[EM] proxy system proposal

[James Green-Armytage]

Hi folks, here's the latest version of my proxy system proposal... web
page version still at
http://fc.antioch.edu/~jarmyta@antioch-college.edu/voting_methods/proxy.htm
	The most recent section which I changed is the one on "issue generation"
and "option generation".

regards,
James




A Proposal for Direct Democracy Based on a Non-Binding Proxy System
by James Green-Armytage

THE PROPOSAL
	Although democracy seems severely incomplete when it is limited to the
selection of representatives, it is challenging to apply direct democracy
on a large scale. It is difficult to imagine that every citizen of a large
nation would be able to come to a fully informed decision on every piece
of public policy that would make it to a legislature. Or, if they were
able to do so, it is hard to imagine that they would have time to do much
else. If everyone voted whether they were well-informed or not, then
public decisions may become somewhat arbitrary, or they may become more
vulnerable than they already are to manipulation by expensive public
relations campaigns. If those who lacked the time to become fully informed
refrained from voting, the system would become an effectively
discriminatory one.
            One possible way to cope with this problem is to develop a
proxy system. The basic idea of this is that voters have the option of
designating a proxy to carry the weight of their vote in deciding an
issue. Voters should be able to change their proxies at will, and there
should be no minimum threshold of votes needed for anyone to serve as a
proxy. The value of a proxy system is that even if people do not have time
to become fully educated on the issues, then they may know of someone who
does, someone with whom they share common values and beliefs.
            I propose a proxy system with the following features:
 
Proxy system with optional direct vote
            As a voter I can choose from issue to issue whether to vote
directly on that issue or to defer to their proxy. This is important
because it preserves people's ability to express their opinion directly
when they have one, while still maintaining the benefits of the proxy
system.
 
Proxies of proxies
            If I indicate someone as my proxy, and she indicates someone
as her proxy, then the weight of my vote will be passed along to her
proxy. And perhaps to her proxy's proxy, and so on. This will prevent
votes from being wasted, and allow the accumulation of votes to people who
are trusted by people who are in turn trusted by others.
 
 Ranked proxy lists
            I can have a ranked list of standing proxies (rather than only
a single proxy), so that if my first proxy neither shows up for the vote
nor has a standing proxy of her own, then the weight of my vote instead is
transferred to my second proxy. And so on. This is another mechanism to
prevent votes from being wasted.
 
Issue-specific proxies
            On any given issue I also have the option of indicating a
proxy or list of proxies different from my standing list, just to receive
the weight of my vote for that one issue. One reason this might be good is
that it would allow voters to indicate as proxies people who are
knowledgeable in the field that a specific issue relates to. For example,
if the issue is relevant to ecology, then a voter might indicate an
ecologist as their proxy for that issue, or a staff member at an NGO that
deals with the environment. Or, rather than being a matter of a field of
study, a voter may delegate his vote to someone whom he knows has educated
themselves well about that issue in particular. For example, if the issue
is choosing between different versions of a trade bill and the voter knows
someone who has read all of the different versions personally. Even if
most voters would not know such a person, their proxies and their proxies'
proxies might.
 
To sum up, each voter has 3 options when faced with a given issue:
1. Specifically vote on the issue. (This could include formally
abstaining.)
2. Indicate a specific proxy or ranked list of proxies, other than those
indicated on their standing list, just for the purpose of their vote on
the issue.
3. Do nothing, in which case their voting power goes in the direction
indicated by their standing proxy list (assuming that they have such a
list on file).
 
Paradox resolution
            If a voter indicates a new proxy list specifically for an
issue, the effect for that issue should be the same as if that list had
been their standing proxy list and they had indicated it by default. In
either case, a proxy list is indicated.
            It is possible that a paradox might arise, if for example
voter A indicates B as his first proxy, B indicates C as his first proxy,
and C indicates A as his first proxy. One possible rule to resolve this
paradox is as follows: "A vote shouldn't travel the same proxy path twice."
            Given the above case, A's vote has traveled the path A-->B,
then the path B-->C, and then the path C-->A. Therefore, according to this
rule, once A's vote returns to A, it should not once again travel the path
from A to B. Instead, it should travel to the next proxy as ranked on A's
proxy list.
            The proxy path rule is not very important, since such
paradoxes are not especially hairy. Other rules are possible, for example
"a vote shouldn't be assigned to the same person twice," in which case A's
vote would be transferred to C's second proxy rather than being assigned
to A once again.
 
