[EM] Idea Proposal: Listening Democracy

[Duane Johnson]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum, thanks to James Green-Armytage who sent me the  
address.  I am a software engineer in Chicago who also happens to be  
interested in voting methods.

I'd like to propose a voting method that may be of interest here.  It  
has also been cross-posted to the ideas group at forums.e- 
democracy.org.  This system seems almost too simple when you  
understand it, but the implications are deep and, I believe,  
profound.  I am interested in your feedback.

Thank you,
Duane Johnson

(note: also posted at http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/ideas3)

A Listening Democracy
Proposal by Duane Johnson
April 19, 2010

Synopsis

The way our system of democracy is currently implemented suffers from  
opinion isolation and lack of engagement.  Both problems can be solved  
using a viral system of democracy called Listening Democracy.  In this  
system, participating citizens play one (or both) of two roles:  
endorser and voter.  A voter earns the right to vote by listening to  
two endorsers.  An endorser can endorse one and only one voter.  An  
endorsement occurs if and only if the voter produces a written summary  
of the endorser's point of view, and the endorser is satisfied with it  
by publicly endorsing it.  A voter then ranks his or her choices in  
order of preference on the final ballot.

When knit together across an entire society, these two roles form  
chains of communication that build a (binary) tree-like relationship  
structure on the group.  It gently restructures self-insulated groups  
within the connections of natural human relationships to form a  
hierarchy.  This restructuring encourages society to discuss difficult  
issues across tribe-like boundaries.  In addition, it provides a real  
and pressing incentive for citizens who are concerned about an issue  
to use information from others to form a final registered opinion  
(vote), which in turn informs and possibly motivates yet other  
citizens to become involved.

Simple Summary from a Citizen's Perspective

You can vote, but you have to listen to two other people's opinion  
about the issue first.  You don't have to agree with their point of  
view, you only have to summarize their opinion in writing.  If the two  
people each agree that your summary is accurate, then you've earned  
the right to vote!

Roles

Endorser:
   - explains their point of view to a voter
   - can give their public endorsement to at most ONE voter
   - endorses a voter ONLY IF the voter has produced in writing an  
accurate summary of the endorser's point of view
   - submits a WRIT OF ENDORSEMENT via mail or the internet, with  
their name, the date, the summarized text, and the voter's ID.

Voter:
   - registers as a potential voter and receives a voter ID
   - records an endorser's point of view in writing
   - votes on an issue ONLY IF they receive an endorsement from TWO  
endorsers
   - has no legal obligation to vote as the endorsers would vote if  
given a chance
   - can also be an endorser to endorse someone else

Voting Process

The voting process would go like this:
   1. (By some process outside the scope of this proposal), it is  
determined that an issue needs to be voted on
   2. The issue is publicized and some citizens become aware of the  
issue
   3. Of those who are aware, some citizens are concerned and want to  
vote on the issue.  Each engages in the following process:
     a. The citizen registers as a voter and receives a voter ID
     b. The voter approaches a potential endorser (e.g. friend or  
relative) and asks to hear their point of view for the vote
     c. The endorser tells their point of view
     d. The voter summarizes their point of view in writing
     e. The endorser agrees that the summary is a correct  
representation, endorses the writ, and registers the endorsement
     f. The voter repeats steps (b) through (e) for a SECOND endorser
     g. The voter is now qualified to vote, and votes.
   4. Some endorsers are citizens who were not previously aware of the  
issue, or perhaps unaware of their own concern for the issue.
   5. Concerned endorsers then become voters by following steps (a)  
through (g) above.

Analysis

   The Listening Democracy system emphasizes, formalizes, and rewards  
listening in the decision-making process.  The system is an  
improvement over direct voting because it ensures that each voter  
synthesizes information external to them.  It assumes that decisions  
reached through discourse are generally better than those reached by  
merely counting isolated opionions.  While it is true that the present  
system of democracy does not prohibit discussion (in fact, it is  
neutral to discussion), there are currently no significant rewards  
built into the system for thoughtful voters.  A Listening Democracy  
sets a minimum bar of thoughtfulness, thus excluding people who are  
unable or unwilling to explain how others see things.  Crucially,  
however, it does not exclude people who do not reach that bar from  
significantly influencing the system.

