Comments | kevin_standlee: Caucus Voting

kevin_standlee

Caucus Voting

Feb 17, 2020 17:30

As I've mentioned, because I'm a designated Temporary Precinct Chair, I've been asked to vote in advance of the caucus so that I don't betray my own personal preferences during the administrative business of our precinct's caucus this weekend. By voting early using a preferential ballot, my vote will count even though I personally won't be standing ( Read more... )

worldcon, election, caucus, politics

Comments 5

(The comment has been removed)

kevin_standlee February 18 2020, 14:10:07 UTC

I hadn't heard the part about first timers, but I had heard that there were a lot more people than expected participating, which is great. A repeated message I heard was "Vote for who you like, but whoever wins, vote for them in the general election."

(The comment has been removed)

kevin_standlee February 18 2020, 14:12:20 UTC

There's no such thing as "WSFS marketing." WSFS doesn't have a central office to do marketing. (To the extent that there is a centralized WSFS, there's a few thousand dollars of the roughly $1 million annual Worldcon turnover that keeps the intellectual property alive.) It's all done by individual Worldcons, and in my opinion, most of them take the attitude of "Why should I promote anything other than my own event?"

kevin_standlee February 18 2020, 14:13:17 UTC

Oh, and that reminds me: Don't forget to let Westercon 74 know your new address!

ext_1296431 February 19 2020, 12:56:26 UTC

I think the fact that Nevada (a word that MSNBC commentators are just learning how to pronounce correctly) is having voters who don't want to attend a caucus in person, vote on a paper ballot. I love the ranked choice stye of ballot. I wish I could do that in California. I am one of those waiting for a debate or two and a caucus and possibly a primary before I choose. San Francisco as you well know, uses ranked choice ballots. I wish other places did.

kevin_standlee February 19 2020, 14:12:21 UTC

If we must retain the Electoral College (which seems inevitable short of a Constitutional Convention and the creation of the Third American Republic) and winner-take-all allocation of EC votes (not inevitable, but hard to change), then I'm very much in favor of using RCV/IRV voting. As I've said many times, that system does not elect the most popular candidate (the one with the most initial support), but the least disliked candidate (the one able to attract the most subsequent preferences. Consequently, we are more likely to get less-polarizing winners. That is, winners are people for whom the largest number of people can say, "Well, they may not be my first choice, but they are acceptable to me ( ... )