[samatman]

That was a good decision, because the rule creates a negative responsiveness paradox. Spending money to support your preferred candidate should not make opposing candidates stronger.

That was the effect of Arizona's rule: money spent to promote a candidate was matched by free public money, which the opposing candidate did not have exert any effort to obtain.

Good voting systems minimize this effect. The US first-past-the-post system is not a good voting system, but that's no excuse for making it worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_responsiveness_parado...

[cbsks]

Why should money be involved in supporting a candidate? Doesn’t the democratic action of voting do that?

[pc86]

Yard signs, phone calls, websites, GOTV operations, consultants, debates, mailers, all of these things cost money. The current system requires you to appeal to donors with a winning message to get contributions to pay for these.

Who decides which candidates get limited public funds? Are you just going to split it equally between whoever runs? Why should the public pay for fringe campaigns that won't get any votes?

[kelipso]

Usually you do a poll and set a threshold for funding, like 5% or something, to avoid funding fringe candidates.