Steven Taylor blogs an AP report that Garry Kasparov can’t run for president. Other Russia can’t find a place to hold a nominating convention. Because Kasparov isn’t a registered party member, under Russian law, he has to be nominated in person.
So, no space for a meeting, no meeting. No meeting, no nominee.
Kasparov spent five days in jail last month for campaigning.
Illinois voters get to decide in November 2008 whether to hold a constitutional convention. The last vote, in 1988, failed 2.7 to 0.9 million.
Under the state constitution, the General Assembly can call such a vote by 3/5 vote of each house. If there hasn’t been a vote in 20 years, one automatically goes on the ballot.
There isn’t much news about this, but some relevant blogs have popped up. For a skeptical and critical view, see Total Drivel. For a “Declaration of Independence” approach, see this website of a declared delegate candidate. For a PR booster, see this new blog.
This is an opportunity - we’ll see if it’s taken - to undo the Cutback Amendment. In 1980, that referendum ended a 110-year experiment with a semi-proportional voting system. Under cumulative voting, it was said, DuPage County elected some Democrats, and Chicago elected some Republicans.
It will take a lot of work to make anything happen. In the event of a positive vote, elections to the convention are held (two members per district, assuming FPTP). Then there are internal convention dynamics to surmount.
This is worth a Google alert nonetheless.
Tom Round remarks at F&V:
By the way, the Proportional Representation Society of Australia’s “PR Manual†caters for very small electorates by providing for the votes to be counted (and the quota to be calculated) to four decimal places. Otherwise too many “vote points†get lost via surpluses. So, if 80 members of the “Utopia Tennis Club†are electing 5 executive committee members, the quota will be 13.334 votes rather than 14 votes, thus leaving the runner-up with 13.330 votes, rather than 10, and reducing the risk of a tie.
Ties can be a big problem in STV elections with small electorates. They can make people question the legitimacy of the system in general and an election in particular.
In one election I hand-counted, two candidates were tied for elimination, and none of the fairer, conventional tie-breaking rules helped: looking at first choices, looking at the prior round’s total, etc. We had to flip a coin. While the order of candidates’ elimination would not have changed who won in the end, the failure of all tie-breaking conventions and having to resort to a coin raised a lot of ire. There were somewhere around 12 voters and two winners to elect.
So calculating the quota (or victory threshold) out to four decimal places seems like a good idea. In general with the single transferable vote, the more numerical precision, the “fairer” the result. But how does one manage fractional thresholds when counting by hand?
It’s doable (as are fractional transfers) but laborious. Apparently OpenSTV will do it for you when you tell it to use GPCA rules.
Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper will not invite Queen Elisabeth II to Quebec’s quatercentenary birthday party, according to Le Devoir:
The Canadian government refuses to invite Queen Elisabeth II to the 400th anniversary of Quebec’s founding in 2008 for fear of of provoking the anger of certain francophone inhabitants opposed to the royalty, La Presse reported yesterday. (translation mine)
The Conservatives have an interesting relationship with Quebec swing voters. At any given federal election, the Bloc Québecois wins most seats, but a handful are roughly in play between the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) and Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). Protest votes in pro-Ottawa ridings have put the CPC (and its PC predecessor) over the top twice in recent history: 1984 and 2006.
In 1987, PM Brian Mulroney (PC) negotiated the failed Meech Lake Accord, which would have extended Quebec veto power and constitutional status as a “distinct society.” In the following year, his party won 63 of Quebec’s 75 ridings. (The Bloc was not yet on the scene.)
Last year, the ten CPC pick-ups in Quebec bolstered Harper’s 21-seat margin in the Commons. The challenge now is to consolidate gains. Symbols must matter with this slice of the electorate. After all, the scandal that drove the Liberals from power involved their using tax dollars to hang Canadian flags up around Quebec. Snubbing the Queen is a good way to reinforce the CPC-LPC distinction. Unlike Meech Lake, though, this move probably won’t push confederal glue to its limit.
Putin announced on Monday that he would back the presidential candidacy of Dmitry Medvedev. His wiki profile is here, and seems to be accurate given everything I know about him.
This is definitely and interesting development. Medvedev has been the head of Gazprom since 2002. Under his leadership Gazprom, the majority-state owned energy company, has served as one of the Kremlin’s main tools to influence the political environment in Russia. For example, the Kremlin has used the staggering resources of Gazprom to take control of NTV in 2001. NTV was the only state-independent television channel in Russia. At the time it was owned by Vladimir Gusinsky, a Russian oligarch who used the channel to challenge Putin and the Kremlin.
