[EM] (MA-2) Societal institution of communicative action

[Raph Frank]

On 9/21/08, Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com> wrote:
>  To compete effectively, however, it must meet two requirements: 1)
>  sufficient voter turnout in the medium; and 2) faithful carriage of
>  votes from the medium to the principal polls.  First of all, its voter
>  turnout must be high enough to indicate solid electoral support for
>  the leading candidates.  It need not equal the levels of principal
>  turnout, nor perhaps even primary turnout, but it ought to be high
>  enough that the candidates could extrapolate the results, and
>  accurately gauge their support among the wider electorate.

It might also be worth discussing possible renormalisation of votes
here to cancel out participation bias.  Also, it might be worth adding
in actual participation bias in the final election.

This would mean that if a segment of the population tends to vote,
then this could be reflected in one of the results.

>  The second requirement is that the voters must faithfully carry their
>  votes over to the principal polls on election day (step 2).  They
>  would have to translate assent from a communicative medium to a mass
>  medium.  Figure 7 shows what is involved in the translation.  From the
>  perspective of the voter, she recalls the name of the candidate who
>  currently holds her vote in the cascade (a name she knows well enough,
>  or her delegate reminds her) and then she casts a vote for that same
>  candidate at the principal polling station.

Also, this protects against corruption of the system.  If voters vote
due to intimidation or vote buying, then they can still vote the other
direction in the final election.

OTOH, there is risk of people defecting.  One of the first things that
the person elected in such a way might do is change the basic election
system so that people are more likely to vote in the same direction as
the original communication system.

A good system for the final vote might be plurality, but requiring
that the winner have 50% or more.  If the plurality winner doesn't get
50%+, then a new election must be held.

This encourages pre-election pacts.

Have you considered the possibility of using encryption to allow
anonymous participation.  The Chaum digital cash scheme could be used.
 Each voter could register for 1 digital 'coin'.  This coin then
allows them to register a user ID.  (In practice, Chaum's system may
not be required as there would be no offline trading of the coins and
also coins would only be handled once, i.e. you withdraw the coin
using your public name and then deposit it against your anonymous ID).

The coin might give some basic info about the person -
age/gender/location.  This would allow renormalisation of the polls
which keeping identities secret.

The advantage is thet some people might not want to admit their
political views publically.  They would then vote differently in the
secret ballot than in the public communication system, which weakens
the system.

A potential problem would be that it allows direct vote selling as
votes would be completely transferrable, you could just send your
'coin' to another person.  A protection against this would be to
reissue the coins every so often (say every 3 months).  A sold coin
would only last that long.