From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Weighted Suffrage
Date: 9 Nov 92 10:11:05
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: panther.ai.mit.edu
In-reply-to: 9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au's message of 7 Nov 92 20:32:23 +1030

9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au (The Eidolon) writes:
|>}If not that, then how about:  each person gets one vote on attaining
|>}voting age.  If a person serves in the military, they get another vote.
|>}Graduating from college gets yet another vote.  And finally, performing
|>}a great service to the country gets a fourth (and final) vote.  The great
|>}service should be roughly equivalent in uniqueness to the valor needed to
|>}win a Medal of Honor.
[...]
|Even if it was allowed in, how would it be run? There would have to be
|some sort of massive electronic database to hold all the records. Even
|today's biggest databases only hold a few million reccords so how is the
|election database going to hold all that data?
|And what about privacy and all that?

|How are we going to go about voting - as it is with typists out the
|back diligently plunking away or introduce electronic voting? Then
|what about security?

|Yeah, I agree with you that its absolutely great *in theory* but I
|think it would end up being more trouble than it's worth.

As a logistical matter, I don't think its much more difficult that our
current system.  All of this is done at a district level anyway.
Another national card, like the SSN card, would suffice for
identification or somesuch thing whenever one registers and the voter
registration card keeps your number of votes.  Or whatever.

Beyond that, though, I don't see why in the world this is great even
in theory.  Why should service to the military allow one an additional
vote?  Or a college degree for that matter?  Are people with degress
better?  I'll have three degrees in another three years or so: BS, MS,
& PhD--should I get more votes than you intellectual cripples with only
one degree?

Logistically, who gets to decide who gets the "medal of honor" or
whatever?  As Gordan Fitch notes, these proposals have the odd effect
of giving more power to people who tend to have the most power anyway.

Why not give more votes to those who pay the largest percentage of
their income in taxes?   If we're going to be ridiculous about the
matter, why not give more power to the poorest?

Why are we even concerned with such a thing?  Perhaps I should ask it
more simply: of what benefit is weighted sufferage?  Who gets the most
out of the various schemes?  Who gets the least?



--
Peace.
                    `Many Americans might not like me or my lyrics, 
                     but I'll still make my millions, and
                     unlike many others, will pay my taxes on time.'
                           - paraphrase of Luther Campbell,
                             head honcho of 2 Live Crew
                                   -\--/-
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