[Election-Methods] delegate cascade

[Michael Allan]

(May I use the list as a scratch pad, to record ideas?  There's a
theory somewhere in these technical pieces, and maybe it connects with
the social architecture being mooted in other threads.)
http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/4yAf4tghgQ5b53pGbPDRpZ
http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/XfrpCKqPLfZVDbcSnRQHY

I've been wondering how the previous argument would apply to an
election in which the issue was an office (executive, jurist,
bureaucrat) as opposed to a norm (policy, law, plan).

   (4)


     \      \  |  /      /         \  |  / 
      \      \ | /      /           \ | /  
                                           
   ---  E -->  C  <-- D  ---     ---  X  ---
                                           
      /      / |  \     \           / |  \ 
     /      /  |   \     \         /  |   \


This is the bottom view of an election, showing the two roots (C and
X).  Higher branches and leaves are largely omitted.

If the issue here is a norm (such as the Public Health Bill) then
there is no sense in which the election will ever produce a "winner".
C and X are never going to become traditional legislators.  The
incoming vote flow will never confer on them a *power* to legislate.
It will only give them temporary license to *assemble* legislative
ideas that are flowing toward them.  This is another sense in which
the formal vote flow must correspond to actual need.  As long as C and
X are successfully assembling the incoming flow of text, they will
receive a corresponding flow of votes; otherwise the vote flow will
shift elsewhere.  In this sense, C and X are just tools of the
electorate.

Moreover they are disposable tools.  Figure 4 is just a snapshot in
time.  It shows a particular stage of norm construction at which C and
X happen to be the best assemblers - the best tools for the job.  It
is unlikely they will remain the best tools at all stages of the
construction.  This is especially true since the election will never
terminate.  Although a "final" legislative draft (say C's) might be
pulled from the root of the tree at some point and promulagated as a
law, the election will nevertheless continue uninterrupted.  No norm
is ever final - it always remains open to the possibility of amendment
or even withdrawal.  So the electorate always has an interest in it.

Technically speaking, it appears that the formal flow of votes at any
moment is the *medium* that connects input (i) to output (o):

  (i) actual interest of the electorate in the norm

  (o) formal expression of the norm, as a text

But how does this apply to an election in which the issue is a
political office?  How would the formal medium of assent relate to the
exercise of executive power?  Or juridical?  What precisely are the
inputs and outputs to be mediated?

I wonder especially how vote delegation relates to power delegation.
If my neighbour has leadership qualities, and I vote for her as Mayor
(my delegate), do I thereby assent to her becoming the Mayor's
lieutenant in my neighbourhood?  Might the Mayor delegate actual power
to her, if the need ever arises?

-- 
Michael Allan

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