Tally method
            When designing the new direct democracy (DD) system, ranked
ballots should of course be used when there are more than two options
available to voters. The official tally method should be Condorcet
efficient. The exact cycle-resolution method isn't extremely important,
since the result is non-binding. If a cycle existed, the result might not
be able to offer a single mandate to policymakers, although of course it
would suggest that they should choose an option from the Schwartz set. A
possible exception to this is if it could be strongly argued that one of
the pairwise defeats was dependent on insincere votes.
            In cases where multi-winner proportional results are desired,
STV or CPO-STV can be used. Other methods might be attractive as well,
given different circumstances.
 
Logistics and role of direct vote in government
            I propose that to begin with, the direct democracy system
should be legally non-binding, and yet be formal, official, secure, and
fully funded as a government program. The system should apply for
decisions made at the federal level, as well as decisions on the state and
local levels.
            That is, polling stations should be organized on a regular
basis, perhaps a few times per year. Voters would then have a chance to
vote directly on major policy issues. Although elected representatives
would still retain the option to act against the majority decision, there
would be some pressure to act in accordance with it. The stronger the
majority and the larger the turnout, the more weight the decision would
carry.
            The frequency of voting is up for grabs, but I would suggest
something like three or four votes per year. The number of issues per
ballot is also up for grabs. For example, around ten issues per ballot
seems reasonable.
            I'm currently not sure about the viability of internet-based
voting, because of the possibility of hacking, and because people do not
have equal access to the internet. If internet voting is not feasible,
then voting should take place at official polling stations. Voting
machines should produce a paper copy of ballots as well as storing them on
digital discs which are manually transported by couriers to the central
tally location. (Unofficial results may be carried over the internet, if
desired.)
            Voters should be able to choose their proxies from a national
list. The list of people registered as proxies should be kept on a secure
national master file which is also a matter of public record, available on
the internet, etc. Aside from just their name, there should be a few
keywords and some basic information about them so that people who want to
choose them as a proxy can distinguish them from others with the same
name. Proxy registrations should be filed some time in advance of the
vote, to give couriers a chance to bring secure copies of the proxy list
from the central file. Voters could change their standing proxy list
either at the time of the vote or at other times. When choosing their
proxy lists, voters would be able to search through a copy of the full
national file in order to find the right people.

Generation of issues
            I propose that some issues should be generated by the
legislature, and other issues should be generated outside the
legislature. I suggest that you would want to set the agenda for a few
direct votes at a time. For example, let's say that there were five direct
votes per year, each with about issues on the ballot. At the end of one
year, you could decide which issues to vote on over the course of the next
year. Each time people go to the polls for a direct vote, there should be
a combination of congressionally-generated and publicly generated issues
on the ballot.
            For issue-generation inside the legislature, I suggest a
system of single transferable vote proportional representation. For
example, you could take an STV vote to fill a certain fixed number of
slots for issues in an upcoming direct vote. You might want to give the
legislature the ability to add extra issues to be voted on in case of
emergency.
            For issue-generation outside the legislature, I propose that
issues should first be nominated via a public process, and then nominated
issues should be placed on a ballot for a direct agenda-setting vote.
One possibility is to have a separate agenda setting section of a direct
vote, which provides agenda for subsequent direct votes. This can also be
based on STV, filling a fixed number of slots. 
            How would issues can be nominated to qualify for the
agenda-setting vote itself? A certain number of petition signatures?
            I propose that there should be a role for "super-proxies",
that is people who have been named as a proxy by many other people.
Super-proxies would be given a score, calculated yearly, which would be
based on how many votes they actually cast on specific issues. That is, if
there was a vote where many people named me as a proxy, but I deferred the
votes to someone else, it wouldn't count toward my proxy score. But if I
applied the weight of those votes toward a specific position, it would
count. Proxy scores should be averaged / normalized so that a score of 300
basically means that on average during the previous year, I executed
direct votes on each issue for 300 people including myself. Hence it would
be meaningful to say that a single super-proxy's score was equivalent to
1/200 of the total number of participants, or 1/80, for example. 
            So, I suggest that when signing petitions to nominate issues,
the signatures of super-proxies would carry the full weight of their
normalized proxy score. Hence, instead of having to get thousands of
individual signatures, you could get the same effect by getting the
support of a few super-proxies. However, once again, this wouldn't
guarantee the issue a place on the actual direct vote agenda; only a place
on the agenda-setting ballot, subject to further filtering via an
STV-tallied vote.
            So, you would do an agenda-setting vote about once a year,
with the Congress filling a preset number of issue slots, and the public
filling a preset number of issue slots. Once the issues-to-be-voted-on
have been decided, you would divvy them up onto different ballotings (e.g.
one in February, one in May, etc.), and you would get to work on
generating the options for the issues on the first upcoming balloting. 

