[EM] A design flaw in the electoral system

[Michael Allan]

Hi Fred,

> Bringing the individual voters together to make a decision is
> impractical in any community with more than a few people.  Voting by
> ballot was adopted to remedy this problem.

That's true, thank you for pointing out the error.  I imply that the
electoral system brings the votes physically "together", but really it
does not.  A more accurate word is "intercommunicate", and I've
corrected the passage to read:

  The formal aggregate of votes in the count engine does not
  correspond to an actual aggregate of voters in the social world.
  The individual votes intercommunicate to make a result, but the
  individual voters do not intercommunicate *as such* to make a
  decision; therefore no valid decision can be extracted from the
  result.

It is often impractical for voters to communicate through physical
proximity.  But the invalidity only arises because they do not
communicate by *any* means; or rather, because such communication is
systematically impaired, as described below.

> In the small communities that dominated the United States before the
> 19th century, democratic politics were primarily of the town meeting
> variety.  In this environment, individuals participated in the
> discussion of community issues.  Decisions were made by consensus,
> and, when consensus was not reached, by a 'show of hands'.  When
> these methods became unwieldy or impractical, decisions were made by
> ballot-type voting.  The question of 'voters being separated from
> their votes' was not significant.

I still maintain that the introduction of a ballot that (unlike hands)
is physically separate from the elector is a technical design flaw.
It is not necessarily a significant flaw at the very moment of its
introduction; but even still, an elector without a ballot is formally
not a voter.  It follows that communication among voters *as such* is
made impossible.  Moreover, if there is grounds to suspect that actual
voter-like communication among the electors is now hindered, then this
suspicion alone is enough to invalidate the election results.

> In our time, political parties are the sole arbiters of all
> political issues.  The public is excluded from the process.  That is
> the flaw in our political system.

Except that no system design explicitly or immediately enforces that
arbitration, or that exclusion.  So we cannot rightly claim it as a
system design flaw.  It may be a consequence of such a flaw (as I
think), or it may be an unrelated fact.

Some heat is taken off the parties if they're shown to be consequences
of a technical flaw.  The flaw and its attendant failures are not
their fault, after all; they were caught up in the contingency of it
like the rest of society.  For that reason, too, we might be able to
learn things from the parties.  When a complex and adaptive system
fails, its modes of failure can sometimes "invent" partial solutions
to the underlying problem.  So we should not be too surprised to find
much that is instructive in the parties.  Note for instance how they
effect structural changes by extra-constitutional means.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
http://zelea.com/


Fred Gohlke wrote:
> Hi, Michael
> 
> In describing the design flaw in the electoral process at:
> 
> http://zelea.com/project/autonomy/a/fau/fau.xht#fla
> 
> you say:
> 
>    "The formal aggregate of votes in the count engine does not
>     correspond to an actual aggregate of voters in the social
>     world.  The individual votes were brought together to make a
>     result, but the individual voters were not brought together as
>     such to make a decision; therefore no valid decision can be
>     extracted from the result."
> 
> Bringing the individual voters together to make a decision is 
> impractical in any community with more than a few people.  Voting by 
> ballot was adopted to remedy this problem.
> 
> In the small communities that dominated the United States before the 
> 19th century, democratic politics were primarily of the town meeting 
> variety.  In this environment, individuals participated in the 
> discussion of community issues.  Decisions were made by consensus, and, 
> when consensus was not reached, by a 'show of hands'.  When these 
> methods became unwieldy or impractical, decisions were made by 
> ballot-type voting.  The question of 'voters being separated from their 
> votes' was not significant.
> 
> What made the process democratic was not the method of voting but that 
> the people discussed the issues themselves and decided which were of 
> sufficient import to be decided by finding the will of the majority. 
> When the people voted, they voted on matters that were important to them.
> 
> Over time, that changed.
> 
> Gradually, advocates of the various perspectives played a larger role in 
> the process, forming factions and attracting followers.  As their power 
> grew (through the size of their following) they evolved into political 
> parties, bent on seizing power.
> 
> George Washington, with remarkable foresight, warned "in the most solemn 
> manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party".  He called 
> partisanship an unquenchable fire that "demands a uniform vigilance to 
> prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should 
> consume".  He predicted that political parties were likely to become 
> "potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will 
> be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for 
> themselves the reins of government"[1].
> 
> The tragedy of democracy in America is that our intellectual community 
> failed to anticipate and forestall the 'potent engines' that robbed the 
> people of their birthright.  Instead, we have been consumed by the 
> parties Washington so accurately foretold.
> 
> In our time, political parties are the sole arbiters of all political 
> issues.  The public is excluded from the process.  That is the flaw in 
> our political system.
> 
> For a political process to be democratic, the people must decide what is 
> important and must choose the best advocates of their interests to 
> represent them in their government.  How many among us have the wit to 
> recognize the need for such a system?
> 
> Fred Gohlke
> 
> 1) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp