From messengers-owner Fri Jun 14 07:40:01 1996
Received: (majordomo@localhost) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) id HAA07166 for messengers-outgoing; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:40:01 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from netcom16.netcom.com (joogle@netcom16.netcom.com [192.100.81.129]) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) with SMTP id HAA07095; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:39:26 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from joogle@localhost) by netcom16.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom)
id HAA23399; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:48:33 -0700
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:48:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Ogle <joogle@netcom.com>
Subject: National Bicycle Party - Urgent!
To: bikepeople@cycling.org, massbike@cycling.org, caltrain-bikes@cycling.org,
messengers@cycling.org, sccc@cycling.org, sfbike@cycling.org,
sf-critical-mass@cycling.org, santa-cruz.bikes@cycling.org
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9606140746.A19280-0100000@netcom16>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-messengers@cycling.org
Precedence: bulk



The Bicycle Party

Office of the Secretary
James Ogle

----------------------------------------------------------------------
For immediate release June 14, 1996

URGENT! URGENT! URGENT!
*************************

CALL TO ACTION!

Fifty-Day Emergency Mobilization!

This is an emergency call to action for all bicyclists to mobilize
in order to save the USA Parliament party from being dissolved by Gary
Swing and the TAOAF Party! Your help is urgently needed! Please help
save the national Bicycle Party by mobilizing for the Saturday, August 3rd
show of force. The Bicycle Party will spearhead a multi-party effort
to get out the vote in conjunction with the 2nd USA Parliament picnic in
Monterey, CA. Attending the picnic will be Prime Minister Daniel Brock-
man (Environmentalist Party) of San Francisco. We need at least 300
US citizens to vote on the 2nd USA Parliament ballot by August 3rd, and
the ballots have to be received in the mail in Pacific Grove, CA on, or
before August 5th when the election cycle ends.

BICYCLE PARTY TO FORM NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Once three people, write-in nominees for the Bicycle Party (I will
personally oversee that this happens), then the national Bicycle Party
will take seats on the 100-member USA Parliament committee. Begin to
schedule your area's August 3rd action today, with a bike ride and/or
a picnic in your area. I will send the paper ballot in an email mes-
sage that will immediately follow this press release. Print the paper
ballot out, lay-out and paste it up, and get ready to grow the national
bicycle party committee, and your state's committee at this time. All
state members will automatically be appointed to the multi-party state
parliament. This is a private party, completely free of any regular
US elections. Do not be afraid, this is totally legal, and I file
the quarterly papers with the Federal Elections Commission, who can
be called at 1-800-424-9530 for verification.

USA PARLIAMENT PICNIC IN MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

For anyone in the Monterey Bay area, please ride to the "Prime
Minister's Art Faire" which will occur from 11-5 on Saturday, August 3rd,
at the DJ Cafe', on Del Monte Avenue, next to Fisherman's Wharf #2, in
Monterey, CA. There will also be a picnic at the nearby Window By The
Bay Park, across the bike trail from the volley-ball courts. Please
organize a group for this, or a similar picnic in your area.

A MULTI-PARTY EFFORT

This will be a multi-party effort, so be sure to invite anyone to
vote for Bicycle Party members, or any members, in the USA Parliament.
Among the parties whose members are expected to participate; The Whig Party,
the Environmentalist Party, the Green Party, the Labor Party, the Hemp
Party, the Libertarian Party, and of course the Democratic Party and
the Republican Party.

MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW

Last election, we had 415 people vote, and I will send the history
of the USA Parliament, following this message. The USA Parliament
turns one-year-old on August 1st, 1996.

Simply print out the USA Parliament paper ballot that will follow,
and write-in a nominee for the Bicycle Party, or vote for any nominee
and/or party on the preference ballot that you wish to vote for, and email
or snail-mail it back. Get your friends to vote, you'll be surprised at
who they choose. I've been an activist for 10 years, and I'm convinced
that this USA Parliament is the best system for the Bicycle Party.

We CAN do it! We can mobilize a national bicycle party within 50
days! We WILL get seats in the USA Parliament, and we will elect many
new leaders, based on our votes! Then we can coordinate, by allowing
every member of the bicycle party to vote on national internal Bicycle
Party issues, and in conjunction with the national USA Parliament election,
through an advanced one-person-one-vote preference ballot voting system.

