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Message: <blockquote data-quote="2WS-Steve" data-source="post: 3332360" data-attributes="member: 3289">I don't quite understand what's wrong with appealing to a core value such as everyone gets their own vote, nor why appealing to it would be arbitrary.I'm not talking here about some abstract principle of democracy, but the simple principle that in the vote we each get our say and we each get our own chance to convince others that our choice criteria are the best.One reason we want to limit the number of rules restricting who can and cannot declare judge candidacy is that more rules shift power to the small group of people running the rules committee. Essentially, the committee's votes count for more than the rest of the public since the committee is able to limit the public's choices.I said earlier that I wanted to avoid the representative democracy discussion but since you're bringing it up I'll just mention briefly why I, as a voter, prefer it.There's just too much stuff out there for me to look through it all. By voting for judges I'm able to delegate that choice to someone who's committed to devoting the time to looking through all the product and who I think would be good at it/do so honestly.I could just vote directly, but then I'd miss out on a bunch of books that were excellent, but slipped below my radar.That's perfectly fine, but take your reasoning to the voters and let them decide, instead of a rules committee.I don't think a history of popular or well-respected members of the community demonstrates pro-incumbency in the voting system. At most it demonstrates pro-incumbency in the voters. Even then it simply makes sense that if I liked a candidate last year, then I'll probably like them again this year. I don't see why my liking and voting for someone in the past is a good reason that we should set up a rule specifically preventing me from voting for them in the future. Again, why can't I just make that decision myself?This is also markedly different from U.S. elections, where the incumbent gets stamping privileges, builds up warchests, brings pork back to his constituents, and so on, which do give them significant advantages.</blockquote>

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