If you really care, do the work to find out! Or don’t buy if you don’t trust. Quit being lazy and relying on coercion in order to make your life easier. It’s immoral.

Consequentialism is irresponsible and morally bankrupt.

Too funny! I like how you and those millions of others have been so successful in changing this over the past 200 or so years.

Despite the expenditure of some 2-3 billion dollars on the so-called election process, none of the major issues the world faces was addressed by either of the Establishment candidates. In the midst of the storm of the century, neither so much as mentioned the scientific possibility of induced climate change. In Colorado, although more people voted to legalize marijuana than voted for Romney, the so-called war on drugs was not mentioned at any time in the campaigns of either of the two corporate-selected candidates let alone in the three major televised debates. Although our hope-and-change president was elected in 2008 as a backlash to the abuses of Bush and on the promises of ending the ME wars and returning the soldiers to the US, nothing was made of his total negation of his promise or his expansion of war into Libya, Yemen, Syria or the preparations for war on Iran on the false basis of a “nuclear [weapons] program.” And despite his promises of repealing Bush’s unconstitutional abuses of civil liberties ( such as torture and domestic spying ) Guantanamo remains open, and Obama has in fact further attacked liberty by instituting a domestic drone-spying program and asserting for himself the powers of, on his word alone and without a hearing or presentation of charges, indefinite detention for US citizens and, further, his claim and exercise of his personal power to order the execution of US citizens without judicial review.

Neither of the candidates saw fit to mention any of these major issues during their campaigns, nor did their examiners during the televised debates. Rather, any mention of the real major issues was sidelined in favor of a competition between the two candidates as to who will show the greater degree of bellicosity toward Iran and other nations and who will be the more vigorous in slashing entitlement programs to free up more money for warfare and the wealth of the .01%. So in the worst global economic conditions and the highest level of unemployment since the Depression, Americans were offered a choice between two men, both of whom intend to continue with the transfer of wealth to the .01% whom they serve and who will continue with the destruction of liberty and the expansion of global conflict.

I am hardly alone in my decision to refrain from voting. Obama received on Tuesday 60.5 million votes, a drop from 69.5 million votes in 2008; Romney received 57.5 million votes, 2.5 million fewer than John McCain in 2008.

Every one of us who has intensively studied physics used up, at least in the beginning, lots of erasers before catching on. It’s no big deal to be wrong and then to make some corrections in learning something new. So, if you’re going to be political, then use your brain and use your magnificent platform to save the world. This election was not about proposition 37.

Note that while it might not be perfect, PR is so much better than anything else (though, of course, STP is better than first past the post) that no country without PR should be called a democracy.

Approval voting avoids the spoiler effect, Duverger’s law, and nonmonotonicity.

I’m surprised nobody brought up Arrow’s Theorem in this discussion. Interestingly, because Arrow’s Theorem only applies to systems that allow ranking of candidates (as opposed to rating), the negative effects of that theorem are missing in approval voting (which is a rating system with only two values, 0 for disapprove and 1 for approve).

What are the chances we will see a saner voting system in the US in our lifetimes? Not very high, I fear.

Another effect of a two-party system: the popular vote is always close, because when a party is down in the polls, it will change its position to get up to 51% or whatever, and the other party does the same. Less and the party loses; more and they move more than they have to.