Please feel free to email me directly if you have any questions.

--James Ogle, secretary
The Bicycle Party


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
USA Parliament Email: usa-par@netcom.com Usenet: alt.politics.elections
FEC ID# C00304766 Phone: (800) 369-USA-1 Prime Minister: Daniel Brockman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


From messengers-owner Fri Jun 14 07:42:02 1996
Received: (majordomo@localhost) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) id HAA07367 for messengers-outgoing; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:42:02 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from netcom16.netcom.com (joogle@netcom16.netcom.com [192.100.81.129]) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) with SMTP id HAA07271; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:41:16 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from joogle@localhost) by netcom16.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom)
id HAA23568; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:50:24 -0700
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:50:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Ogle <joogle@netcom.com>
Subject: The USA Parliament
To: bikepeople@cycling.org, massbike@cycling.org, caltrain-bikes@cycling.org,
messengers@cycling.org, sccc@cycling.org, sfbike@cycling.org,
sf-critical-mass@cycling.org, santa-cruz-bikes@cycling.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9606140746.A19280-0100000@netcom16>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9606140738.A19280-0100000@netcom16>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-messengers@cycling.org
Precedence: bulk



====**** ************************** ****====
====*** * THE 2ND USA PARLIAMENT * ***====
====== ************************** ======

Office of the Secretary
James Ogle

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Immediate Release Updated: June 13, 1996

THE 2ND USA PARLIAMENT
**********************

Individual's Party's
Leader MP Party/Category # of Seats # of Seats
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Swing Green 17
Ralph Nader Green 9
Randy Toler Green 2 28
Alan Keyes Republican 13
Colin Powell Republican 6
Newt Gingrich Republican 3 22
Marcus Denoon Pot 13 13
Bill Clinton Democrat 4
Jesse Jackson Democrat 1
Jerry Brown Democrat 1
Diane Feinstein Democrat 1 7
Jeff Fecke TAOAF** 1
Rob McLean TAOAF 1
Jeff Sutter TAOAF 1
Angela Baker TAOAF 1
John Renna TAOAF 1 5
Regina Lingenfelter Environmentalist 2
Daniel Brockman Environmentalist 1
Mikael Bogatirev Environmentalist 1 4
Noam Chomsky New 4 4
Ross Perot Reform 4 4
Valerie Madriaga Hemp 3 3
Charles Collins independent 2 2
Gene Marsee' Labor 2 2
Harry Browne Libertarian 2 2
Bruce Springsteen info. not avail. 2 2
Wavy Gravy NOTA*** 1 1
Ryan Winzenburg* Velvet Revolution 1 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Seats 100

*Appointed by Gary Swing
**Toler And Ogle Are Frauds
***None of the Above

The members of the 2nd USA Parliament were elected from an election, in a 90-
day election cycle, which began on 11/5/95 and ended on 2/5/96. Four-hundred
and thirteen US Citizens, and one cat (ballot annulled), voted on the preference
ballot, through the Internet and the US Mail. Gary Swing (Velvet Revolution
Party) won the endorsement for US President in the "First US Presidential
Preferential Ballot and USA Parliament Election".

The elected members of parliament, then cast votes (via phone & email) for
Prime Minister. Marcus Denoon was elected Prime Minister with 19 votes
and James Ogle secretary with 25 votes on 2/15/96. On 3/21/96 John Renna
was elected Prime Minister with 22 votes, replacing Marcus Denoon.

Gary Swing switched to the Toler And Ogle Are Frauds Party (TAO Are Frauds or
TAOAF Party).

One of Swing's appointees, Ryan Winzenburg, remained Velvet Revolution Party.
Mary Hollis (Socialist, who had won 1 seat) resigned from the parliament, and
Noam Chomsky gained 1 seat as a result of STVs from Hollis' resignation.
Gene Marsee' switched from the Hemp Party to the Labor Party (2 seats).

