.
As Secretary of State, I will work to create the real democracy that can deliver for the families and communities of the Commonwealth. Since the Secretary oversees the critical framework of our democracy – elections, lobbying, pubic information, and corporate charters – it is a powerful position from which to open up Beacon Hill, get big money out of politics, and put people back in. Towards this end, several reforms are urgently needed :
• Restore “Clean Elections” by providing public funding for candidates who follow fundraising and spending limits. Prohibit campaign contributions from lobbyists and officers of corporations that hire lobbyists (who by definition are seeking to influence the legislative agenda). This would require lobbyists to persuade through information, not influence-peddling.
• Open up Beacon Hill by requiring greater transparency.
• Allow voters to have real choices through “instant runoff” voting. This lets voters rank their preferred candidates in a multi-candidate race. If their first choice is not elected, their vote is re-assigned to their second choice. This prevents any splitting of the vote that can occur whenever more than two candidates run under our current single-choice system. And it allows a greater range of choices to be presented to voters.
• Create an independent commission – utilizing clear guidelines and a transparent process – for drawing fair, sensible voting districts.
• Expand voting rights through election-day registration, election-day holidays, and protection of voting rights for cultural and language minorities.
• Prohibit the adoption of any electronic voting machine that has not been proven tamper-free, reliable, accurate and cost effective relative to hand-counted paper ballots.
Since there is no Republican running for this office there will be no “spoiler effect” to distract from the critical issues of the race. This race is an exciting opportunity to challenge business-as-usual on Beacon Hill, and advance break-through reforms to build real democracy, and the healthy, just future we all deserve.
If you would like to learn more about our campaign to take back democracy and our future that depends on it, contact us at:
http://www.jillstein.org" www.jillstein.org
617-852-4727.
IRV = DEATH for third parties
Dear Jill Stein:
My name is Clay Shentrup, and I write to you on behalf of the Center for Range Voting. In a piece from The Bridge, you recently stated the following goal:
** Allow voters to have real choices through "instant runoff" voting. This lets voters rank their preferred candidates in a multi-candidate race. If their first choice is not elected, their vote is re-assigned to their second choice. This prevents any splitting of the vote that can occur whenever more than two candidates run under our current single-choice system. And it allows a greater range of choices to be presented to voters.
Sadly, this paragraph contains some of the most common myths about IRV. I'm not sure why you think that IRV allows voters "more choices". IRV has produced two-party domination in all three countries where it's been used: Australia, Ireland, and Malta. Australianpolitics.com says IRV "promotes a two-party system to the detriment of minor parties and independents." Ireland's president has been a member of the Fianna Fáil party in all but one seven-year term, when Labour's Mary Robinson won in a phenomenal series of flukes; so IRV has produced a virtual party monopoly there. The 17 countries which use "top-two runoff", on the other hand, all have broken free of two-party duopoly. So if third parties would like to have a chance of succeeding in single-winner elections (we agree that proportional representation would be great for multi-winner elections), they had better steer clear of IRV, because it is absolute suicide for them.
It is also important to consider the kind of nightmare paradoxes that can occur with IRV. For instance, consider the following set of ballots, perhaps the remnants of several previous rounds of IRV elimination.
% of voters | how they voted
37% Nader > Gore > McCain
32% McCain > Gore > Nader
31% Gore > McCain > Nader
With IRV, Gore would be eliminated first, giving 31% of the ballots over to their second choice, McCain. McCain would then defeat Nader, with a huge 63% of the vote. But 68% of the voters prefer Gore over McCain! Since IRV doesn't look more deeply than the first layer of the Nader ballots, to show that those 37% of voters also prefer Gore over McCain, we never take this into consideration. So much for the myth that IRV prevents wasted votes. We can also see that the 68% of voters who preferred Gore to McCain got McCain anyway, because they "split" their votes between those who most and least preferred Nader. So much for the myth that IRV prevents vote splitting.
And consider what would happen if Nader would drop out, or if Nader voters were smart and a bit selfish, and had voted strategically. Since they prefer Gore to McCain, it would be in their best interest to "lie" and vote Gore first, even though their sincere first choice would be Nader. If even a small fraction of them employed this strategy, Gore would win, and they'd get their second choice instead of their last. Hence reality once again belies the claims of IRV advocates, who often claim that IRV prevents spoilers (Nader is a spoiler here) and eliminates strategy in favor of honesty. An example of such claims can be found at OaklandIRV.org:
IRV Makes Your Vote Count
With IRV, there are no "spoilers" — voters are free to choose as they wish without concern for strategizing or supporting only "electable" candidates. IRV is especially critical for Oakland's special elections: Politicians have been elected with as little as 28% of the vote under today's rules. IRV ensures that every election has a winner chosen by a majority of voters.
On that note, you might be interested to know that a "Lynn" who returned my message to OaklandIRV.org, told me on the phone that the point of IRV isn't to help third parties to win in the first place. As she puts it, the point is to take away the fear of voting for them, so that we can get a realistic gauge of voter opinion, and so that we can stop the spoiler effect, as exemplified in the Florida 2000 fiasco. I explained to her that it would be nice to make sure that third parties are aware of that, but she seemed to think it was obvious.
Let's also think for a moment about the expense associated with implementing IRV, considering that it doesn't pass the Consistency Criterion. Many IRV advocates claim that IRV would save money. But consider this assessment by Princeton math doctorate, Warren D. Smith:
"Election expense will certainly increase by using IRV rather than voting systems which can use present-day plurality-type voting machines not connected together via a computer network. It may be that the cost "decrease" they had in mind was versus plurality with a second runoff election. It is true that a single IRV election is cheaper than two elections (original plus runoff), if all other things are equal – which is the point of the word "instant." However, because most places that require runoff elections only need them rarely, the expense ratio on average is not anywhere near 2-to-1, and hence the expense of switching to IRV would usually exceed the savings for a long time (and considering the need to continually replace machines, perhaps forever)."
It's time for voters to get educated about the wealth of alternative voting methods out there. There are better systems than IRV. Voters who care about choosing the candidate who will bring about the greatest overall satisfaction for society should push for the adoption of Range Voting ( RangeVoting.org ). With Range Voting, each voter simply assigns a score (say from 0-9) to each candidate, and the candidate with the highest average score wins. It's simple and intuitive, and suffers far less harm from the use of strategic ("insincere") voting than other known methods, like plurality and IRV. It also has the enormous benefit of giving third party supporters a chance to always express their sincere first choice preferences (or put another way, with Range Voting, a vote for Nader is NOT a vote for Bush, as it easily can be with plurality or IRV).
I encourage voters to read more deeply into the facts and myths surrounding election reform. Not every idea associated with reform is a good one. IRV just happens to be particularly problematic. Voters beware. Be skeptical. Look at IRV's failures with the same attentiveness you'd show to its successes. We can do better than IRV. Meaningful, quality democracy requires that we do.
Regards,
Clay Shentrup