[EM] Continuous elections and their interplay with power structures

[Michael Allan]

Juho wrote:
> There is a difference between methods where only voters can modify their 
> votes at any time and methods where the candidate that got some votes can 
> redirect these votes. The latter case may cause larger and faster changes. 
> And such changes may lead to reactions also among those voters that gave 
> their vote to this person (if the voters do not like the change). These 
> properties may mean higher instability.

I argue the opposite.  My guess is that, in mid-term:

  a) the tree structure (pattern of vote flow) will be highly stable

  b) it will be especially stable if the leaf voters are disconnected
     (but I do not advocate that)

(a) It will be stable because the tree will not only model opinion,
which can easily shift, but also a structure of power and lines of
communication, which cannot.  In practice, power is going to be
delegated from the center (root) to the periphery (leafward) of the
tree, following the lines of voting, and the rules of patronage.  And
communication channels will form along those same lines.  Once this
structure crystallizes, vote shifts be detrimental to the delegates at
all levels, and to most of the leaf voters too.  The effect of a vote
shift will be to unplug oneself from the power structure.

(b) There may be some bleeding of votes at the very edges.  Voters who
aren't really plugged in, because they don't communicate much with
their local delegates will have nothing to lose by shifting their
votes around.  As long as they aren't too numerous, these shift voters
will perform a useful function as an early warning system (canaries in
the coal mine).

The problem (as I see it) is the opposite.  The problem is to
understand roughly how this stability is going to break down (or not)
on approaching the end of a term, and the possibility of a formal
power shift.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/