On 4/13/96, Daniel Brockman (Environmentalist Party) replaced John Renna for
Prime Minister (PM), after several "votes of confidence" and a tie at 22 each.
Once tied, the Swing/Fecke faction of Renna voters switched to Fecke for PM,
and so Brockman's lead over Fecke was increased by four, at 22 to 18.
On 6/7/96, Gary Swing switched to the Green Party, leaving five TAOAF Party
members that had been appointed as MPs. Results; Brockman PM,
Ogle secretary.

1996 SCHEDULE
*************

Results Announced -> Nominations Open -> Election Cycle (90 days)
===========================================================================
"2nd USA PAR Election"
5/5/96 to 8/5/96 ->
8/5/96 "3rd USA PAR Election"
-> 10/1-31/96 -> 11/5/96 to 2/5/97 ->
2/5/97
==========================================================================

-*-


THE HISTORY OF THE USA PARLIAMENT
*********************************
-* FOUNDED ON AUGUST 1ST, 1995 *-

"The First, Third Party/Nonpartisan, US Presidential Mock Election" ~(2/5/95)
==========================================================================

Harry Browne (Libertarian) - Wins the first election.

In the first election, a preference ballot was distributed on the
Internet, resulting in Harry Browne (Libertarian) winner, with Colin
Powell (independent) and Noam Chomsky (New) coming in 2nd and 3rd.

Although the preference voting (PrV) system was used, none of Colin
Powell's or Noam Chomsky's votes single-transferred (STV) to Harry Browne.

-*-


"The First Internet US Presidential Mock Open Election" (ended on 7/4/95)
==========================================================================

In the first open election, web page ballots were distributed by Alan
Keyes supporters, and paper ballots were distributed by Jonah Gruber
(Seattle) and James Ogle (Monterey/Pacific Grove).

James Ogle won the single-winner contest by a few votes (proving that
paper ballots are more effective than eballots). A 100-member
parliament committee was founded from the results of all the votes cast,
which gained recognition by the FEC on August 1, 1995. Election rules
were published on August 23, 1995.

A 100-member committee, as established on 8/1/95 with the FEC;

Member of Par-
Leader liament (MP) Party/Category Faction Total
-------------------------------------------------------------------
James Ogle Reform 26
Ross Perot Reform 8
34
Alan Keyes Republican 27
Harry Browne Libertarian 13
Randy Toler Green 5
Ralph Nader Green 1
6
Bill Clinton Democratic 6
Noam Chomsky New 4
Gary Geyer Artists 3
Gene Marsee' Hemp 3
Jonah Gruber Moderate 2
Howard Phillips US Taxpayers 2
------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 100

-*-

Majority Preference Voting (MPV) for the US President:
-----------------------------------------------------

Everyone's vote goes initially to their 1st choice. If no candidate
has a majority, then the candidate with fewest votes is eliminated, and
each of his ballots goes to its next choice. This process of elimination
& re-distribution continues till 1 candidate has a majority of the ballots.

The Sainte-Lague seat allocation for the USA Parliament:
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Divide the election's total number of votes by 100 (number of seats).
This is the 1st quota.
2. Divide this quota into each candidate's votes, and round off to the
nearest whole number. That's that candidate's seat allocation.
3. If, due to rounding, this awards a number of seats different from
the desired number of 100 seats, then adjust the quota slightly up or
down, till, when paragraph 2. is carried out, it will award exactly
100 seats.
-*-

--James Ogle, secretary
USA Parliament



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
USA Parliament Email: usa-par@netcom.com Usenet: alt.politics.elections
FEC ID# C00304766 Phone: (800) 369-USA-1 Prime Minister: Daniel Brockman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


From messengers-owner Fri Jun 14 08:59:11 1996
Received: (majordomo@localhost) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) id HAA07522 for messengers-outgoing; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:43:10 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from netcom16.netcom.com (joogle@netcom16.netcom.com [192.100.81.129]) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) with SMTP id HAA07420; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:42:25 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from joogle@localhost) by netcom16.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom)
id HAA23703; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:51:32 -0700
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:51:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Ogle <joogle@netcom.com>
Subject: USA Parliament Paper Ballot
To: bikepeople@cycling.org, massbike@cycling.org, caltrain-bikes@cycling.org,
messengers@cycling.org, sccc@cycling.org, sfbike@cycling.org,
sf-critical-mass@cycling.org, santa-cruz-bikes@cycling.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9606140746.A19280-0100000@netcom16>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9606140736.A19280-0100000@netcom16>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-messengers@cycling.org
Precedence: bulk



The 2nd USA Parliament
Election
5/5/96 - 8/5/96

DIRECTIONS TO VOTERS

DO NOT USE X MARKS, MARK YOUR CHOICES WITH NUMBERS ONLY.

