I.M. Jack – The E.P. Sophisms (4)
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4. Counting Votes
The agony and ecstasy in Naxxar has gone on for over two days and we are nowhere nearer having more than one directly elected candidate (Simon Says Busuttil). The preference votes should have jumped from red to blue to green to black like a drunken frog and there were moments when the tension on both sides of the perspex was palpable even through the reports on the ether.
Much to Arnold Cassola’s dismay the electorate rejected the possibility of cross-voting (even with the gargantuan eye-opening efforts of pompous J’accuse). In most cases they stuck to the party lists (in the Nationalist cases they have long learnt to stick tothe few candidates their hero supports). But is there a way out? A threshold for party lists?
The “6 Xs” solution, where every voter just marks an X near six candidates of his choice cannot be considered. The problem there is that this election would have produced 6 labour seats since the parties would have proposed six candidates each and the party garnering most votes would automatically fill all seats. J’accuse cannot see a viable alternative. Neither can smug Jason Micallef who wants a revamp of the vote counting system but mentions no solutions (for a change).
The Haiku
preference voting
tedious wait to inherit
a tense heritage
sophism
2. any false argument or fallacy. — sophister, n. — sophistic, adj.
It is always a source of satisfaction when J’Accuse comes around the Fausto way of thinking. And just as was the case with cross-Party voting (which, when I came up with it you called “vote phishing”) I see you have come around to reject the “6 Xs” solution (which is incidentally called “plurality-at-large” or “block voting” — for a reason — and which is not permissible to use to elect MEPs as per European law).
When was it that you still felt you had to defend the system when I told you that it gives huge disproportionalities? 1996?
You have a valid point there, however new rules can be imposed whereby for example it would be mandatory for a big party to field no less than twelve or twenty candidates. Of course the party can choose to scapegoat the extra candidates to still reach the indellible claim on all six seats, for as we know the militant voting policy has already been demonstrated to us by both PL and PN. Alternatively, all candidates could be made to take an oath upon registering their candidature whereby they state catagorically that they are not part of the scapegoat conspiracy, and that such an oath can be taken publicly on TV in full view of the electorate. Party telephones can be tapped by the police and all conversations recorded and that could apply to internet as well.
Mr. Cecil Herbert Jones, have you been reading Orwell’s 1984 lately?
No not lately