HEADS UP: David Cobb on Brad Show Now ! C/B Commission/more

[tommcintyre]

http://bradblog.com/BradShow/

2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate
DAVID COBB
on the Green/Libertarian OH Recount
and their continuing Federal Court Challenge,
plus the upcoming Baker/Carter Commission
meeting in Houston.

[tommcintyre]

1. First update:

Will be testifying at Election Assessment Hearing

John Kerry didn't concede, he capitulated. There was evidence of massive fraud coming in.

Brad: Was the election stolen? Cobb: No knows for certain because there never was an appropriate investigation, recount, etc.

We know exit polling data did NOT match results and irregularities in EVERY STATE.

The DNC report: It's about damn time!

Cobb et. al. filed for recount in Ohio, but it never took place.

Blackwell did not certify in a timely matter - no excuse given by Blackwell. He has never returned Cobb's calls.

Suit still pending in federal court: Never again will a SOS be able to stonewall a recount. Will also be able to used to stop DREs from NOT producing a meaningfully re-countable record (i.e. paper trail).

If Kerry had joined sooner could've gotten recount - never fully joined suit - not part of current suit (above).

He was sure Kerry would never capitulate like he did; but instead would stand up and fight.

Break

[tommcintyre]

2. Second update:

The blogging phenomenon shows hunger for legit news. Corporate media is corrupt and biased by being owned by companies with conflict-of-interests, etc.

Election Assessment Hearing: on Wednesday, day before C/B Hearing in Houston. It's an outrage that this is necessary that the C/B Commission is participating in a cover-up.
http://www.electionassessment.org/

Must fully democratize voting - use instant runoff voting. Where used, more voter participation, etc.

We need VVPB and machines must be open transparent (open source code).

[tommcintyre]

3. Last update

Go to gp.org and votecobb.org for more info on the Green Party.

Goal to end two party system, and go to multi-party system.

Need instant runoff voting and proportional representation to accomplish this.
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<Some links (not part of interview):>

Instant Runoff Voting

http://www.instantrunoff.com/
"Instant runoff voting (IRV) is a voting reform that asks the voter to rank the candidates in order of preference. It is simple, common-sense reform that will greatly improve our democratic process.

IRV has many benefits including giving voters a wider range of choices, eliminating the spoiler factor with third-party candidates, saving taxpayer money, and decreasing negative campaigning."
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http://www.fairvote.org/irv/
Dean: 'IRV Brings More People In'
Howard DeanOn June 3rd at the 2005 “Take Back America” Conference held in Washington D.C., Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean encouraged the adoption of instant runoff voting (IRV) as a way to assure majority winners and increase voter turnout. Said Dean, “I think we ought to have instant runoff voting. I think that brings people in to the polls. If there's a third party, fine. They get a choice. We get majorities that win, and it brings more people in.”

FairVote Board chair John B. Anderson, a presidential candidate in 1980, applauded Dean’s statement. “The American people want choices at the polls. We need leaders from across the spectrum to work together to ensure voters have those choices and ensure winners have majority support.”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
When the single transferable vote voting system is applied to a single-winner election it is sometimes called instant-runoff voting (IRV), as it is much like holding a series of runoff elections in which the lowest polling candidate is eliminated in each round until someone receives majority vote. IRV is often considered independently of multi-winner Single transferable vote (STV) because it is simpler and is a widely advocated electoral reform in the USA.

Instant-Runoff Voting was invented around 1870 by American architect William Robert Ware. Ware was not a mathematician, thus never subjected his election method to any rigorous analysis. He evidently based IRV on the single winner outcome of the Single Transferable Vote or STV developed in 1855 originally by Carl Andrae in Denmark. It was introduced into England in 1857 by the barrister Thomas Hare, where it earned public praise from John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher, member of parliament, and employee of the East India Company.

IRV is a form of preferential voting, also known as the Alternative Vote (AV), or the Hare System. It is sometimes also known as Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), a term useful for describing the voter's experience as well as the appearance of the ballot, however, this term could also describe Borda count as well.

IRV was first used in Australia (where it is known as preferential voting) by the self-governing colony of Queensland, in 1893. The system gradually spread to other Australian colonies (states after 1901) and has been used to elect the Australian House of Representatives since 1919. It is also used for the lower houses of most of Australia's state and territorial parliaments. IRV is also used to elect the President of Ireland, the Papua New Guinea National Parliament, and the Fijian House of Representatives. (See below for a more detailed list.)

