[EM] Buying Votes

[Raph Frank]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 5:49 AM, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com> wrote:
> democracy is distinct from consensus? Of course it is! I can win under
> any reasonable voting method by pleasing less-than-everyone.

There are potential free rider issues with trying to please everyone.
In the case of a system that requires total consensus, it is generally
called the hold out problem.

It can be in everyone's interests (including the hold outs) that
decisions are made with less than total agreement.

Basically, fast decisions are a public good, but obtaining decisions
biased in your favour is a private good.

> Right... voting is non-contractual. THAT IS THE POINT! If it were
> contractual (read "verifiable"), then all of the corruption and
> evilness and vote-buying becomes reality.

It depends on how the contracts work.

For example, if candidates could make binding campaign promises, then
you would have a contract, but not vote buying.

Another option is with a PR method and a "program for government".

Once the election has happened, a coalition can be formed from parties
that have more than 50% of the vote.  Because they discuss the
policies of the government as a whole, it allows trading of support
for one policy in exchange for support in another.

> Democracy -- a decision-making algorithm with unrestricted domain (it
> is possible to vote for every candidate available in every way
> available) that is unbiased (hence discarding
> perfect-consensus-or-status-quo.) based on the input of the electorate
> i.e. the governed.

You could think of rights as the general public protecting themselves
from their government.  They specify the limits of what their
representatives can do.

Perhaps, with direct democracy, they wouldn't be needed, but some
mechanism for allowing the constitution to be changed slowly is
reasonable.  For example, if someone doesn't vote, they are assumed to
no support an instant change.

> If people know for whom I voted, society falls apart. I can manipulate
> voters such that a majority (read "group capable of overpowering the
> rest in an election") with a marginal benefit can steal crap from the
> minority (read "group being overpowered"), who would lose a lot. I can
> profit off this. People already do to some extent.

You could also think of voting as a detailed opinion poll, the
objective is to find out what people really think.

> Democracy will only last until people realize they can just vote
> themselves the money. Mutual distrust keeps them from realizing this.

That is pretty short term thinking.  I think voting themselves the
money would cause people to leave the country, and or, cause massive
civil disobedience.  Also, since you have to payoff more than 50% of
the society, the amount 'looted' will be pretty small per person.