Put the figure 1 beside your first choice, the figure 2 beside your
2nd choice, the figure 3 beside your 3rd choice, and so on. You may
mark as many choices as you please. Do not put the same figure beside
more than one name.

Nominee Party/Category
-----------------------------------------
___ Bill Clinton Democratic
___ Jesse Jackson Democratic
___ Jerry Brown Democratic
___ Diane Feinstein Democratic
___ Patrick Paulsen Democratic
___ Bruce Daniels Democratic
___ Regina Lingenfelter Environmentalist
___ Daniel Brockman Environmentalist
___ Mikael Bogatirev Environmentalist
___ Ralph Nader Green
___ Randy Toler Green
___ NOTA Green
___ Phillip Brett Green
___ Stephanie Letersky Green
___ Gary Swing Green
___ Valerie Madriaga Hemp
___ Charles Collins independent
___ Bradford Lyttle independent
___ Ronnie Duggers independent
___ Arlee Pedderson independent
___ Kirby Hensley independent
___ Fidel Castro independent
___ Bruce Springsteen info. not avail.
___ Ubiquitous God info. not avail.
___ Norman Schwartzkopf info. not avail.
___ Gene Marsee' Labor
___ James Ogle Labor
___ Harry Browne Libertarian
___ Noam Chomsky New
___ Wavy Gravy NOTA
___ Marcus Denoon Pot
___ Ross Perot Reform
___ Diane Bealle-Templin Reform
___ Bill Bradley Reform
___ Alan Keyes Republican
___ Colin Powell Republican
___ Newt Gingrich Republican
___ George America Republican
___ Shear'ree Republican
___ Millie Howard Republican
___ Mary Hollis Socialist
___ Jeff Fecke Toler And Ogle Are Frauds
___ Rob McLean Toler And Ogle Are Frauds
___ Jeff Sutter Toler And Ogle Are Frauds
___ Angela Baker Toler And Ogle Are Frauds
___ John Renna Toler And Ogle Are Fruads
___ Ryan Winzenburg Velvet Revolution
___ (write-in) __________________
___ (write-in) __________________
___ (write-in) __________________

All ballots must be post-marked and received between 5/5/96 and 8/5/96.

Choices and registration information marked on paper ballots are
guaranteed to be confidential.

ALL VOTERS WHO USE A PAPER BALLOT, MUST EITHER INCLUDE A REGISTRATION
FORM ATTACHED BELOW, OR MUST HAVE A REGISTRATION FORM ALREADY ON FILE.

- - - - - - - - - - - - registration form - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
| Name (please print) _____________________________________ |
| Address _________________________________________________ |
| City/State/Zip __________________________________________ |
| Signature ________________________________________ |
| |
| (Optional - Check, if yes) |
| ___ Yes, I would like to be a Member of State Parliament (MSP) |
| and I would like to vote for my State Parliament governor's |
| secretary and Prime Minister at some time in the future. |
| |
| Mail ballot to: USA PAR, Box DJ, Pacific Grove, CA 93950 |
| info. - (800) 369-USA-1 |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From messengers-owner Fri Jun 14 09:51:35 1996
Received: (majordomo@localhost) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) id IAA11869 for messengers-outgoing; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:59:42 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from remarque.berkeley.edu (remarque.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.152.164]) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) with ESMTP id IAA11780; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:59:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from localhost by remarque.berkeley.edu (8.7.3/1.31)
id JAA01763; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 09:08:04 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199606141608.JAA01763@remarque.berkeley.edu>
To: bikepeople@cycling.org, massbike@cycling.org, caltrain-bikes@cycling.org,
messengers@cycling.org, sccc@cycling.org, sfbike@cycling.org,
sf-critical-mass@cycling.org, santa-cruz.bikes@cycling.org
Reply-To: jym@remarque.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: National Bicycle Party - Please Ignore Spam
In-reply-to: James Ogle's message of "Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:48:32 PDT."
References: <Pine.3.89.9606140746.A19280-0100000@netcom16>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 09:08:01 -0700
From: Jym Dyer <jym@remarque.berkeley.edu>
Sender: owner-messengers@cycling.org
Precedence: bulk

=o= I'd like to urge everyone to ignore James Ogle's message.
Please don't send followups to all of these lists (or any of
them, if you can help it).

