[EM] Public parties: a Trojan Horse in the party system

[Michael Allan]

Peter Zbornik said:
> To become a member, you actually have to be a citizen in the
> municipality where Demoex works (being from Sweden, I checked it
> out).  This is a reasonable condition, and thus, unless we have a
> wold-wide public party, there needs to be some voter qualifications
> (except for being human, above 16/18/21 years of age, not seriously
> mentally impaired etc.

I guess there are three issues in this.  I'll try to unravel them as
they bear on the public party.

  * Party membership
  * Human expression
  * Vote counting

The public party has no formal membership.  Its actual membership is
assumed to be identical to that of the public.  Public membership is
determined ad hoc by human expression *in* public.  Speaker and
audience are made members by the fact of their participation.  In not
assuming this mode of membership, Demoex is not a public party.

The public depends on freedom of expression.  Voting is a form of
expression.  Placing restrictions on who can vote and who cannot (or
where they can vote, when, and how), Demoex is not a public party.

Public votes may be tallied by anyone and the tallier alone decides
which votes to count and which to discount.  A public party may tally
votes, too, and may publish a count restricted to the local electors,
or to any other subset of the voters.  Such a restricted count would
not in itself disqualify Demoex from being a public party. [1]

> > ...  We cannot image anonymous votes.  We must know the identity
> > of the voter and the time at which the vote was cast.  Only the
> > latest vote is valid.
> 
> If the identity of the voter will be public, then you open up for
> voter coercion - the employer, husband, political party, "secret
> society", church etc. etc. might be tempted to buy your vote or
> threaten you to vote as they want (sticks and carrots). That is why
> voting is secret, except for the voting of elected
> representatives. I do not think we can dispose of voting secrecy
> today. ...  I am not sure I make sense, here, as I am new to the
> discussion.

I'll share what I've learned about the secret ballot.  It's not what
it seems to be.

  (a) The enabling motivation behind the secret ballot, as with other
      electoral reforms of the 19th century, was the consolidation of
      power in the newly organized political parties.  Of particular
      concern was control over the selection of primary candidates,
      which could not be secured when the nominations and voting were
      conducted in public, as before. [2]

  (b) If all restrictions are lifted and public voters have complete
      freedom of expression, then it is difficult to see how the
      results could be manipulated except (as Conseo suggests) by
      re-imposing systematic restrictions.  Isolated instances of
      coercion, as with family, are unlikely to affect the overall
      primary results.  And, in all cases, the individual is still
      protected by the secret ballot at a later stage, in the official
      election. [3]

  (c) It is impossible to generally enforce a secret ballot in primary
      elections, or to impose any other sweeping restriction on
      freedom of expression.  It would require a power that does not
      exist in our societies.

> I am not sure I have understood this vote-mirroring thing.

Vote mirroring is basically freedom of information.  If I cast a vote
at site S, then I contribute information to S, but that information is
made public.  Others are free to copy it.  So my vote appears at sites
T, U and V, which are not only independent of S, but also based on
different voting methods.

But this freedom of information underpins other freedoms.  Now suppose
I go to site T and shift my vote.  That same vote shift appears at S,
U and V.  So I gain the freedom to vote anywhere, by any method.  If
it happens that none of the provided methods suits my needs, then I am
free to design a method of my own and build a site to host it.  If I
do build it, then I know the voters will come (at least in spirit!)
because I am free to copy their votes. [4][5]


  [1] No doubt many public parties will publish counts restricted to
      the local electors.  But I think we may also expect alternative
      parties that dedicate themselves to marginalized people such as
      children, convicts and the mentally infirm to publish more
      inclusive counts.  Marcus Pivato has predicted that people of
      any age or ability could make a positive contribution to the
      overall results, if the voting method were properly designed.

      Marcus J. Pivato.  2007.  Pyramidal democracy.
      http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/3965/

  [2] Frank O'Gorman. 2007. The secret ballot in nineteenth century
      Britain.  *In* Cultures of voting: the hidden history of the
      secret ballot.  pp. 16-42.

      See also my gloss in the footnote here:
      http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2012-July/030836.html

  [3] http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht#vote-buy

  [4] Mark Murphy was maybe the first to attempt the design of an open
      voting network.  See his prize winning essay:

      Mark Murphy.  2008.  The 'killer app' of public participation.
      *In* Rebooting America.  Edited by Allison Fine, Micah
      L. Sifrey, Andrew Rasiej and Joshua Levy.  Personal Democracy
      Press.  http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/node/5499.

      See also his later post to the Metagov list:
      http://metagovernment.org/pipermail/start_metagovernment.org/2009-February/001195.html

  [5] Past discussions of vote mirroring are indexed here:
      http://zelea.com/w/User_talk:ThomasvonderElbe_GmxDe/Vote_mirroring

-- 
Michael Allan

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


Peter Zbornik said:
> Dear all,
> 
> some comments below
> 
> 2012/7/21 Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com>
> > Paul said,
> > > indeed Demoex voting was restricted to members but membership was
> > > not restricted. ...
> >
> > This is like a political party, but unlike a public party.  A public
> > party will not restrict voting to its members.
> 
> To become a member, you actually have to be a citizen in the municipality
> where Demoex works (being from Sweden, I checked it out).
> This is a reasonable condition, and thus, unless we have a wold-wide public
> party, there needs to be some voter qualifications (except for being human,
> above 16/18/21 years of age, not seriously mentally impaired etc.
> 
> Michael Allan wrote:
> > Yes, that's correct.  We cannot image anonymous votes.  We must know
> > the identity of the voter and the time at which the vote was cast.
> > Only the latest vote is valid.
> 
> If the identity of the voter will be public, then you open up for voter
> coercion - the employer, husband, political party, "secret society", church
> etc. etc. might be tempted to buy your vote or threaten you to vote as they
> want (sticks and carrots). That is why voting is secret, except for the
> voting of elected representatives. I do not think we can dispose of voting
> secrecy today.
> 
> Personally I thought, that in a delegative proxy system, only the voting of
> a person, which has more than, say 1000 votes will be public.
> If I give my vote to a candidate with less than 1000 votes, using a ranked
> ballot, he is eliminated and the candidate who is next in ranking gets my
> vote.
> I am not sure I make sense, here, as I am new to the discussion.
> 
> In an ideal world with no coercion, all voting could be public, but now, we
> don't live in an ideal world.
> 
> I think cryptography might give us a possibility to retain the secrecy of a
> vote, and allow the voter to reallocate his/her votes.
> After all, stock markets function the same way.
> The stock-owner knows what he owns, and can buy or sell assets anonymously.
> The buyer and seller however do not know to whom they sell.
> The same way, the voter could change vote allocation, but nobody would know
> to whom.
> 
> I am not sure I have understood this vote-mirroring thing.
> 
> Best regards
> Peter Zborník