[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics + a method proposal

[Juho]

On May 30, 2008, at 5:44 , Fred Gohlke wrote:

> An electoral method that lets everyone participate, at whatever  
> time in their lives and to whatever extent they are motivated to  
> act, will give the people an opportunity that is now denied them.   
> Given the opportunity, I've little doubt they will take an active  
> part.  The intense discussion of political topics on the internet  
> gives us insight into their eagerness to participate.

One more observation on the risks.  Some people may feel  
participation in a triad to be more challenging than dropping a  
ballot n a box and therefore avoid taking part in such challenging  
activities where they are expected to perform and prove their viewpoint.

> We may be working at cross-purposes here.  I feel no compulsion to  
> discuss a different method, but if you are proposing one that is  
> better than Active Democracy I want to consider it, carefully and  
> in detail.

Makes sense.  I just tried to list an array of notable methods that  
have "party agnostic" and/or "bottom-up" characteristics (and that  
you therefore might consider to be good methods) (=> open democracy,  
delegable proxy, STV, a family of random ballot based methods).

> Methods must meet specific needs.  In my state, there are well over  
> 5 million voters.  If everyone can nominate a candidate for office,  
> how many nominations will we have?

I agree that for one particular election the rules need to be very  
specific.

> re: "(It is also possible that the list of candidates nominated for  
> governor is not that long since we may have some additional  
> criteria here (since we may want to exclude the possibility of  
> electing a random John Doe). Some other elections (with less strict  
> requirements) might have longer lists than this one.)"
>
> What are the additional criteria?  It is impossible to evaluate a  
> concept if we can't describe it's elements in sufficient detail to  
> allow others to critique our suggestions.  No one of us is so  
> knowledgeable we can craft an electoral method in our own minds. It  
> is only through such a critique we can hope to devise a workable  
> proposal.

I haven't carefully thought what kind of method would be good for  
this purpose and I'm also not to familiar with the set-up.  In some  
places one requires today either a nomination by some existing party  
(one name only) or to collect some high number of supporter names.   
That's one approach that can limit the number of candidates to really  
small numbers if we so want.

> re: I asked, "Does nominating someone for public office suggest a  
> beneficial interest in that person's election?  If so, should we be  
> concerned?" and you responded, "I'm not sure if I caught the point,  
> but I don't see a big difference between different candidates here."
>
> The point is that when someone nominates a person for office they  
> may expect to benefit from that person's election.  Parties, for  
> example, nominate people they can rely on to enact the laws the  
> party's fund-raisers sold to the vested interests that financed the  
> party's campaigns.  The same thing is likely to be true of any  
> nomination.  My question was whether we should be concerned about  
> this circumstance.

I tried to offer nomination practices that would be "equal to all".   
If parties have some special position and the party candidates would  
be labelled in some other way than others then we might have some  
candidates might benefit of this.  But in general I don't see any  
major problems.

> re: "I think it's impossible to avoid all campaigning. Maybe the  
> rules for campaigning are separate. In many cases I think it would  
> be useful to limit the amount of campaigning to avoid the one- 
> dollar-one-vote effect. One could e.g. set a fixed limit on the  
> campaign costs."
>
> We should have learned by now that the need for campaign funds is  
> the fundamental reason our system is corrupt.  You may think it  
> impossible to avoid campaigning, but I don't.  I've outlined a  
> method that does not involve campaigning and there are probably  
> others.  Political campaigning, by definition, guarantees the  
> supremacy of money over intellect (and integrity).

Yes, the triad method effectively limits campaigning.  There may be  
also other means to limit the ill effects of costly campaigning.  I  
can also imagine situations where some party campaigns for the  
benefit of all its candidates in the triads.

> Since campaigning is a self-defeating option, we need a method of  
> examining the candidates and making the results available to the  
> electorate.  Can you suggest a method of doing so?

One very simple rule is to let the government publish a leaflet that  
has same space reserved for all candidates to tell who they are and  
what they represent. Then distribute the leaflet to all homes.   
Additional paid campaigning is not allowed.  Candidates are not  
allowed to appear in TV (unless we have a separate rule for that).

> Even if we have a 'family of methods', we must examine each one  
> carefully.  In the case of "... electing ten people of a city to  
> act as trusted citizens monitoring the criminal interrogations of  
> the police.", if we are to implement such a system, how many  
> nominations should we accept and who should we accept them from?   
> If we attempt to graft this method on our existing political  
> structure, the political parties will reserve to themselves the  
> right to name the 'trusted citizens'.

> I like this suggestion, but I question how we can achieve it.  When  
> those with political power write the rules by which that power is  
> maintained, it is unwise to imagine altruism will be their  
> motivating force.  There are a multitude of situations in my state  
> (and probably everywhere) where some form of genuine and unbiased  
> civilian oversight would be beneficial.  We already have several  
> such 'boards' and 'authorities' in our state. but they are, without  
> exception, shams.  So, although it's a good idea, implementing it  
> will not be straightforward.

In a democracy a strong and persistent majority opinion of the  
citizens (if one exists) should overrule the opinions of the  
incumbent politicians.

I agree that typically there is so much "noise" that many good  
intentions and proposals will not be implemented, and if they will  
the end result may be something different than the original  
intention, and even if implemented in the intended way the system may  
soon become corrupt.  The probabilities can be said to depend of the  
health of the democratic system in question.

It requires a lot of hard work to first improve the overall health  
level of the system.  I think we are talking about methods that can  
be used to heal the system.

> re: "Maybe all volunteers can be expected to have good intentions ..."
>
> I don't believe you mean that.

I meant that in some situations we can rely on that more than in others.

> I am unable to comment on this paragraph because it is too vague.

Yes, that paragraph was quite vague, just listing possible options,  
not a concrete well defined proposal.

> I planned to append the itemized list to this message with a couple  
> of adjustments.  I've decided not to do so because it does not  
> appear to represent a firm proposal for an electoral method.  If it  
> is, please let me know and I'll post it again so we can work on  
> providing a rationale for each of its elements.

Yes, it was a list of possible options rather than a complete proposal.

Juho




		
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