4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, September 12, 2000 cte Sitigti $$Qi g Instant run-off voting: How to shake up the system 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, M1 48109_ daily. letters@umich.edu Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan F or the past couple of elections, the two major parties, Republicans and Democ- rats, have been getting more and more con- cerned about third party candidates. Some can MIKE SPAHN Editor in Chief EMILY ACHENBAUM Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. argue that George Bush 1992 solely because of that pernicious Ross Perot character. He was back in 1996, albeit without as much force, and did some damage to Bob Dole. This year, they're back again. The third parties are defi- nitely making waves, and are beginning to concern the big two.. Ralph Nader, running for the Green Party, is one of the most well- lost the election in Manish RaiI Cantor case reinforces students' privacy F ollowing the tragic alcohol-relat- ed death of his daughter Court- ney, two years ago, George Cantor alleged the University was negligent by failing to provide a safe environ- ment for students with regard to the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Washt- enaw County Court Judge Melinda Morris ruled that because Courtney Cantor leased her room it was consid- ered a private residence. This Friday Judge Morris held her position on the side of the University after George Cantor requested inci- dent reports on University students who have abused drugs or alcohol. The information is meant to provide evidence of drug and alcohol abuse at the University which -- has been overlooked. In tis in: Morris ruled that turn- ing over such records he1nM would violate the Fam- t ily Education and t Rights of Privacy Act, aNree ti which bars the release a of student records nta o without the student's bd and permission. o y Additionally, thec court does not agree concurs- with Cantor's sugges- tion that incident reports regarding other students are relevant to whether the regents effectively educated Courtney and other students. It would not, as Cantor's attorney Darrel Peters suggests, provide evidence of "a pervasive culture of alcohol and drug use and abuse which was toler- ated and/or ignored by University officials." It would simply invade the privacy of students and their families while breaking a law. Cantor's claim that the University is obliged to warn residents of any unsafe conditions is a valid one, but is e1 hi the University has a responsibility to protect rights and records of its stu- dents. This year's United States vs. Miami of Ohio concluded that law enforcement records of students are not educational records and Cantor's request for such records falls under the category of education records. The University has a history of acting as a surrogate parent as can be seen by the subsequent debates sur- rounding the implenentation of the Code of Student Conduct, an internal disciplinary system designed to gov- ern student behavior outside - or in addition to - the justice system. The University introduces its own rules and punishments to compli- __ ent those already stanceissued by the legal system. But in this instance, the Univer- t i sity agrees that it is at it Inot a governing body " and the court con- efUIEg curs. In contrast to what the Code of fStudent Conduct would imply, the University should not act as a surrogate parent to its students. It should not punish them for violations already covered under the law, and as illus- trated in the current Cantor lawsuit, it is not responsible for protecting stu- dents outside a reasonable realm of safety. The denial of Cantor's request for access to such records is important. But the records shouldn't even exist. The University should not be able to prosecute students for offenses out- side of the academic realm. That is what the criminal justice system is for. known third party can- ""I didates. Then we've got ' thiw' Flarry Browne and the: Libertarians and John Hagelin (or Pat Buchanan, I don't think the Reform Party has gotten their act together yet). In any .case, that's three viable third party candidates. None of them have managed to break double digits in the polls, as Perot did in '92, and there's a very simple reason for that. People "learned" from the mistake of vot- ing for Perot. People "learned" that we can't have a quiet revolution in this country, and that we cannot make a change. People "learned" that we, the voters, don't hold the power. People "learned" to vocally berate the two party system, but then to go vote for either a Republican or a Democrat in order to prevent the other major party candidate from winning. And the two major parties love the fact that we have "learned." The Republicans and the Democrats need the third parties to be dis- counted, and for a vote for a third party can- didate to be considered a "wasted vote," which is the new buzz word for this year's elections. The propaganda that the two par- ties would like us to believe is that it's better to vote for a winner, even if you don't agree with the candidate you're voting for. As Nader is fond of saying; "You don't vote because I can't win, and I can't win because you don't vote." He's right, but the Republi- cans and the Democrats have gotten us all so tangled up in doublespeak that it's become common parlance to say "I have to vote for Gore, or else Bush will win," or vice versa. I'm not going to tell anyone to vote for a third party candidate. Your vote is your own, and I only hope that people learn about all the candidates before making a decision, because an uninformed vote is the only real "wasted vote." I am, however, hoping that people get informed about an entirely necessary reform to the election process in this country, and that is the little-known concept.of "Instant Run-off Voting." IRV is an electoral process in which an elected official wins because