Comments on: Nader poised to make ballot:

By: Dave Segal

Dave Segal — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:32:17 +0000

Yup, the SF Greens are a good example of what should be done. Though SF obviously has a broader base of potential Green voters than many towns. Matt’s push for IRV there, and his run for mayor, were great inspirations to me.

Ralph, on the other hand, has never been a strong proponent of IRV. And it’s real hard to forgive some of the sketchy alliances he’s made with the Reform Party and Lenora Fulani’s crew.

By: Sue

Sue — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:27:30 +0000

Hello Dave,
Many registered Greens agree with you. In fact, in San Francisco members of the Green Party tend to concentrate their efforts locally — with great success. Over the years we have had 6 elected officials and numerous appointed officials. Currently, in fact, the president of the San Francisco Planning Commission, Christina Olague, is a Green.

You should also know that Ralph Nader has never been a registered Green and that Matt Gonzalez is no longer registered Green. They are both decline-to-states, running for president and vice president as independents.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:17:49 +0000

How do we get institutional electoral reform?

Ideally, after 2000 the Democrats would have made it a high priority. They haven’t and even have blocked Instant Runoff Voting legislation in e.g., Md where they have a sizable majority. In Vermont they passed the legislation by a narrow margin when they have 2-1 and 3-1 majorities in both houses. It was vetoed by a Republican governor and they could not muster the votes to override with that kind of advantage?

It leaves those of us who want single payer health care etc. and will never support pro-war, pro-Patriot Act, pro FISA, pro destabilize latin america candidates like Obama with no option but to keep running candidates who educate on both the issues and the need to structurally end the “spoiler problem”.

Even the rank and file Democrats on dailykos.com can be hostile to IRV when they should be recognizing that it is on par win-win legislation in progressive geo-political jurisdictions.

Nonetheless, we are lucky enough this time to have Matt Gonzalez running with Ralph Nader. Gonzalez was the initiator of IRV in San Francisco and it has now been enacted in about 10 other cities. The effort continues.

http://www.fairvote.org and http://www.votenader.org