[EM] Continuous elections and their interplay with power structures

[Michael Allan]

You are talking about an assembly, Abd.  In the scenario I cited, the
park improvement is being decided in an open, continuous election.
The whole neighbourhood is eligible to vote on the plans, and to draft
alternatives.  There is no assembly.

Stability doesn't seem to enter into the plan election.  It can
tolerate vote shifts among alternative drafts, as people "consider
evidence and alternatives, negotiate for broader consensus, and so
forth" - as you say.  Such shifts will not preclude a steady build-up
of consensus, because the votes will often go to alternative drafts
that express a convergence, arising from textual recombination, rather
than a divergence.  So stability in the plan election, per se, is
largely irrelevant to its success.

What *does* appear to be relevant to its success, is stability in the
Mayoral election.  As the scenario illustrates, the park improvement
will depend on the leadership of the local Mayoral delegate (Mae); on
the network of communication she has established with City Hall, by
virtue of her vote; and on the Mayor's back-delegation of power, along
the same lines.  This is the power structure.  It will depend, in
turn, on the stability of electoral support in the Mayoral election.
If the votes do not flow into a stable configuration, with the Mayor
at the nexus, then the power structure is going to be weakened, and
difficult to access.  The park improvement will have a rough ride - as
will much of the City's business.

The shape and stability of popular assent has different implications,
depending on the object of assent:

  a) norm in mid-construction

  b) executive office in mid-term

  c) member in a sitting assembly

The latter isn't part of the scenario.  Presumeably the electoral
support of a member (c) will be stable as long as she supports her
electorate's normative and executive decisions (a and b).  So she
would support their legislative agenda, as expressed in parallel norm
elections.  As consensus is reached on each open bill, she would aid
its promulagation through the assembly.

It's less clear what kind of executive decisions she might support.
But suppose the government is parliamentary.  People would probably
start a continuous election for Prime Minister.  So the member would
be expected to support that decision too, when the time came.

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> One of the reasons why I've avoided speculating much about things like 
> "stability," with delegable proxy systems is that we have very little 
> experience with them. However, they shouldn't be *terribly* different from 
> the behavior in relatively small organizations of standard proxy...

Alpha trials are about to start in Toronto.  We'll be running
continuous elections for Mayor, local MPs, and so forth.  Hopefully
that will bring some experience into the mix.

-- 
Michael Allan

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