=o= Ogle is a lunatic who spams his delusions to all of the
environmental and political party newsgroups and mailing lists
available. I'd rather he not find the bicycling mailing lists
engaging. Please don't take his bait; just ignore him.
<_Jym_>

From messengers-owner Fri Jun 14 20:07:11 1996
Received: (majordomo@localhost) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) id UAA04445 for messengers-outgoing; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 20:07:11 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from netcom13.netcom.com (joogle@netcom13.netcom.com [192.100.81.125]) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) with SMTP id UAA04394; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 20:06:35 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from joogle@localhost) by netcom13.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom)
id UAA06001; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 20:15:39 -0700
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 20:15:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Ogle <joogle@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: National Bicycle Party - Please Ignore Spam
To: Jym Dyer <jym@remarque.berkeley.edu>
cc: bikepeople@cycling.org, massbike@cycling.org, caltrain-bikes@cycling.org,
messengers@cycling.org, sccc@cycling.org, sfbike@cycling.org,
sf-critical-mass@cycling.org, santa-cruz.bikes@cycling.org
In-Reply-To: <199606141608.JAA01763@remarque.berkeley.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9606141907.A3368-0100000@netcom13>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-messengers@cycling.org
Precedence: bulk


Doesn't anyone around here know how to use a delete button? Look
at the title, and if you don't want to read the post, then delete my
message. I'm done spamming, but I assert that these lists are indeed
relevent to a "Bicycle Party". Even CalTrans would be accountable to
a multi-party ruling environmentalist coalition in California!
I look forward to fair elections, where the everyone can be represented,
based on the proportion of votes that were cast.

This stuff is important to cyclists, and I pushed for contra-flow bike lanes
in Santa Cruz, and the "Democratic Party" in power there, voted
against the contra-flow bike lanes. Obviously, the national bicycle
party would be a strong supporter of all bike lanes, and it would
fantastic if such a party was born here.

On Fri, 14 Jun 1996, Jym Dyer wrote:

> =o= I'd like to urge everyone to ignore James Ogle's message.
> Please don't send followups to all of these lists (or any of
> them, if you can help it).
>
> =o= Ogle is a lunatic who spams his delusions to all of the
> environmental and political party newsgroups and mailing lists
> available. I'd rather he not find the bicycling mailing lists
> engaging. Please don't take his bait; just ignore him.
> <_Jym_>

There are a lot of people out there that want to try to label me
as a lunatic, but a "Bicycle Party" seems ok to me. Jym, are
you certain that you're just too old to give thought to a bicycle
party? Or is it because as a Green, you feel threatened by a
bicycle party? Well, in the USA Parliament, there's enough room
for all parties! There's 100 "seats", and it only takes 1/100ths
of the votes to win a seat. This is not a delusion, this is a
mathematical fact. It's a very positive development in national
elections. It took New Zealand's women's suffrage movement 100 yrs to
implement proportional representation (PR), but with this comunication
system, we can speed the process up in the US, I'm sure.

Here's a story I wrote about PR after a speech by John Cleese, in case
you've never read about this subject. The town is Santa Cruz, where
the "progressives" sided with the narrow-minded business interests,
in torpedoeing the contra-flow bike lanes downtown just after the
rebuilding from the '89 earthquake.

--James

-----------------------------------------------five page essay





The Case for Proportional Representation
By James Ogle, after John Cleese

I'm very sorry to bore you this morning, but this is a political
speech and you know how boring those can be. This one is about (yawn)
proportional representation, so it will be especially boring.

Proportional representation! What's it all about? Let's look
at the 1992 Santa Cruz city council elections. On the chart below,
you can see the share of the votes cast;

| SCAN-51%
|
| | IND-39%
| |
| |
| |
| |
| | ENV-10%
| | |
| | |
--------------------
share of votes cast

The civic group called SCAN (Democrats) received 51% of the vote.
The independents (Republicans) received 39% of the vote. And the Environ-
mentalist Coaltion (a group of four from four different parties including
the Env Party) received 10% of the vote.

