[EM] proxy system

[James Green-Armytage]

Hi, it's James. I haven't been keeping up with the list much lately, but I
just wanted to respond to some of the recent discussion regarding a proxy
direct democracy system.

Mike Ossipoff wrote:
>PR is obsolete. Now Direct Democracy (DD) is easily feasible with today's 
>technology. And DD would be much better accepted by Americans than would
>PR.
>I'm not saying that I oppose PR, but PR is nothing but an obsolete 
>substitute for DD.

	I think that Mike's basic idea here is extremely good and important, but
that he has overstated it. It is true that the proxy DD system can be seen
as a logical conclusion of proportional representation (PR), that is a PR
where the threshold / quota to be a representative is reduced to one vote,
so that everyone gets their first choice. DD does a lot of the things that
PR should be expected to do at its best, and indeed does them much more
effectively.
	However, proxy DD isn't a perfect substitute for PR. I have to agree with
people who say that there is some benefit to having a legislative body
such that they can all fit in the same room at the same time, and actually
engage in realistic back-and-forth discussion about the decisions that
they are making. Also it is helpful for them to be able to engage in
successive votes on a single issue.
	I don't favor a system that totally abolishes such a legislature. And as
long as such a legislature exists, and has any kind of power, I would
prefer that it uses PR rather than single-district representation. So what
I would prefer, ideally, is a system that combines a PR legislature with a
proxy DD procedure. 
	Mike might also be right that proxy DD is in some ways more winnable than
PR. First of all, yes, PR will be very hard to institute, since
single-district representation is totally hard-wired into our political
system, and to my knowledge deeply entrenched in federal and state
constitutions. And also, yes, direct democracy is probably a more
"obvious" democratic improvement to most voters. While PR can be painted
as some sort of party-bureaucracy elitism, and the argument in favor of PR
takes a little while to explain, DD obviously means that "the people" will
have more of a say, which is supposed to be what democracy is all about. 
	However, once again, the acceptability of a proxy DD procedure depends
heavily on the kind of procedure that is proposed. I think that actually
handing over all legislative power to a DD system right away is much too
much at once. I think that a large majority of Americans would be against
such a move, partly because they would doubt the integrity (security,
etc.) of an untested system, and partly because they just wouldn't know
what to expect the outcomes of direct votes to be like. Also, I think it
would take a lot of time to get everyone registered and to get effective
proxy networks going, and you wouldn't want the votes carrying legal
weight during this period.
	This is why I have suggested that we begin with a proxy DD system that is
non-binding. The idea is for it to get up and running, to start working
well, to gain people's confidence before it ever takes on serious legal
power. In fact I suspect that even if as a nonbinding system it could
exert substantial influence and achieve impressive democratic aims if it
was handled correctly. 
	Also, I'm not sure that there needs to be a proxy DD vote on every issue
that would pass through Congress. I think that it would make more sense
for proxy DD voting to take place at intervals at least a couple months
apart to give people time to consider and digest the upcoming issues. My
notion is that the outcomes of the direct votes would serve as an overall
guide for action within the legislature.
	I think that you could gradually transition towards giving the proxy
votes more legal weight. For example, at some intermediate stage you might
have a rule that a proxy DD measure that wins by a certain percentage
would stand unless it was voted down by an equal or greater percentage of
the Congress. I don't know, something along those lines. I do think that
the proxy system should still be subject to some sort of checks and
balances no matter what. 

Curt Siffert wrote:
>Since there is a disincentive for everyone to vote on every little 
>issue, and there's also a disincentive towards becoming an even more 
>occupied proxy, I do not visualize how this would scale.

	I think that the more periodic proxy votes I have suggested would
ameliorate this problem somewhat. But in general, civic participation is
for many people desirable in itself, which outweighs the opportunity cost
of the time that they spend on it. After all, isn't participation in the
course of history one of the things that gives meaning to our lives?
Stipends are possible, I suppose. People within institutions such as
universities and NGO's might be likely to have the support of their
institution in spending time on proxy research. Members of congress and
other elected officials can, of course, still be indicated as proxies.
Retirees, full-time church officials, people who prefer to only work part
time, and yes, the rich... all of these are reasonable candidates for
proxyhood. 
	Also, another part of my proposal is to allow for votes to flow to
proxies of proxies and so on, which means that I could have lots of people
indicating me as a proxy, but if I get busy or don't have time to do the
research for some reason I can just defer them up the chain to my own
proxies. So I think that this problem can be dealt with quite effectively.

Curt Siffert wrote:
>All this points me back to the idea that I'm still really quite 
>intrigued about - Direct Representation.  The one over on Dave 
>Robinson's site.  You still have your representatives, but there's a 
>direct link rather than a geographical one.  That means those interest 
>groups that are significant nationwide but always in the minority in a 
>locality (atheism comes most quickly to mind) have representation.  If 
>any representative falls below the mathematically-designed cutoff point 
>required to be in the body, then they're voted out, in effect.  People 
>can switch their representatives when they want, and the 
>representatives are there to both hash out/amend issues, and also form 
>voting coalitions.

	This sounds more or less like proportional representation, except for the
notion that people can re-vote whenever they want to, that is, there's no
fixed election day. I think I've already said that I like proportional
representation ; ). I guess that there is something to be said for the
idea of not having a fixed election day and letting voters re-vote
whenever they like, but I think that the cost / security issues of such a
system might be a bit prohibitive. I suppose that you can always make an
argument for more frequent elections, if you like, while perhaps giving
voters the option of repeating their earlier vote by default, that is,
without actually having to do anything. I guess I'd be open to that,
although I don't have a strong opinion on it at this point.

all my best,
James

P.S. I've already posted the link here, but just so y'all know, my current
proxy system proposal is at
http://fc.antioch.edu/~jarmyta@antioch-college.edu/voting_methods/proxy.htm