[EM] language/framing quibble

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Fri, 6/3/09, Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net> wrote:

> Good Morning, Juho
> 
> re: [my comment] "If we design a process that does not
> require
>     campaigning, the evils of campaigning will be
> avoided."
> 
>     [you asked] "How will you do that?"
> 
> The method outlined in my February 4, 2008 post, "Selecting
> Leaders From The People" does not require campaigning. 

Yes, that method reduces
campaigning since all
decisions are very local.
The answer in this case
seems to be to reduce the
number of candidates that
each voter can vote.

Local campaigning is of
course still needed (in
the small groups). Also
party campaigning may
be present (anonymous).

(All methods that aim at
electing regular citizens
instead of professional
politicians have similar
properties.)

Juho


> An updated version of that post follows:
> 
> 
>                
>        PRACTICAL DEMOCRACY
>            
>    (Selecting leaders FROM the people)
> 
> FOUNDATION
> To select better leaders, we must select the most
> principled of our people as our representatives.  The
> method must be democratic (i.e., allow the entire electorate
> to participate), egalitarian (i.e., give everyone an equal
> chance to participate), and it must be in harmony with
> natural human responses.
> 
> This outline presents such a concept in the simplest, most
> direct way possible.  It will, necessarily, mention a
> few of the mechanics, but they are secondary.  The
> important thing is the concept of harnessing human
> nature.  Once we've seen a way to do that, we can
> concern ourselves with the myriad other details.
> 
> Although the process is continuous, I will describe it as
> having two phases.  The human factors dominating the
> first phase will metamorphose into a different set of
> factors as the second phase develops.  This
> metamorphosis is the "magic" of the process.
> 
> METHOD
> 1) Divide the electorate into triads, groups of three
> people.
> 
> 2) Assign a date and time by which each triad must select
>    one of the three members to represent the
> other two.
> 
>    a. No participant may vote for himself.
> 
>    b. If a triad is unable to select a
> representative in the
>       specified time, the triad is
> disqualified.
> 
> 3) Divide the participants so selected into new triads.
> 
> 4) Repeat from step 2 until a target number of selections
> is
>    reached.  The target number will be
> the number of local
>    offices to be filled and the community's
> candidates for
>    county, state and national elective
> offices..
> 
> DISCUSSION
> An Electoral Commission conducts the process.  It
> names the participants of each triad and supplies the triads
> with the text of pending ordinances and a synopsis of the
> budget appropriate to the triad.  In addition, on
> request, it makes the full budget available and supplies the
> text of any existing ordinances.  This insures a
> careful examination of public matters and encourages a
> thorough discussion of partisan views on matters of public
> concern.
> 
> For convenience, we refer to each iteration as a "Level",
> such that Level 1 is the initial grouping of the entire
> electorate, Level 2 is the grouping of the selections made
> at Level 1, and so forth.  The entire electorate
> participates at level 1 giving everyone an equal opportunity
> to advance to succeeding levels.
> 
> * As the process advances through the levels, the amount of
> time
>   the participants spend together increases.  At
> level 1, triads
>   may meet for a few minutes, over a back-yard fence,
> so-to-speak,
>   but that would not be adequate at higher
> levels.  As the levels
>   advance, the participants need more time to evaluate
> those they
>   are grouped with.  They also need
> transportation and facilities
>   for meeting and voting.  These are mechanical
> details.
> 
> * The public has a tendency to think of elections in terms
> of
>   just a few offices: a congressional seat, a senate
> race, and so
>   forth.  There are, however, a large number of
> elected officials
>   who fill township, county, state and federal
> offices.  The
>   structure outlined here provides qualified
> candidates for those
>   offices, as follows:
> 
>   At a predefined level (determined by the number of
> offices to
>   be filled), the participants decide which of the
> remaining
>   candidates will fill the local offices and which
> will be
>   candidates for elective offices in the county, state
> and
>   national governments.
> 
> The initial phase of the process is dominated by
> participants with little interest in advancing to higher
> levels.  They do not seek public office; they simply
> wish to pursue their private lives in peace.  Thus, the
> most powerful human dynamic during the first phase (i.e.,
> Level 1 and for some levels thereafter) is a desire by the
> majority of the participants to select someone who will
> represent them.  The person so selected is more apt to
> be someone who is willing to take on the responsibility of
> going to the next level than someone who actively seeks
> elevation to the next level, but those who do actively seek
> elevation are not inhibited from doing so.
> 
> As the levels increase, the proportion of disinterested
> parties diminishes and we enter the second phase. 
> Here, participants that advance are marked, more and more,
> by an inclination to seek further advancement.  Thus, a
> powerful human trait is integrated into the system.
> 
> Those who actively seek selection must persuade their triad
> that they are the best qualified to represent the other
> two.  While that is easy at the lower levels, it