Now, let's look at the share of the seats they got;

| SCAN-100% of the seats
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| . .
------------
share of seats won

Oh? SCAN got 100% of the seats!? The independents and
the Environmentalist Coalition got no seats?









Or, look at it this way;

| SCAN-48,012 | SCAN-Won ALL seats
| |
| | IND-35,966 |
| | |
| | |
| | ENV-8716 |
| | | |
| | | | . .
--------------- ---------------
votes cast seats won

On the left, the number of votes cast. On the right, the number of
seats won.
This is ludicrous! Or as a child would say, "That's not fair!" It took
12,003 votes to elect each SCAN member, but with 44,682 votes, the
independents and the Environmentalist Coalition did not win a single seat!
This left a lot of people frustrated, unrepresented and wondering what to do
next.

Well, proportional representation, or PR, is about making
the representation proportional to the number of votes cast --
if you get twice as many votes, you get twice as many seats.

Now, I suppose that you'd like to know how it works? I will
now give you a twenty second explanation:

[Right now, many of the listeners are leaving the room for a Bud]

Instead of placing an X by your choice, you get to rank several
choices in order of preference. Your first choice, you put a one.
Second choice, a two. Third choice, a three -- up to as many choices
(or as few) as you'd like, like this:

SAMPLE BALLOT

Candidate's Name Party
--------------------------------------
9 Nader Green
2 Brockman Environmentalist
1 Ogle Labor
5 Perot Reform
Clinton Democratic
6 Swing TAO Are Frauds
4 Lyttle Pacifist
8 Hollis Socialist
7 Browne Libertarian
3 Chomsky New
10 Keyes Republican
--------------------------------------

That's it! The rest is up to the computer!

I'd like to welcome you all back from your beer! I've just
completed a political dream for a mean clean voting machine! OH!!
There'll be singing and dancing in the streets tonight!

In the example of a Presidential election shown above,
the voter can rank a candidate regardless of party, race or gender.
When the same method is applied to a multi-candidate election, the
threshold for winning a seat is lowered with each additional open
seat to be filled. For example, to win a seat in the Santa Cruz
race, one/ninth of the votes (plus one vote) would be required for any
candidate to win one seat on the nine-member body.

So, had Santa Cruz used nonpartisan PR elections in 1992,
the results would have looked something like this;

| SCAN-51% | SCAN-5 seats
| |
| | IND-39% | | IND-3 seats
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | ENV-10% | | | ENV-1 seat
| | | | | |
--------------- -------------
votes cast seats won

There! Much fairer. Not only more fair, but more constructive
too! Since each candidate wants to win over the other candidates'
support for 2nd choice, there's more discussion, listening, debate,
respect and positive campaigns. Newspapers sell better, too.

So, if PR gives you fairer results and positive campaigns,
what are the objections?

--First objection) Some people say "PR is a weird and abnormal idea."
On the contrary, a vast majority of the world's democracies use PR
and most emerging democracies are using it too. It's our pluralty
elections that are out of the norm.
There are several forms of PR, from the extreme Israeli example;
which is like one large district with 120 members; to the moderate
9-member districts in Scandinavian countries. The US-style,
winner-take-all, single-member district system is considered to be
an extremist example of democracy, when compared to the moderate forms
of PR such as those that exist in the Scandinavian countries.
In Italy's case of PR, government-financed elections led to
corruption, so their elections were replaced by an innovative
new compensatory PR system in which 75% of the seats are elected in
single-member districts and 25% of the seats are elected by PR in
both houses of Italy's Parliament.
In the US, the Federal Elections Commission presently finances
the two largest parties much like Italy's case, and this tends to
perpetuate the two-party system.
Of the democratic countries that use PR, certain correlations
(with no causative connections) exist;

- All democratic countries that use PR, have a lower trade deficit
than the US.
- All democratic countries that use PR, have a lower national debt
than the US.
- All democratic countries that use PR, have a lower per capita
energy consumption than the US.
- All democratic countries that have greater reserve assets than
the US, use PR.
- All democratic countries that have a greater per capita GNP than
the US, use PR.

