Kotze
15th July 2010, 17:46
Here are some ideas how to curb the power of the rich and get us closer to real democracy.
THE PROBLEM OF THE WASTED VOTE
People don't want to waste their votes for candidates that have no chance of winning. Being established and having a big campaign budget gives the impression of having a good chance. The perception among the voters whether a candidate has a good chance at winning is a self-fulfilling prophecy. How to reduce the problem of the wasted vote? It is mathematically proven that, lotteries aside, selection methods that are completely free of situations with non-winnning candidates affecting who wins are impossible (Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem). There are methods that come closer to the ideal than others. The ideal of frictionless machines is not attainable, but that doesn't imply that all machines are equally inefficient.
There are many single-winner methods that are better than Plurality Voting in that regard (like the Schulze Method), but they are also harder to explain and count. I'm talking about those ranking methods that satisfy a criterion called Mutual Majority: If a majority of the voters ranks a specific set of options above the rest, the winning option should come from that set. Such a method could be used in small committees, but use in big-scale elections with counting by hand is problematic. For these single-winner elections I suggest a simple improvement, Approval Voting. It works like this: Every voter can mark any number of candidates as approved. The candidate receiving most approval marks wins.
THE PROBLEM OF APPARATCHIKS
Another suggestion to reduce the problem of the wasted vote is to use a proportional voting system. The thought of a system where voters mark one party and that party gets seats in proportion to the votes received is not very appealing if the order of getting seats is determined by the top of the party hierarchy. A system that gives more power to voters is called open list; voters mark candidates, parties receive seats according to votes received, those within the party who got the most votes get the seats.
Even less dependent on parties are proportional ranking methods: Voters rank candidates, sets of candidates that are ranked above the rest by a certain percentage of the voters receive seats according to the size of that percentage. Counting these ballots by hand is problematic or impossible when it comes to elections with many seats. But a simplified version can easily be counted by hand: Each candidate publishes a ranking at a set date before the election, voters mark one candidate, that candidate's ranking gets multiplied by the number of votes received.
THE PROBLEM OF GETTING ON THE BALLOT
A change in election methods is pointless if the hurdle to get on the ballot is so high to effectively block out competition to the established parties and candidates. At the time of this writing, the rules of running for Mayor of London literally require that a candidate has to provide a certain amount of money that he won't see again if he receives votes below a specific threshold. This is a transparent case of the rich blocking competition. A more common hurdle is to require a certain amount of signings. While such a rule doesn't state that you need money to run, it amounts to the same.
Blocking competition is very popular with the rich, especially if it is done in an underhanded manner. It can happen that pressure from below for electoral reform might result in a system that guards the establishment just as well as before, if an improvement of voting rules is accompanied by quietly raising the hurdle for becoming a candidate. Therefore, a movement from below that aims at improving the electoral process should also aim at lowering this hurdle. At least some places on the ballot should be assigned by lot.
THE PROBLEM OF THE MEDIA FILTER
Media corporations tell us to rely on them for reporting on issues and candidates. These institutions are not organized in a democratic way, but hierarchical, that is, headed by the rich. The distinction between ads and content is formal. In reality, the threat of withdrawing ads is about economic survival, hence it affects the content. Newspapers get more funding from ads than from what readers pay upfront. I don't need to tell you about TV.
The media can be made democratic by technological development that allows distribution of media created by the non-rich. Bringing the internet to everyone has utmost importance. Reducing the extent of copyright also reduces power concentration. What can be done to address the media problem as it relates to voting is this: The candidates directly face a randomly-selected jury that asks them questions. The interviews get published. The jury makes a recommendation whom to vote for that will appear on the ballot. For that recommendation, one of the complex voting methods mentioned in the beginning could be used.
THE LONG RUN
If the jury recommendations for single-seat elections coincide time and again with the voters' decisions, they can replace them. Political parties, changed from monolithic structures into more loose associations, will be reduced to merely making competing proposals for laws and budget allocations, with lottery-selected juries being the ultimate deciders.