   An important element of a Listening Democracy is the ranked ballot  
(and subsequent pairwise tally, see Condorcet Method on Wikipedia).   
By allowing voters to rank their preferences, they are enabled to take  
much more of their endorsers' points of view into account.  For  
example, if the voter strongly believes option C is better than  
options A and B, but has no preference as to how A and B should be  
ordered, the voter is likely to reflect the preferences of his or her  
endorsers in this case.  A ranked pair-wise tally is the best method  
of capturing the will of the majority when there are more than two  
choices on the ballot.

   A Listening Democracy is designed to virally involve more of the  
citzenry.  For example, most people are not aware of issues that may  
actually affect them.  If an uninvolved citizen is approached by a  
voter for an endorsement, the citizen may realize that they want to be  
involved and thus engage two other people in order to gain their  
endorsement and qualify to vote.

   The age of becoming a "endorser" should probably be younger than  
that of a voter.  For example, perhaps children at age 10 can be  
considered old enough to describe their point of view and provide  
input to the political system.  This would provide a reasonable  
solution to the age old problem of disenfranchising children.  In  
addition, by involving young citizens in this way, they would be  
educated and motivated to actively participate in the civic process  
once they reach the voting age.

   As mentioned earlier, the system is "viral" in the sense that it  
systematically involves more and more of the population.  Even though  
the system is viral, by the mathematical properties of 2 endorsers to  
1 voter, there is a maximum of HALF the population that can vote.  
While this may at first seem undesirable, it is in fact an important  
feature of the system.  By evenly (i.e. without discrimination)  
applying a restriction on the number of people who can vote, the value  
of a vote increases, just like currency.  In practice, it seems  
unlikely that more than half of the population would actually vote.   
If this restriction were ever to become a problem, then Listening  
Democracy would be considered a phenomenal success on the part of the  
author, since it would mean that the entire population was involved in  
the process either as an endorser or a voter.

   The more controversial the issue, the harder it will be to find  
easy like-minded endorsements.  Consider the case of a one-child  
family where the wife decides to vote.  She asks her husband and son  
for an endorsement, and they both comply by explaining their points of  
view.  The husband becomes interested and receives his wife's  
endorsement.  He cannot get another endorsement from his son (an  
endorser has only one endorsement to give) and therefore must look  
outside the family for an endorsement.  The family has now provided 3  
endorsements to the system, and has been saturated.  Friends of this  
family cannot come to this family for an endorsement and must look  
elsewhere.  As long as the number of endorsements a person can give  
(in the proposed case, "1") is less than the number of endorsements  
required (in the proposed case, "2") then this property of harder-to- 
find endorsements for controversial issues will hold.  When  
endorsements are hard to find, more discussion will be required across  
tribe-like boundaries.

Objections

What about people who cannot read or write?  Doesn't this  
disenfranchise them?

   From the perspective of the society as a whole, it is desirable to  
invite people to learn to read and write so as to become better  
informed about decisions.  Nevertheless, the information of all people  
in the society is needed to make any good decision, and ultimately  
that information will not be lost in a Listening Democracy if literate  
people request the endorsement of people who are illiterate.   
Endorsement requires only the ability to sign one's name.

   As an additional option, it seems possible with technology today to  
allow a person to summarize another point of view using a video  
camera, and for the endorser to use that as evidence of having been  
correctly understood by the voter.  Unfortunately, video cameras are  
expensive and illiteracy tends to correlate with poverty, so the  
proposed solution may only be theoretical.

What about vote buying or "endorsement buying"?

   Vote buying would actually be much harder in a system of Listening  
Democracy.  Consider first of all that an unscrupulous citizen would  
have to buy out 3 people to get 1 vote: a voter and his or her two  
endorsers.  An unscrupulous citizen might try to buy the voter after  
he or she has achieved endorsement, but then a voter would feel doubly  
guilty for using or possibly even backstabbing close friends or  
relatives.  It seems that Listening Democracry would promote honesty  
in society better than any law could enforce it.

Can a Listening Democracy be implemented without the ranked ballots?

   Yes, but unfortunately a great deal of information will be lost in  
the final tally and will thus waste so much effort.

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