Generation of options
            Once it has been decided that there will be a direct vote on a
given issue, the next step is to generate the different options that
voters will choose from when voting that issue. The goal here is to make
sure that a less-than-ideal option doesn't win because a more-effective
compromise option didn't make it onto the ballot.
            Again, the Congress would be able to generate options. Again,
you might want to use an STV vote, but in this case, an option called "no
additional option" should be in competition with the other options that
have been proposed. A certain number of maximum slots would be available
to be filled with options, but if many Congresspeople are satisfied with
less than the maximum, some of the extra slots could be filled with "no
additional option", that is to say, unfilled.
            There should also be a public process for generating options.
I think that this is where the existence of super-proxies would prove most
useful. My current opinion is that it would be too cumbersome to have
separate public votes for issue selection and option selection. So, you
could set a relatively high threshold (number of individual or super-proxy
signatures) for option nomination, but allow nominated options to go onto
the actual ballot without further filtering. Thus, getting an additional
option on the ballot would require a very large number of individual
signatures, the support of some people with very high proxy scores, or a
mixture of the two.



NOTES ON THE PROPOSAL

Reason for starting with a non-binding system
It would be a good idea to begin with a non-binding system so that public
participation and trust can be developed before it begins to carry the
weight of legal power. This way it is essentially an organ of
communication, a kind of public communication that is largely unfiltered
and which gives people an unusually equal ability to express their opinion.
 
Cost
            The only serious objection I could see being made to this
system is that it would cost a lot of money. And indeed it would.
(However, note here that public works projects can be a good way to
stimulate the economy in times of recession... better, in my humble
opinion, that regressive tax cuts.) Also it would take a lot of time to
set up, to get people registered, to educate voters on how the system
works. However, it would actually allow the voice of the people to be
heard clearly and as a result of direct political action, rather than
through the dubious conduits of pollsters and focus groups. In contrast to
proportional representation, which can be (unfairly, in most cases)
painted as some sort of elitist strategy to increase the power of
political parties and weaken local representation, a direct democracy
system would be hard to portray as anything other than a leap forward in
democracy. Because it is legally non-binding it would not carry the risks
that are generally associated with direct democracy.
 
The benefits of Condorcet as a tally system
            I suggest that Condorcet-efficient methods would have the
potential to give us effective compromise solutions to social problems.
 
For example, let's say that there was a vote on marijuana, where the
options are as follows
1. make marijuana totally legal
2. reduce penalties for marijuana use to confiscation and fines
3. maintain current penalties for marijuana use
and the votes are cast as follows:
 
33%: legalize > decrease > maintain            
16%: reduce > legalize > maintain
16%: reduce > maintain > legalize
35%: maintain > decrease > legalize
 
            In light of these votes, we can predict that a single up-down
vote on legalizing marijuana would fail. Also, use of plurality or IRV to
tally votes would also result in the status quo. A Condorcet tally,
however, picks the compromise solution when there is one, the reduced
penalty option above.
            The marijuana vote could be even more detailed than it is
above if you lay more options down that roughly fall along a given
spectrum, that is a spectrum from light or absent penalties to harsh
penalties. A Condorcet method is likely to pick the median even with a
large number of options, as long as they are arrayed across a single
spectrum. 
            Just to be redundant, I can make a similar point with a gay
marriage issue. Let's say that there are three options on the ballot in a
given state:
1. Legalize gay marriage
2. Allow civil unions between same-sex couples
3. Allow neither civil unions or gay marriage
and the votes are cast as follows:
 
35: marriage > civil > neither
6: civil > marriage > neither
19: civil > neither > marriage
40: neither > civil > marriage
            Again, a single up-down vote on gay marriages would fail. Use
of plurality or IRV would also result in the 'neither' option. However,
Condorcet reveals the civil unions to be a majority-supported compromise.
I think that Condorcet is by far the best bet if you want centrist,
non-polarized results, provided of course that a sufficient compromise
option exists on the ballot.
 