THE PROBLEM OF THE WASTED VOTE
People don't want to waste their votes for candidates that have no chance of winning. Being established and having a big campaign budget gives the impression of having a good chance. The perception among the voters whether a candidate has a good chance at winning is a self-fulfilling prophecy. How to reduce the problem of the wasted vote? It is mathematically proven that, lotteries aside, selection methods that are completely free of situations with non-winnning candidates affecting who wins are impossible (Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem). There are methods that come closer to the ideal than others. The ideal of frictionless machines is not attainable, but that doesn't imply that all machines are equally inefficient.
There are many single-winner methods that are better than Plurality Voting in that regard (like the Schulze Method), but they are also harder to explain and count. I'm talking about those ranking methods that satisfy a criterion called Mutual Majority: If a majority of the voters ranks a specific set of options above the rest, the winning option should come from that set. Such a method could be used in small committees, but use in big-scale elections with counting by hand is problematic. For these single-winner elections I suggest a simple improvement, Approval Voting. It works like this: Every voter can mark any number of candidates as approved. The candidate receiving most approval marks wins.
THE PROBLEM OF APPARATCHIKS
Another suggestion to reduce the problem of the wasted vote is to use a proportional voting system. The thought of a system where voters mark one party and that party gets seats in proportion to the votes received is not very appealing if the order of getting seats is determined by the top of the party hierarchy. A system that gives more power to voters is called open list; voters mark candidates, parties receive seats according to votes received, those within the party who got the most votes get the seats.
Even less dependent on parties are proportional ranking methods: Voters rank candidates, sets of candidates that are ranked above the rest by a certain percentage of the voters receive seats according to the size of that percentage. Counting these ballots by hand is problematic or impossible when it comes to elections with many seats. But a simplified version can easily be counted by hand: Each candidate publishes a ranking at a set date before the election, voters mark one candidate, that candidate's ranking gets multiplied by the number of votes received.
THE PROBLEM OF GETTING ON THE BALLOT
A change in election methods is pointless if the hurdle to get on the ballot is so high to effectively block out competition to the established parties and candidates. At the time of this writing, the rules of running for Mayor of London literally require that a candidate has to provide a certain amount of money that he won't see again if he receives votes below a specific threshold. This is a transparent case of the rich blocking competition. A more common hurdle is to require a certain amount of signings. While such a rule doesn't state that you need money to run, it amounts to the same.
Blocking competition is very popular with the rich, especially if it is done in an underhanded manner. It can happen that pressure from below for electoral reform might result in a system that guards the establishment just as well as before, if an improvement of voting rules is accompanied by quietly raising the hurdle for becoming a candidate. Therefore, a movement from below that aims at improving the electoral process should also aim at lowering this hurdle. At least some places on the ballot should be assigned by lot.
THE PROBLEM OF THE MEDIA FILTER
Media corporations tell us to rely on them for reporting on issues and candidates. These institutions are not organized in a democratic way, but hierarchical, that is, headed by the rich. The distinction between ads and content is formal. In reality, the threat of withdrawing ads is about economic survival, hence it affects the content. Newspapers get more funding from ads than from what readers pay upfront. I don't need to tell you about TV.
The media can be made democratic by technological development that allows distribution of media created by the non-rich. Bringing the internet to everyone has utmost importance. Reducing the extent of copyright also reduces power concentration. What can be done to address the media problem as it relates to voting is this: The candidates directly face a randomly-selected jury that asks them questions. The interviews get published. The jury makes a recommendation whom to vote for that will appear on the ballot. For that recommendation, one of the complex voting methods mentioned in the beginning could be used.
THE LONG RUN
If the jury recommendations for single-seat elections coincide time and again with the voters' decisions, they can replace them. Political parties, changed from monolithic structures into more loose associations, will be reduced to merely making competing proposals for laws and budget allocations, with lottery-selected juries being the ultimate deciders.