Democracy from the bottom up: STV in American Primaries
Martin Wilke has recently written an article about the use of Single Transferable Vote in the Primaries in the USA. Single Transferable Vote means that voters can vote for several candidates by indicating a preference (this flash animation explains in English and German how STV works).
Martin says:
Those citizens which voted for Edwards are now in bad luck because from now on their vote is not counted anymore and has only symbolic value.
Henry Dubb says that Caucusing is somehow similar to STV because voters can change the corner if they think that their candidate will not receive enough votes in the districts. The following video explains how Caucus works and features Bill Clinton running on a treadmill and Hillary singing slightly out of tune:
A few words on Martins blog. For a long time, I have tried to convince Martin Wilke that with his knowledge about democracy, alternative education and voting procedures, he should start a weblog. There it is: Demokratie von unten.
Martin is an extraordinary person. We met when we were 8 years old and have been friends since then. In school, we created a new sovereign state (called the “United States of Europe”) which had two citizens (me and Martin), covered the territory of our rooms where we had sole jurisdiction and even our own currency.
Already during school he was an expert in direct democracy, candidated for the Berlin Parliament, wrote and translated books about Democratic Education and worked in an NGO advocating Rights of Children.
Recently he finished his Thesis – I think one of the best discussions of voting systems like Single Transferable Vote. His new project is a campaign for Mehr Demokratie e.V., a German NGO working on implementing methods of direct democracy. Looking forward to read more from him in the future!
