[EM] Continuous elections and their interplay with power structures

[Juho]

The "cooling off" type of rules is what I'd expect to see in place to  
eliminate too radical and surprising changes.

Not all changes in opinions are malicious (coups or something like  
that). It is also quite possible and even typical that some  
representative changes his opinion from A to B since he thinks  
alternatives A and B are about equally good but he now sincerely  
thinks that B is now better. People that have given their vote  
directly or indirectly to this representative may however sincerely  
think that option A was good but B is disastrous (probably based on  
some other criteria than what the representative based his opinion  
change on).

(The problem was thus one representative moving large masses of votes  
too quickly for the voters to react and change their vote.)

Juho


On Aug 22, 2008, at 19:46 , Michael Allan wrote:

> Juho wrote:
>> Ok, in a stable system with well established connections between  
>> "nodes"
>> that stability will increase. I was concerned about the ability of
>> individuals to move large masses of votes (larger than what they got
>> directly in the election) by just their own individual decision.  
>> Maybe the
>> misuse of such power (e.g. changing one's opinion just before an  
>> important
>> election) should be eliminated somehow.
>
> In the scenario, there are two main elections to consider: office of
> mayor (1), and park improvement plan (2).  Both are potentially
> susceptible to misuse.
>
> (1).  For the mayoral election, the crucial thing is there's two
> electoral systems:
>
>   i) continuous system (public sphere's), reporting results daily or
>      hourly
>
>  ii) discontinuous system (City's), reporting results every 4 years
>      or so
>
> There is no formal coupling between the two.  All coupling is mediated
> by the individual voters.  For example (referring to the tree figure),
> L's current vote in the continuous election is:
>
>   L > M > N > X
>
> On election day, L will probably cast her official vote for X.
> Effectively she will be translating a continuous e-vote (i), into a
> one-shot ballot (ii).  This kind of manual intermediation will prevent
> misuse, I think.
>
> What happens if N switches her vote to J at the last minute, hoping to
> pull off a coup?  It seems unlikely to affect L's choice.  She will
> already have considered her options, and made up her mind for X.  So I
> doubt it will be a problem, in this case.
>
> (2).  The park improvement plan is different.  The scenario only
> covers the initial safety inspection.  Later, a final plan will have
> to be decided on.  Mae will have to judge when the consensus is strong
> enough.  She will then talk to the leading drafter at the root of the
> cascade (X).  With her permission, a copy of X's consensus draft will
> be "frozen".  X will no longer be able to modify it.  But voters will
> remain free to shift their votes from X to other drafts, such as J's.
> This cooling off period will prevent any last minute abuse of the
> consensus.
>
> At the end of the cooling off period, if Mae judges the frozen plan
> has retained a sufficient consensus, then she'll pass it to her
> Mayoral delegate for final approval from City Hall.
>
> The final plan will not be cast in stone.  Even if it is approved and
> work commences on site, the election is going to continue all the same
> - plans often need amendment, of course.  (Similar procedures of
> staged acceptance, cooling off, and amendment can be applied to other
> types of norm election - for legislation, policy documents, and so
> forth.)
>
> -- 
> Michael Allan
>
> Toronto, 647-436-4521
> http://zelea.com/
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for  
> list info


		
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