of a majority vote, not because of a split vote, as was the case in 1992. Instead of simply marking an X next to one candidate, the IRV system allows people to rank their votes in order of prefer- ence. So I could go to the ballot and rank Harry Browne as my Number One choice and George W as my Number Two choice. (Both of these are, incidentally, hypothetical, since I would rather ingest raw sewage than vote for either of these clowns). After that, the beauty of the IRV system takes over. If, after all the votes are tallied, Harry Browne failed to win the majority, my vote slides down to Bush, and the votes are recounted with all of the "run-off" votes added. If, on the other hand, Browne succeeds in winning the majority, my vote will not slide down to Bush, and I will have effectively had a hand in electing a third party candidate. It's a beautiful system, because the cliche "A vote for the third party is a wasted vote" statement will be entirely negated. I can, without a guilty conscience, vote for a third party candidate, and know that I am not effectively splitting the vote away from one of the two more likely candidates, Bush or Gore. I won't feel like a complete idiot for voting for Nader, and then having Bush win the election because my otherwise Democratic vote would have gone to a candidate with a small chance of winning. There's not much national support for IRV, for obvious reasons. Bush and Gore, and their respective parties in general, are scared as hell of IRV, because it destroys their flimsy command over the Independent voter. So far, Bush and Gore have not responded to any of the issues and solutions proposed by third party candidates, but rather argue on the basis of popularity and power. Hell, the third par- ties aren't even allowed into the Presidential debates, because it would destroy Bush and Gore's glossy exterior to have to face up to the allegations made by Nader, Browne and Buchanan regarding the dirty corporate money running our government. But if IRV were in place, Republicans and Democrats would have to come out behind the seemingly impenetrable wall of the two-party system and earn their votes instead of assuming them. - Manish Raiji can be reached via e-mail at mraijiLaumich.edu. 01 'Students who engage in person to person file sharing are not copyright infringers..' --Napster CEO Hank Barry. Open accessii Debates need third party candidates. D espite protesters' warnings that commission board. debates solely between Al Gore When third-p arty candidates are and George W. Bush will be boring excluded from the debates, the com- enough to cause car accidents (as mission's goal of providing the "best motorists fall asleep listening to them possible information to viewers and on the radio), the Commission on listeners" is lost. Their participation Presidential Debates will not allow would force Bush and Gore to discuss third-party candidates to participate in issues on which they have similar the presidential debates this year. Fail- views. Americans need to see all sides ure to allow these candidates to join of the issues - not just the Democrat- the debates reduces their appeal and ic or Republican ones. effectiveness. Their participation also forces can- The CPD should reduce the eligi- didates to defend themselves from all bility requirements to allow candi- sides. For example, Bush isn't going dates like Nader and Buchanan to to criticize Gore for his stance on participate. It should also appoint environmental issues, but Nader cer- members to the Commission Board tainly would. who do not belong to the two major Debates would also be more inter- parties. esting with another viewpoint. Higher The CPD was formed as a private interest in the debates likely translates agency with the aim of ensuring "that into greater voter participation and debates ... provide the makes the election best possible informa- more democratic. tion to viewers and lis- N'iIn Iommissio Onl For many of these teners." It requires a -r- reasons the American candidate to have at PI dntIl public has demon- least 15 percent support D a st ustrated an over- in the polls if he or she t whelming desire to, wants to be involved in see debates with third the debates. Ralph eSI5I u/StIa S party candidates. In a Nader and Pat - - --lia recent Fox News poll, Buchanan, currently it ispal tca'ty 64 percent of Ameri- with two and one per- b ecans said they would cent of the popular vote like to see Ralph respectively, fall below Nader and Pat, this limit. Buchanan participate The Commission is a supposedly in the debates. Clearly the people. "non-partisan ... corporation not affil- think that the way to achieve the Com- iated with any party. But its structure mission's goal of best educating the demonstrates that it is politically public is to allow these candidates to biased. The CPD board is composed share their views in the debates. Isn't exclusively of Republicans and that who these debates are for? Democrats. That said, there is a realistic limit The Commission has also been to the amount ofpeople that can have sponsored by major corporations such a productive debate. This fact is why as Philip Morris and Ford - the type the CPD should ease its restrictions of "big business" that third-party can- for the debates, not eliminate them didates often fight against. It comes as entirely. no surprise then that the debates tend But the Commission simply cannot to favor candidates from the two main ignore the positive impact these third parties. If the CPD truly wants to be party candidates would have on the non-partisan it should (at the very debates. If nothing else, it has the least) include members outside the opportunity to ensure that people stay scope of mainstream politics on the awake this year. Ilr W i~hTI Basketball ticket hike is ridiculous TO THE DAILY: I was wondering if there are any prerequi- sites to becoming athletic director. I think Econ 101 should definitely be one if the athletic