Would the Congress be capable of generating the most effective compromise
solutions?
            If the congress was based on high-magnitude STV, I wouldn't be
so worried about this, but of course at present it's plurality-bound and
quite badly polarized.
	It is not impossible to expect Democrats and Republicans to come up with
appropriate compromise solutions to social problems, especially as a
congressional representative who initially suggested a solution which
turned out to have majority support might get some good PR.
	However, there is a real chance that both sides would have an interest in
creating weak or impractical pseudo-centrist options in lieu of genuine
compromises, in hopes of getting their first choices approved by the
popular vote by default. However, in doing so they would stand an
increased risk of having their last choices approved; hence whichever
party felt that their primary proposal was weaker might be likely to
suggest a more centrist alternative.
	Also, congresspeople who developed compromised solutions might be accused
by their party or constituents of straying too close to the values of the
other party.
Honestly, I don't know how issue and option generation would play out if
you left it up to the congress; it might work well, or it might work
poorly.
 
Alternative political leaders
            The proxy system acts as a perfectly 'high resolution' version
of proportional representation, in that voters always get their first
choice of representative. As such it may provide an increased political
role for third parties, nonprofits, and community leaders.
 
Non-binding proxy system as relatively feasible goal
            Since this direct democracy system is legally non-binding, and
since it is something entirely new rather than an existing institution
already governed by entrenched rules and practices, there is an exciting
amount of freedom in its design!
            In contrast, actually changing the electoral systems in the
United States, or any other major country, will be very difficult, and
will take a long time, to say the least. Electoral systems are deeply
entrenched, both in the constitution and in a variety of established
practices. The conservative backlash against even the most well-tested
voting method is sure to be intense and long-enduring. A change here may
happen eventually, and should be sought, but it may be easier to create
something new than to fight for changes in the existing system.
 
Direct democracy as a way to express and develop the nuance of public
opinion
            The problem I'm trying to solve is the problem of people
having only a very diffuse and indirect impact on government policy. It
seems like people have to choose between two ready-made packages, such as
"democrat" and "republican", or "Kerry" and "Bush". Just choosing between
these two packages totally glosses over even the slightest bit of nuance
that might exist in people's political beliefs. Basically it's an
oversimplification so drastic that it's dangerous. I'd like to take the
issues one by one so that we could get some clarity. For example, I'd like
a vote on different kinds of tax policies. How progressive an income tax
do people actually want? Are people interested in starting a wealth tax
rather than an income tax? Is anyone interested in shortening the work
week? Is there a majority in favor of invading a middle-eastern nation? Is
there a supermajority in favor of some sort of anti-gay-marriage
constitutional amendment? Could we get a majority in favor of higher
animal rights standards or better environmental enforcement? How about
legalizing marijuana, or at least lowering prison time for possession?
What about the death penalty, affirmative action, abortion? All these are
separate issues which don't deserve to be lumped together into
winner-take-all packages. So what I'm interested in is using these direct
votes as guides towards overall policy direction. 
 
Direct democracy as a way to mitigate the paradoxes of voting
            Through a study of election methods, we all learn that
elections are tricky, paradoxical things mathematically, and that they get
more and more difficult to handle the more options there are. A two-option
election is beautifully straightforward. An election where all options are
neatly arrayed across a spectrum is also straightforward. However, most
close multicandidate election scenarios are fraught with paradoxes that we
just can't do away with. When you have a vote for a single office, there
are dozens and dozens of issues which are simultaneously at stake, and I
suggest that the more issues you have riding on each given vote, the more
this problem is exacerbated. I suggest that by keeping different issues
separate from one another in the voting process you can minimize the
danger of resulting paradoxes.

Direct democracy doesn’t eliminate the need for electoral reform, campaign
finance reform, media reform, etc.
	Of course I would also like to see electoral reform that encourages more
sensible behavior in leaders. I favor high-district-magnitude PR for
legislatures, and a legislative body that is somewhat stronger than the
one we have in the US. I favor a Condorcet-efficient procedure for
electing executives. I favor serious campaign finance reform,
de-oligopolization of media outlets, more frequent and in-depth political
debates, and so on.
 
Direct democracy versus privately conducted polls and focus groups
            Opinion polls and focus groups have a lot of influence on
politics at present, but they are untrustworthy, and are not an
appropriate engine for democracy. Polls have large margins of error, and
are only participated in by a tiny fraction of the real population. Focus
groups take place behind closed doors, routinely have unpublished results,
and in general do nothing to further political discourse. 
            This is why I want a nonbinding DD system. I want the popular
will to come through as a result of direct political action in broad
daylight rather than through the doubtful conduits above. I want a system
which engages people to get involved, to discuss, and to act, one which
includes everyone who cares about an issue, rather than just a few people
who are randomly selected by a network news agency, or who strike a focus
group firm as being representative of swing voters.