[EM] Implementing Practical Democracy with Votorola

[Michael Allan]

Fred Gohlke wrote:
> Got it.  I was thinking in terms of elections with known participants; 
> governments, boards of directors, unions, and so forth.  I hadn't 
> considered elections among an amorphous, undefined group.

I believe we are thinking on the same lines, at least with respect to
participants.  The participants are the residents of a city, province,
or state.  (Not an undefined group.)

You mean the administrators.  It's true that Votorola allows anybody
to administer the elections.  Even a private individual could do it,
though not quite alone.  He would need the help of the local
residents.  (Votorola is designed to work even where the government is
hostile to it.  But if the government were friendly and offered an
authenticated voter list, then it would be for the voters to decide
whether or not to use it.  They would have a choice.  No problem, in
either case.)

> If you have an authenticated voter list, can you handle the random 
> assignment of voters to triads, record the triads' selections, and generate 
> new triads from the results?

Yes.  Any administrator can.  Votorola provides the vote counts, and
the adminstrator may compose scripts to do the rest.  In particular,
he composes what we may call a "triad script".  It calculates the
required vote threshold Vt(S) at each stage S:

  Vt(S) = 0, 2, 4, ... 2^(nS - 1)

  where S = 1, 2, ... nS

It then reads the number of votes received V(p) for each participant
(p) from the latest count, and filters the list according to the
criterion:

  V(p) >= Vt(s)

Only those who were selected at the previous stage will remain.  The
script randomly assigns them to triads, writes the assignments to the
database, and reports them to the users.  (Remind me to add a facility
for read-only fields in the voter input table, to store the triad
assignments, and other admin records.  That way, they'll automatically
be visible in all of Votorola's user interfaces.  No problem.)

The admin would also compose an "eligibility script".  The eligibility
script would enforce the triad assignments.  For every vote that was
cast, it would read the assignment from the database, and pass or bar
the vote accordingly.  (I described this in my last post.)

All that remains is to run the triad script at each stage S, according
to the timetable.

> I looked at the material at the link you gave me, and I'm flattered you 
> think I'd understand it.  But, I don't have to understand it.  I'm sure you 
> can make it do what needs to be done.  As long as we agree on what we want 
> to accomplish, I've no doubt you can make it happen.

Although we have different designs, it happens the software is
flexible enough to cover both:


     Delegate   Practical
      Cascade   Democracy

       design   design
            \   /
             \ /
              |
              v
           software
           /     \
          /       \
         |         |
         v         v
      system     system


So I can provide the software.  But it's not enough.


              design
                |
                v
     coder -> software
                |
                v
     admin -> system
                |
                v
     voter -> make it happen


You need to find an admin who can install Votorola, and get an initial
PD system running.  Expose it to the local residents, and see what
happens.

> I'm sorry, Michael, but I don't know what normative voting is.  My 
> electoral horizon is limited to people and issues.  Perhaps I should infer 
> that what you are calling a 'norm' is what I would call an issue, but since 
> I find it difficult to communicate ideas clearly and effectively, I have an 
> aversion to making assumptions about the meanings of terms.

You wanted to provide the electors with a mechanism to guide the
elected?  One such mechanism is normative voting (where the issue is a
norm), which is described here:

  http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht
  (section 3, The Communicative Composition of Norms)

This has nothing to do with elections, per se.  In an election, the
issue is the allocation of a public office.  But Votorola allows
people vote on any issue.  You may restrict this facility in your own
system.  If you do not restrict it, then people will independently
raise issues such as laws, plans and policies (norms), and attempt to
reach consensus on them.  They will do this in the hope of providing
guidance to the government, and to society as a whole.  (That's the
intent, anyway.)

-- 
Michael Allan

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