Within the past year, South Africa, New Zealand,
Russia and Mexico have adopted PR or semi-PR in their national
elected governments. Most of the world's emerging democracies
are adopting PR.
In the US, forms of PR such as preference voting (PrV), cumulative
voting (CV), and limited voting (LV), are used to elect the city councils of
Cambridge MA and Peoria IL, as well as officials for
scores of New York City School Districts, five Texas school districts
and supervisors in several counties in Alabama. And most corporate boards
of directors use CV in the USA. Hundreds of other kinds of organizations
have adopted PR in some form.
In the majority of the world's democracies in which PR is used,
there is a greater voter turn-out, and the election systems
are supported by all parties because PR gives "universal coverage".

--Second objection) Some people say "Why change the old system,
it will lead to instability?" I disagree. One of the primary
reasons for advocating PR is that the present system discourages
change and forces you to conform to the two-party system. You
can only choose between right and left, liberal or conservative,
and when change does occur, it's so severe that it makes long-
range planning difficult. In addition, the winner-take-all,
or first-past-the-post (FPTP), US system gives the winning majority
a false mandate, and leaves the minority parties with no
representation at all. Perhaps we are too stable, and perhaps
moribund.

--Third objection) Some say coalition governments are weak
and indecisive. Oh? Norway, Switzerland, Japan? Poor wretched
and weak things! Sweden, Austria, Portugal? They make your
heart bleed! Germany, Australia, Spain? They're on the scrap
heap too! If only they could get rid of their weak and indecisive
governments, they too could have a system of gridlock where parties
spend more time bickering than they do running the country.
California! Thank the Lord! Where government is effective,
the economy is strong and stable, voters feel good about represen-
tative democracy! Opportunity and fairness for everyone! NOT!!!

--Forth objection) Some people say that PR is too complicated -
they say that Californians won't understand it. Well, yes,
I'm afraid that if you cannot count up to five, you'll find it
a teeny bit complicated!

--Fifth objection) Some ask, "What will happen to our local
representative?" A perfectly good question! In Santa Cruz
49% of you wasted your vote anyway, because that's the percent
of the vote that went for the independents and the Environmentalist
Coalition, who won no seats in the last election.
With PR, everyone will have representation, and
the highest vote recipients in each self-defined interest group
will be the winning candidates. Very few wasted votes.
Do you know how unrepresented women are in
all levels of government? In the nationally elected US bodies
alone, less than 12% are women legislators. But with PR,
there will be more women in government. For example, in three
Scandinavian countries which use the Sainte-Lague PR system
there are more than 26% women legislators in all three
countries' national legislative governments. Today, 41% of Sweden's
national legislators are women because of PR. Studies show that PR
is the most important positive factor influencing fair representation
for women.

In the US Congress, there is only one independent Congressman
out of 435 Congressmen, even though more than 19% of Americans consider
themselves to be an independent. The 19% of the voters which
voted for independent presidential candidate Ross Perot in 1992
realize that he did not get one single electoral vote!
At the very LEAST, we need proportional electoral votes.
Perhaps we should do away with the electoral college system altogether!

Years after women were given the right to vote and before PR
was adopted there, Kate Sheppard, leader of New Zealand's suffrage
movement had written; "The crudity and the unfairness of the present
method of election ... our clumsy system of voting, still goes on
sending men to Parliament for whom only a small number of their
constituents voted, leaving the majority quite unrepresented. As a
representative system, it is sham, a delusion, a snare to the
unthinking."

In summary;

-- PR is used by a vast majority of the world's democracies and is
supported by all parties.
-- PR is change, yes, but change for greater stability and a more
open government.
-- Coalition governments do better and have better economies with
PR.
-- More diverse representation will be achieved for all parties,
so you will more likely have a representative to talk to that you
like.
-- PR solves the vote-split problem and brings more positive campaigns.
It's *still* one-person, one-vote -- THAT COUNTS! Fair taxation with
FAIR representation!!
-- PR is too complicated for Californians ... Ha .. ha .. ha.

