First, a shout-out to Dave S. Clark of the Sherwood Park News for mentioning gauntlet.ca in a recent column. He cited my Uppal-Gate 2008 Series of posts as evidence that this federal campaign has taken to the web.Second, a link to the Edmonton Journal, which ran a riding profile of Edmonton-Sherwood Park today. Chaldeans Mensah, my old political science professor at Grant MacEwan College, is quoted as saying that independents don't usually get elected unless they are "extremely popular." He's right. Jimmy Ford has run what I would call an extremely impressive campaign given the fact he's an independent candidate. As the results will show in a couple of weeks, however, it just doesn't matter.That's one reason that we need democratic reform. If independents lose because voters don't prefer them, that's fine. But how can we know whether or not voters prefer them when the electoral system puts roadblocks in front of independent candidates at every turn? Roadblocks like restriction on the sources and amount of funding for their campaigns. Roadblocks like a voting method that forces people to vote strategically and prevents consensus candidates from winning.It's not fair. Canadian voters deserve better.