> becomes more difficult as the process moves forward and
> participants are matched with peers who also wish to be
> chosen.
> 
> Each participant must make a choice between the other two
> people in the triad knowing that they must rely on that
> person's integrity to guide their future actions and
> decisions.  In doing so, they will choose the person
> they believe most likely to conduct public business in the
> public interest.
> 
> However, they do not make their choices blindly. 
> Elections are a periodic process.  The majority of
> those seeking advancement will do so each time the process
> recurs.  Some will be successful.  They will
> achieve public office and their performance will be a matter
> of public record.  When they participate in subsequent
> occurrences of the process, their peers can evaluate that
> record to help them decide the candidate's suitability for
> advancement.  Furthermore, the names of advancing
> candidates are announced as each level completes. 
> Members of the public with knowledge of unseemly acts by an
> advancing candidate can present details for consideration at
> the next level.  Since, after the initial levels, the
> peers also seek advancement, they won't overlook
> inappropriate behavior.
> 
> Face-to-face meetings in three-person triads eliminate any
> possibility of voting machine fraud.  Significantly,
> they also allow participants to observe the non-verbal clues
> humans emit during discourse and will tend to favor moderate
> attitudes over extremism.  The dissimulation and
> obfuscation that are so effective in campaign-based politics
> will not work in a triad of three people, each of whom has a
> vital interest in reaching the same goal as the
> miscreant.  Thus, the advancement of participants will
> depend on their perceived integrity as well as the probity
> with which they fulfill their public obligations.
> 
> This is a distillation process, biased in favor of the most
> upright and capable of our citizens.  It cannot
> guarantee that unprincipled individuals will never be
> selected ... such a goal would be unrealistic ... but it
> does insure that they are the exception rather than the
> rule.
> 
> The process is inherently bi-directional.  Because
> each elected official sits atop a pyramid of known electors,
> questions on specific issues can easily be transmitted
> directly to and from the electors for the guidance or
> instruction of the official.
> 
> The cost of conducting an election by this method is free
> to the participants, except for the value of their time, and
> minimal to the government.  Thus, it removes the
> greatest single cause of corruption in our current system
> ... the need for campaign funds.
> 
> ILLUSTRATION
> This table is built around a hypothetical election in the
> Village of Owego, New York, as suggested by Dave
> Ketchum.  According to Wikipedia, Owego had a
> population of 3,911 as of the 2000 census.  In the
> absence of actual electoral data, we will estimate the
> electorate at 2,000 people.  We will assume the
> election is to produce a Mayor for the Village of Owego and
> three candidates for county, state and national
> offices.  For simplicity, we will assume each of the
> triads selects a candidate.
> 
>                
>                
> Selected
>                
>                
> Randomly
>                
>                
>   From
>                
>   Full          Previous 
> Total  People    People
> Level Candidates Triads Overflow  Level  Triads
> Selected Unselected
>   1      2000     
> 666      2         
>     666     666   
>   1334
>   2       668   
>   222      2   
>    1      223 
>    223       445
> (1)
>   3       223   
>    74      1   
>    2       75 
>     75       148
>   4        75   
>    25         
>             25   
>   25        50
>   5        25     
>   8      1   
>    2        9 
>      9        16
> (2)
> 
> (1) Level 2 is a special case.  If the number of
> candidates does
>     not divide equally into triads, any
> candidates remaining are
>     overflow.  When there is overflow from
> Level 1, the extra
>     person(s) automatically become candidates at
> Level 2.
>     Thereafter, when there is overflow at any
> level, the number
>     of people needed to create a full triad are
> selected at
>     random from the people who were not selected
> at the previous
>     level.
> 
> (2) The nine people selected at level 5 decide which of the
> nine
>     will serve as Mayor of Owego and which three
> of the nine will
>     compete for offices at the county, state and
> national levels.
> 
> To give a very rough idea of the time lapse required for
> such an election, we will hypothesize triad lives of 5 days
> for the 1st and 2nd levels, 12 days for the 3rd and 4th
> levels, 19 days for the 5th and 6th levels, and 26 days
> thereafter.  For the Owego example, that would work out
> something like this:
> 
>    Level  Start 
>    Report     
>    Days
>      1)  07/09/08 
> 07/14/08          5
>      2)  07/16/08 
> 07/21/08          5
>      3)  07/23/08 
> 08/04/08         12
>      4)  08/06/08 
> 08/18/08         12
>      5)  08/20/08 
> 09/08/08         19
> 
> The 9 people selected at level 5, would start meeting on
> September 10th and make their selections by September 29th,
> 19 days later.
> 
> CONCLUSION
> The idea presented here will be considered radical. 
> It bears little chance of adoption because it protects no
> vested interest.  The only way such a process will ever
> be adopted is if the concept can be made a topic of
> discussion, particularly among students interested in
> achieving a righteous government.
> 
> Fred Gohlke
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