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Proportional Representation
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/howprwor.htm
HOW PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION ELECTIONS WORK
Douglas J. Amy
We in the United States are very used to our single-member district, winner-take-all style of elections. We've all grown up with a system where we elect members of our legislatures one at a time in small districts, with the winner being the candidate with the most votes. This system seems so "natural" that proportional representation (PR) elections may at first appear a bit strange to us. Adding to the potential confusion is the fact that there are several different kinds of PR systems in use around the world. But in reality, the principles underlying proportional representation systems are very straightforward and all of the systems are easy to use.

The Basic Principles of PR

The basic principles underlying proportional representation elections are that all voters deserve representation and that all political groups in society deserve to be represented in our legislatures in proportion to their strength in the electorate. In other words, everyone should have the right to fair representation.

In order to achieve this fair representation, all PR systems have certain basic characteristics -- characteristics that set them apart from our current election system. First, they all use multi-member districts. Instead of electing one person in each district, as we do here in the U.S., several people are elected. These multi-member districts may be relatively small, with only three or four members, or they may be larger, with ten or more members. (The figures below illustrate districting maps for a hypothetical 50-person state senate. Figure 1 shows 50 single-seat districts, as is common with plurality-majority systems. Figure 2 depicts 10 five-seat PR districts, and Figure 3 shows 5 ten-seat PR districts.) <graphic omitted>
<See PR library:>
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
Proportional representation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Proportional representation (PR) is any election system which ensures a proportionally representative result of a democratic election, x% of votes should be represented by x% in the democratic institutions, parliament or congress.

Often only possible in various multi-winner electoral systems which try to ensure that the proportional support gained by different groups is accurately reflected in the election result. Proportional representation is also used to describe this (intended) effect.

In practice this usually involves ensuring that political parties in parliament or legislative assemblies receive a number of seats (approximately) proportional to the percentage of vote they received. This is known as party-list proportional representation. Another kind of electoral system that strives to achieve proportional representation, but which does not rely on the existence of political parties is the single transferable vote (STV). Some electoral systems, such as the single non-transferable vote and cumulative voting are sometimes categorized as "semi-proportional".
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http://www.fairvote.org/pr/
Full Representation/

Proportional Representation (PR)

Check out our page on Full Representation around the world

Full representation (traditionally called "proportional representation") describes electoral systems in which like-minded groupings of voters will win legislative seats in better proportion to their share of the popular vote than in winner-take-all elections. Whereas the winner-take-all principle awards 100% of the representation to a 50.1% majority, full representation allows voters in a minority to win their fair share of representation alongside voters in the majority. Full representation requires at least some legislators to be elected in multi-seat districts with more than one representative.

There is a broad range of full representation systems. Some are based on voting for political parties; others for candidates. Some allow very small groupings of voters to win seats; others require higher thresholds of support to win representation. All promote more accurate, balanced representation of the spectrum of political opinion in a given electorate.
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Other links:
Proportional Representation FAQ
In those countries a form of proportional representation is used. ... Most countries that have proportional representation also have some form of ...
ed.labonte.com/pr.html - 16k - Cached - Similar pages

Proportional Representation
Proportional Representation (PR) as a title covers a wide variety of electoral systems ... British Politics has used forms of proportional representation in ...
www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ proportional_representation.htm - 17k - Cached - Similar pages

[Amaryllis]

4. MAJOR PROBLEM HERE, folks. This from Fairvote website:

From the Fairvote site: http://www.fairvote.org/irv/?page=371
"In general, all new voting equipment, especially optical scanners and electronic voting systems, provide extremely rapid and reliable results."

http://www.fairvote.org/irv/?page=186
"Why don’t more places use IRV? Prior to the advent of modern vote counting equipment, IRV required a time-consuming and costly hand count. Some jurisdictions that used IRV in statewide primaries found that they rarely had plurality (less than majority) winners, so IRV seemed unnecessary. With today’s diversity and proliferation of parties and candidates, low plurality winners are more common, and hand counts are unnecessary."

Fairvote is considered the gurus of IRV and proportional representation.
Anyone see a problem here?

[tommcintyre]

5. I see a problem with their conclusion, NOT IRV or PR

"hand counts are unnecessary" WRONG!

IRV or PR - GOOD!

Their bad conclusion is in no way linked to the veracity of instant run-off voting or proportional representation. Fairvote is NOT the originator of either concept; and, as you can see, the history of both are long and broad.

[Amaryllis]

6. We are completely in agreement, Tom. The problem is NOT

with IRV or proportional representation. The problem is in Fairvote saying E-voting is reliable, and making their task to urge vendors to make their systems compatible with IRV. Can't use a broken system to bring about greater representation.