Conflict with Nader Supporters: Unavoidable?

[Boojatta]

It occurs to me that some of the conflict might be a consequence of the voting system.

Currently, in the act of voting, a voter cannot express an opinion about more than one candidate and cannot specify a level of support. A Nader supporter cannot give Nader a positive rating of 8/8 while also giving a Democratic candidate a rating of 7/8. However, suppose that these represent the true preferences of a particular voter. The closest approximation that the actually existing voting system allows is for the Nader supporter to vote for Nader rather than for the Democratic candidate.

To claim that, under the actually existing system, a Nader supporter is supposed to vote for the Democratic candidate is to make it a moral obligation for voters to deliberately misrepresent their own preferences. If the company that makes Coca-Cola demanded that employees who can recognize Pepsi in a blind taste test rate Pepsi as worse tasting than Coca-Cola, even if they actually think that both soft drinks taste good and that Pepsi tastes a bit better, then what would be your opinion of that company?

It would be possible for the system to allow a voter to either support some candidates or oppose some candidates, but not both. By not allowing a voter to simultaneously support some candidates and oppose other candidates, the system would reduce the risk of giving voters an incentive to misrepresent their own preferences.

[Oregone]

1. STV would help a lot

But Im not sure how compatible that is with the overall US system. It would eventually give rise to minor parties.

[Boojatta]

2. I will put my ignorance on display: what is STV?

[Oregone]

3. Single Transferable Vote

You don't vote for just the one person you want. You rank the candidates in the order that you prefer them, and the system figures in viability to ensure only a single vote for one of your candidates is counted.

The side effect is that people stop being pragmatic, and start actually voting for the people representing the issues they believe in. In time, the minor candidates then become viable and get elected.

On edit: Gotta mention this also figures in a proportional voting system too and its a bit more complicated. There are actually systems like this that are a lot more stripped down that STV, which has some more nuts and bolts. There is also preferential voting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting

If we had preferential voting in 2000, would more people here (especially those that complain about Nader) actually have voted for him? On the other hand, with preferential voting, its easy to imagine a scenario where either Bill Clinton lost (Perots votes defaulted to Bush) or Perot won (for people who considered him more viable). It would definitely impact the system.

[Boojatta]

4. Kick to encourage questions and comments.