Before more abominable people drop out, making this even less interesting:
| Approval | Range | Preferential | First | Candidate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Y | 99 | 1 | Johnson | |
| Y | 70 | 2 | Paul | |
| Y | 60 | 3 | X | Huntsman |
| 20 | Gingrich | |||
| 10 | Romney | |||
| 2 | Perry | |||
| 1 | Bachmann | |||
| 0 | Santorum |
Notes:
- My preference for voting systems expressed left to right, for GOP nomination candidates, top to bottom.
- A preferential system could involve ranking all candidates, but it seems the most common implementation has voters rank their top 3.
- I prefer random selection and/or futarchy to any of the listed methods in many democratic contexts, but will consider them beyond the pale for just this post.
- Candidate preference largely based on impression (I haven’t studied any of them closely) of “foreign policy” because that’s where the U.S. President can make a huge impact. I’d be happy to also consider positions on executive power, though I have even less data on that, and have no hope, considering that Obama and Biden had some of the better positions on that in 2008 and their administration’s record is abominable.
- I liked a former New Mexico governor in 2008 as well. What are the chances the current NM governor will turn out not to be an imperialist torturer and run in 2016?
- Paul is embarrassing, which shows just how bad the field is.
- Huntsman is the only acceptable candidate that is in theory electable.
- The rest advocate torture and are clearly militarists and nationalists who put the world in grave danger.
- I prefer Gingrich to the other torturers because his administration would be wracked by scandal, hopefully enough to damage the imperial presidency.
- I prefer Romney to the theocrats because as a religious minority, he isn’t likely to be one.
In rankings, I think I’d put Huntsman above Paul at this point. (Johnson still a definite first.) The things that have worked for Paul as a symbol and rallying-point would probably backfire in executive office, causing lingering damage to his causes.
Our locally-common ‘top 3’ simplification of preferential voting (in SF and Oakland) nullifies some of its advantages. If the method survives at all, perhaps with voter familiarity full lists can eventually be allowed, so the ‘least-evil-but-electable’ choice can be deferred even deeper than the 3rd slot.
I wonder if it might be easier to get something like approval voting implemented in the first round of an election that ends in more traditional balloting (eg, approval voting in party primaries but then plurality in the general election).
Also, if the electorate isn’t ready for sortition into actual office, maybe sortition into electoral juries, who then elect the officeholders a few months later. By making the electors a manageable number of people – a few dozen to a few hundred, tops – the jurors would have the time/incentive to vote in a more deliberative fashion.
Yes, I think it’s possible to completely retain the current structure of (U.S.; and others, there sadly is little real diversity) government and also completely replace mass elections with sortition plus electoral juries as you describe. Any movement in that direction would increase democracy and deliberation, decrease corruption and delusion.