[EM] A design flaw in the electoral system

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Morning, Michael

re: "... I've corrected the passage to read:

        ... 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 ..."

This inspires three comments:

1) Are we not both saying the same thing with regard to public
    participation in the electoral process?  Since I'm anxious to
    understand your perspective, and particularly how it differs
    from my own, can we differentiate between your point of view
    and:

      "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."

2) "It is often impractical for voters to communicate through physical
     proximity" ...

That is only true for large numbers of voters.  For small groups, modern 
mobility eliminates the problem.

3) "But the invalidity only arises because they do not
     communicate by *any* means ..."

Do you mean by this that the ballot is invalid because it does not allow 
the voters to express their true desire?  To say the vote is invalid is 
to say the issue on which ballots are cast, as stated, has not been 
reduced to the essence on which the voters wish to express their 
preference.  What would be the point of communicating if not to alter 
the issue in some way?


re: "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."

Where voting is by ballot, it is true that a voter who does not cast a 
ballot is not a voter.  However, that does not seem to be the point.  It 
appears the point is that, at the moment a ballot is cast, the person 
that casts the ballot ceases to be a voter.  That is only true as to 
future issues which may come before the voters.  It is untrue as to the 
issue on which the ballot was cast.

Ballots are the method by which voters express their opinions on matters 
at issue at the time they cast a ballot.  The fact that a ballot is no 
longer in a voter's physical possession after it is cast does not alter 
the validity of the expression of interest stipulated by the voter. 
Voters are not diminished by the act of voting; they are no less the 
voters on an issue after they cast their ballots.  Subsequent events may 
cause voters to rue the ballot they cast, but that does not alter the 
validity of their ballot.


re: "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."

This appears to be the crux of the matter.  The right of the people to 
communicate among themselves (i.e., deliberate) on matters of public 
concern is the essence of democracy.  The flaw in modern electoral 
practice is not the separation of voters from their ballots but that 
voters have no means by which they can deliberate on and decide for 
themselves the issues on which they will vote.


re:  Comment to Juho Laatu, 20 Oct 2011:  "Recall that we already
      discussed the power of one's vote.  Didn't we measure it at
      zero, not 1/N?  The vote has no effect on the political
      outcome of the election, therefore it has no power."

If only one person votes in an election, that person's vote decides the 
election.  As more people vote, their votes dilute the significance of 
the single deciding vote as expressed by 1/N.  As the electorate grows, 
the significance of an individual vote diminishes but does not reach 
zero (although it gets very close).

As Juho pointed out, interest groups form to attract votes to one side 
of an issue or another.  As the interest groups grow in size, the effect 
of their members' votes increases.  However, and this is the critical 
point, for individuals that reject interest groups and vote their own 
beliefs, the significance of their vote decreases as the size of the 
electorate grows.  Thus, the value of the individual's vote approaches 
zero (but never actually reaches it) because it is swamped by the votes 
of special-interest groups.  It is proper to say the value of an 
individual's vote is effectively zero, but it is not mathematically so.

Fred Gohlke