The greatest advantage is that it will reflect the will
of the people instantly. It will give greater diversity in
government. As a melting pot, we Americans find strength in
diversity. Perhaps we can rediscover that strength?

As Thomas Paine put it, "The right of voting for representation
is the primary right by which other rights are protected." Without
PR, our rights are not being protected.

If you find some truth to what I've written, please, join
the movement to bring fairer elections to our government.

Thank you very much for your time.

Very truly yours,
James Ogle, secretary
USA Parliament
(800) 369-USA-1

To order an excellent book on PR:
_Real Choices/New Voices - The Case for Proportional Representation
in the United States_ by Douglas Amy, cost $29.50 plus $3. shipping.
Columbia University Press
136 South Broadway, Irvington, New York 10533-2599
phone (914) 591-9111, fax (914) 591-9201



From messengers-owner Sat Jun 15 12:50:05 1996
Received: (majordomo@localhost) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) id MAA18153 for messengers-outgoing; Sat, 15 Jun 1996 12:50:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) with SMTP id MAA18095; Sat, 15 Jun 1996 12:49:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: DCARCIA@aol.com
Received: by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA25071; Sat, 15 Jun 1996 15:58:40 -0400
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 15:58:40 -0400
Message-ID: <960615155839_329215461@emout19.mail.aol.com>
To: jym@remarque.berkeley.edu, bikepeople@cycling.org, massbike@cycling.org,
caltrain-bikes@cycling.org, messengers@cycling.org, sccc@cycling.org,
sfbike@cycling.org, sf-critical-mass@cycling.org,
santa-cruz.bikes@cycling.org
Subject: Re: National Bicycle Party - Please Ignore Spam
Sender: owner-messengers@cycling.org
Precedence: bulk

Mr. Ogle is a lunatic? Really? How did you guess?

The information age is just a bundle of kicks!

Ciao


From messengers-owner Sun Jun 16 23:26:43 1996
Received: (majordomo@localhost) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) id XAA16021 for messengers-outgoing; Sun, 16 Jun 1996 23:26:43 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from netcom3.netcom.com (joogle@netcom3.netcom.com [192.100.81.103]) by jones.cyclery.com (8.7.4/8.6.5) with SMTP id XAA15979; Sun, 16 Jun 1996 23:23:58 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from joogle@localhost) by netcom3.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom)
id XAA29736; Sun, 16 Jun 1996 23:33:28 -0700
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996 23:33:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Ogle <joogle@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: National Bicycle Party - Urgent!
To: bikepeople@cycling.org, massbike@cycling.org, caltrain-bikes@cycling.org,
messengers@cycling.org, sccc@cycling.org, sfbike@cycling.org,
sf-critical-mass@cycling.org, santa-cruz.bikes@cycling.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9606140746.A19280-0100000@netcom16>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9606162347.A27246-0100000@netcom3>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-messengers@cycling.org
Precedence: bulk


A lot of people have emailed me to ask what the USA Parliament stuff is
about, and to anyone that wants more info. (it's like a party with all
parties within it, based on ballots received) ... i've attached request
info. list, in case you want to request more info. on things
such as the rules, the MP's votes on the rules, the MP's votes
on Prime Minister and secretary, nominees' statements, or ballot/eballot.

The USA Parliament (Party) is NOT like the English and Canadian
parliaments! It's like the Israeli, Irish or Tanzmanian parliaments,
where the seats are awarded proportionate to votes cast. In the USA
Parliament Party, 1/100ths of the votes = one of the 100 seats. It's
good for small parties, because if the "Bicycle Party" gets 2% of the
votes, then they get two MPs (kind of like senators) in the national
parliament party (in exile).

Others requests are also available:

request #1 - USA Parliament Rules
request #2 - MPs' Votes On Rules
request #3 - MPs' Votes On Prime Minister and Secretary
request #4 - USA Parliament FAQ
request #5 - USA Parliament Eballot
request #6 - USA Parliament Ballot
request #7 - Nominees' statements
request #8 - Stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3 of First USA PAR election

--James Ogle, secretary
USA Parliament

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
USA Parliament Email: usa-par@netcom.com Usenet: alt.politics.elections
FEC ID# C00304766 Phone: (800) 369-USA-1 Prime Minister: Daniel Brockman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------