department is ever to get rid of the huge budget deficit. Does Bill Martin realize that offering an inferior product and raising prices does not gen- erally make a lot of sense? Last year about 1,000 students bought bas- ketball season tickets. At $100 a pop, that's SI00.000 to the athletic department. Now this year at S104, to get the same amount of money as last year, they would have to have 962 stu- dents buy tickets. No chance. How about if they did sell 1,000 tickets? Well! That's a whopping $4,000 to chip away that 83,.000.000 deficit. Give me a break. Give the fans a break. ADAM WILSON ENGINEERING JUNIOR Freedom of education means freedom of content TO THE DAILY: In response to Jon Curry's letter and opin- ions on the "How to be Gay Class" ("'How to Be Gay' class is a passive form of promotion," 9/8/00), 1 find two critical flaws in his argu- ments. First, the argument is made that some- how, by offering a class, the university and society passively promotes and condones the gay lifestyle. Using this logic, any class offered at the University somehow promotes and con- dones the topic, which is absurd. Are we to believe that if a class is entitled "How to be a Nazi: The History of the Third Reich," that it somehow passively promotes and condones the actions of Hitler during the 1930s and 40s? If merely teaching history and exploring lit- erature condones all of the actions and lifestyles that humans have engaged in throughout histo- ry, then there are probably quite a few classes taught at the University which should be silenced. Second, the argument was made that the taxpayers have the right to say "I don't want my money being used to teach a class on a topic that I do not wish to learn about." Using this line of logic, if the state were over 50 percent Democrats and someone proposed that a class be taught entitled "How to be a Republican," then as taxpayers. the majority should have the right to abolish the class. After all, the majority of taxpayers are Democrats who neither con- done nor hold any interest in learning about the Republican party. Why should they have to pay for the class? I believe that J.S. Mill said it best: "If all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silenc- ing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." We, as a society, have agreed that education is good and knowledge is good. We have also agreed, as a society, that we are willing to contribute toward those goals even though each of us, as individuals, may or may not agree with each other on any specific topic. In the very nature of this agreement, we concede that we are not infallible, that our beliefs and our truths contain uncertainty, that our strongest opinions are often still only opin- ions, and that no individual, no minority and even no majority, is truly qualified to limit the discourse on any topic. Any course whose goal is to open an objective and informed discourse should be allowed and must be allowed. We cannot truly claim to value knowledge or edu- cation if we believe we can reserve the right to dictate content. CHRISTOPHER NOWAKOWSKI RACKHAM I THOMAS KULJURGIS rr. ; "FIVEL.' 'SITAKING I E'N'L.k -e THE "NEW AMD 1"t 14OLVERIRE PROBLEMS AS~ 3E 5IGEt IS TKE MADE-UP '4opV TO REFER'TO THE ACCESS DOES MW IrSot LACK, OF A CATCUY urrtE ACT or- REG. EifM(, CAN I TI$LL C1MAL :,~ ic-,.f " } i'.? 0 0 t I " L 1 7 f K... "m r Poles, Wolverine Access and no more phone numbers R eturning to the University after a summer spent in Ann Arbor didn't require much adjusting for me. The only thing that caught me off guard upon arrival on campus were these poles everywhere. Does no one else notice them? 1 have no clue whatsoev- er what the University is actually constructingsbut 3 it looks like they're cor- railing us in like cattle. It. might just be me, but hundreds of giant cylin- drical fence posts kinda take away from the beau- $ ty of campus. The other thing that Erin really ticks me off is Wolverine Access. I McQuinn thought when they re-did .yg_%. the system it was actual- Ameritech won first place on my list compa- nies that I'd like to see go bankrupt. I called to get my phone line activated and was just thrilled to find out that the earliest date they had to offer was Sept. 21st. I just accepted it until I noticed that everyone else already had their phone lines. But what really pissed me off was a week after I called, another chica con- tacted Ameritech and got hers turned on the next day. When I finally called Ameritech again I had the pleasure of speaking with Jodie, or Janice or Janet or something. This is all after the man inside the telephone told me that I was about to experience a wait time of greater than ten minutes. This lovely lady used her bitchiest customer service voice to give me a bunch of useless information. When I said that it didn't make any sense, she told me that since I don't understand the electrical system in my house, I shouldn't try to understand the phone ser- xz,-'P 1 then Pyinrlned to lith nl r r hckLie or Ameritech man came back one second later and said that they ran out of phone numbers ... How the hell do you run out of phone num- bers? Just make some more up! I'll make up my own number if I have to, I don't care - I just really, really need a phone. So there I was, practically ready to give up my first-born just to have a phone line. Desperately pleading with the Ameritech man to pleeeeease give me a phone. So all I have now is my Sprint PCS, which is a pretty sorry excuse for a cell phone. I look like an idiot running around the house holding it above my head trying to get a cell. I should really just get a new service. But I'm stubborn like that, and I paid too much money for a phone that has voice dial and web access, but never rings. I just can't make myself break down and get a phone that works. So why do I even have a cell phone any- more, the only thing that actually works on it is voice~mail.It semsto haive lost its rinizirni 01