Is the Medvedev appointment surprising? Yes and no. Many observers expected Putin to attempt to finagle a way to stay on as president, or appoint a weak placeholder. Medvedev does not seem to be a place holder. Before all of the Putin as 3rd-term president speculation came to a head, Medvedev was considered one of the top contenders to replace Putin.
However, I think the appointment of Medvedev makes one of my personal favorite predictions for Putin’s post-presidency plans more likely - head of Gazprom. In October Putin released his personal income records that indicated a relatively penury existence as the head of a major country. Heading Gazprom would definitely give him the opportunity to increase his personal wealth and “spend more time with his family.” From this influential position, he could continue to remain engaged in international affairs as energy contracts and deals with Russia’s neighbors remain one of the most important.
At the end of the day, I think we can look at this and realize that not much will change in Russia’s behavior, even if Putin leads. Putin wouldn’t have annointed Medvedev if he wasn’t confident that Medvedev would continue his policies and governing style. Furthermore, the clans within the Kremlin are likely happy with this choice. As long as any conflicts remain concealed or low-intensity, then the stability of the Russian state will continue to chug along and provide them with the power and resources they want to restore Russia to her “rightful place as a major world power” and balance against the US hegemony.
Apparently the CIA has been soliciting middle to upper level nuclear engineers in Iran to defect. The covert operations, started in 2005, offers defectors lifetime financial support and secret relocation. (Any bets on the name of the operation?)
The administration hoped to both slow Iranian progress on developing a nuclear weapon while also gaining intelligence information about the program (locations, players, etc) according to the story.
I took a class on intelligence gathering in California at a graduate school and I remember very clearly the hazards of developing humint (human intelligence: ex - turning people against their government).
First, you can always get played by the other side. Some “defectors” may have fed US intelligence organizations information they were fed by the Iranian government. The fact that none of the defects have comprehensive knowledge of the program, as the article points out, suggests that Iran is taking measures to protect the information. What’s to say they aren’t monitoring the officials in question, and feeding them faulty intel, as well?
Another hazard is the approach. According to the LAT source, the CIA employs a system that leaves three degrees of separation between the source and the organization. While necessary, the system leaves a lot of rooms for error. As US intelligence brass admit, Iran, “is the hardest intelligence target there is.” If that is true, there must be a reason for it. Two reasons that come to mind are: the government employs a strong system of monitoring and extracting foreign intelligence operatives within its border; or the population refuses to aid foreign officials. In either case, intelligence gathering faces serious challenges.
By “wasted” I mean votes that do not elect. In the US, your vote is wasted if you cast it for a loser. In list PR systems, votes are wasted if cast for parties that don’t meet threshold.
From an extensive quantitative analysis of potential fraud in Russia’s recent election comes this tidbit:
And everybody not voting for the main line was discouraged to attend - there’s no reason to go if your vote will end up counted against your will because of the 7% barrier (if you voted for a party that didn’t pass it, your vote will go to the top contenders proportionally). Ballot stuffing is still there, but it probably plays a minor role here.
I take this to mean that the wasted votes were redistributed to effective parties in proportion to their pre-redistribution vote shares.
The effect of that would be to make effective parties look more popular than they actually were (depending on how results are reported).
Relying on Wikipedia’s English version of these official results, 7.2% of valid ballots were cast for parties under threshold. Not a huge boost for anyone - if redistribution is in fact what happens. It’s also possible that I’m misinterpreting the quotation.
A new article by The Economist (one of the last great magazines around) discusses the rising prices of food.
The article attributes the rise to two factors: increased demand for meat (as a result of country incomes rising) and ethanol production.
Here is an excerpt about ethanol:
The second change can [explain the dramatic price movements]: the rampant demand for ethanol as fuel for American cars. In 2000 around 15m tonnes of America’s maize crop was turned into ethanol; this year the quantity is likely to be around 85m tonnes. America is easily the world’s largest maize exporter—and it now uses more of its maize crop for ethanol than it sells abroad.
Ethanol is the dominant reason for this year’s increase in grain prices. It accounts for the rise in the price of maize because the federal government has in practice waded into the market to mop up about one-third of America’s corn harvest. A big expansion of the ethanol programme in 2005 explains why maize prices started rising in the first place.
