Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgaryborn
One thing that concerned him was that the vote for party leader will be open to people outside of the party. He thinks that some Conservatives or NDPers might try to rig the vote.
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I think the risk of that is minimal. I mean all they needed to do that before this was fork over $10. If anyone was really motivated I don't think 10 bucks is really a deterrent and anyone who wasn't motivated enough to fork over ten bucks probably isn't motivated enough to spend the gas to travelling to the voting station. Plus at a national level where a larger mass of people (the majority of whom are likely honest signee's) are signing up the actual impact of each "gamed" vote becomes lessened.
Plus there's the moral dissuasion... anyone ever read Freakonomics? There was a passage in there about the effect of levying a small surcharge on parents of daycare kids who pick up there kids late from daycare it found that the effect of levying the small fine was to actually cause an increase in lateness amoungst parents because they had effectually replaced a moral incentive to show up on time with a less burdensome financial incentive... I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar effect here. The people that would attempt to game the system here could possibly feel less inclined to try to game the system because they wouldn't have a "I paid my 10 dollars" justification and because it would entail lying when they sign the statement of principles.
The bigger worry would have been at the individual riding level where a small number of motivated people have an exponentially greater impact. But that part was shot down outright (wisely I think). I personally like the idea of a "Supperter" class of party affiliation. I think the convention delegates got most things right with the exception of establishing a rolling "primary" style leadership election. I though that was a decent idea that didn't meet the threshold for passage.
