[Marxism] Forwarded from Anthony #2

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Other countries by and large do not. For some local School Bd elections
in the US, an legal resident, citizen or not, are allowed to vote.
This, as part of Anthony's viewpoint, is a worthwhile struggle. A
recent struggle here in San Francisco was around this very issue.

The point about democracy he makes is a good one, something "The Left"
(defined very broadly as anyone to the left of the Democrats)
should/could/ought to not shy away from this, it's in fact one of the
biggest weakest links for capitalism in the US.

Like Anthony, I've discussed, wondered and sometimes advocate the
abolition of  least the electoral collage. As for the Senate, a
campaign for a unicameral Congress is so far off that I wouldn't waste
my time on it, albeit I support the abolition  of this
slavocracy-leftover if anyone asks.

One such such 'reform', as opposed to abolition, being implemented
slowly in, I think, two states, is to eliminate the 'winner-take-all'
electoral votes for a given state. In California, to use the most
obvious example, with 10 million votes and 55 electoral votes, if
4,999,999 voted for the loser, then they are disenfranchised
altogether. Their vote counts for *nothing*. But under a proportional
awarding, they'd get 27 and the majority (with 5,000,001 votes) would
get 28. This is  a relatively fairer system and comes closer to a
popular vote type accounting. I would vote for it if it was ever
proposed. The democrats and republicans, especially the former,
absolutely hate this system since they control, historically, the large
states of California, New York and Illinois and they don't want to
share, democracy or not.

The other take on this is that since electors to the Electoral Collage
are selected from each congressional district (and 2 from the state
itself) then they could go *by* congressional district sand those
electors if  a prez. candidate wins in that district, then they go to
the Electoral Collage.

An interesting point about this election is that HAD Kerry won Ohio and
become Prez, then he would of been elected with a bigger minus-vote
than Bush did 4 years ago. I think it might of been the only positive
thing to come out of an electoral victory for Kerry and it would or
refocused efforts to get rid the very undemocratic electoral system we
have the US.

David


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