Ethanol accounts for some of the rise in the prices of other crops and foods too. Partly this is because maize is fed to animals, which are now more expensive to rear. Partly it is because America’s farmers, eager to take advantage of the biofuels bonanza, went all out to produce maize this year, planting it on land previously devoted to wheat and soyabeans. This year America’s maize harvest will be a jaw-dropping 335m tonnes, beating last year’s by more than a quarter. The increase has been achieved partly at the expense of other food crops.
Of course, the losers-apparent of this problem are: you guessed it, the poor who can’t afford as much food. Well, the poor plus countries that import food (Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Japan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Niger and Benin).
I’m all for energy independence but it seems that our government’s intervention (translation: subsidies) are distorting worldwide markets. We would probably be better off listening to our own “free trade is best” advice we espouse at every chance and finally remove the import tax on ethanol. Why? Brazil can make ethanol about 8 cents cheaper per litre (about 32 cents cheaper a gallon).
With gas prices soaring, ethanol has an opportunity to seize part of the fuel market. Unfortunately, the 25% increase in fuel efficiency is a bit weak (also, notice the comments about food prices in the article…). I will say, however, that ethanol is a step in the right direction (away from Middle Eastern oil).
So for now, we’ll have to tighten our belts (literally for many of us) and see where this all goes.
A few days ago, Robert Amsterdam posted video proof of what appears to be ballot box stuffing during the Duma election. This video has begun circulating around Russia and the opposition parties are pointing to it as an example of the illegitimacy of the who Russian election process.
Today La Russophobe linked to the video and a Moscow Times (english news paper) story regarding the video and the government’s response. The Central Elections Commission claims that the video shows a registered poll worker merely processing absentee ballots and is not proof of fraud.
The article contains an interesting quote from Golos, the only domestic, independent election monitoring organization in Russia:
“We consider the vote to be illegal. Therefore, several new State Duma deputies will be working illegally,” said Lilia Shibanova, the head of Golos, which is funded by several Western governments. “Unfortunately, because we do not have documented proof of all of these violations, we cannot go so far as to call the new State Duma illegitimate,” Shibanova said. “But the voting process certainly was not legitimate.”
I’m following news on Nepal for a project. The country is divided - politically and administratively - between Maoists and an alliance of seven parties led by the Nepali Congress.
Radio Australia has a concise summary of what’s going on:
The impoverished Himalayan nation has twice been scheduled to hold elections on its political future, but these polls have been postponed due to Maoist demands that the electoral system be reformed and the monarchy abolished.
The Maoists have threatened to take up arms again if their demands are not met.
The EU has threatened to cut off foreign aid, according to the above.
Nepal’s Interim Constitution is a Declaration of Independence from the monarchy, and it specifies how the “elections on its political future” are to be run:
(3) The Constituent Assembly shall consist of the following four hundred twenty five members, out of which four hundred and nine members shall be elected through Mixed Electoral System and sixteen members shall be nominated, as provided for in the law:-
(a) two hundred and five members shall be elected from among the candidates elected on the basis of First-Past-the-Post system from each of the Election Constituencies existed in accordance with the prevailing law before the commencement of this Constitution.
(b) two hundred and four members shall be elected under the proportional electoral system on the basis of the votes to be given to the political parties, considering the whole country as one election constituency.
(c) sixteen members to be nominated by the interim Council of Ministers, on the basis of consensus, from amongst the prominent persons of national life.
Now there is discussion of using MMP. Women of the Dalit community want 13% of seats reserved to them.
Looking at a survey by IDEA, uncertainty about their seat share drives Maoists’ desire to maximize proportionality using list PR. How much could MMP mitigate those fears? It depends on the distribution of voters across districts, which is hard to determine.
The survey indicates that the CPN (Maoist) is an emerging force but it is also a the most significant misfit among the political forces of Nepal. Out of 4,089 respondents, 934 identified themselves as being ‘close to a political party’. However 15 per cent of those who were close to a party said they were closer to the CPN (Maoist). 34 and 32 per cent associated themselves with the NC and the UML respectively.
It is too early to predict election results as 52 per cent respondents said either ‘I will decide later’ or ‘I will not tell right now’ to the question ‘Which party will you vote in the upcoming CA elections?’ Some had however already decided who they wanted to vote for. 13 per cent said they would vote for the NC while 11 per cent said that they would vote for the UML and CPN (Maoist) each.
The Carter Center’s mission in Nepal urges elections sooner than later.
