The current primary election system seems to have the following design parameters.

• Drags out the elcetion process for 2 or more years.
• Makes television ads the primaruy means of communicationg with voters.
• Gives some states in inordinate influence, and disenfranchises others.
• Makes chasing money the most important goal.
• Allows party insiders to hijack the outcome.
• Strengthens the propoenents of fringe issues.
• Sets up binary thinking.
• Marginalizes important issues.
• Is manipulated by the media to create headlines, rather than substantive debate of the issues.

The purpose of this exercise is to come up with a 1-2 page design for a new primary election system. Do some research into different kinds of election systems, and then propose your own primary election design.

Here is a small set of links that will get you started. This list is by no means meant to be comprehensive. Explore and find new information.

• http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvote/altvote.html
• http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/researchstarters/presidents/
• http://braindoll.net/vote/
• http://www.fairvote.org/irv/faq.htm
• http://people.howstuffworks.com/question721.htm

This 1-2 page document is due in class on Wednesday, Feb 20, 2007. It will be the basis of an in-class exercise, so be sure you have a hard copy when you come to class.

Grading rubric

1. Describe your election process design
2. Relate to the design parameters generated in class
3. You use templates (from They Say, I Say) for
   • entering the conversation (introduction)
   • summarize what others are saying (chapt 1)
   • introducing summaries & quotations (chapt 2)

Back to theDaily Record.

Back to the class web-page.