[EM] EPR, Asset & Proxy voting

[steve bosworth]

Today's Topics:
   1. Re: Steve's reply: IRV et al v. EPR (Abd ul-Rahman Lomax)
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2018 07:54:27 -0400
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>
To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Steve's reply: IRV et al v. EPR
Message-ID: <7f883a01-179f-f089-d3e8-565e8c30ff07 at lomaxdesign.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
S:   Firstly, I wish to thank you for one of your online posts about 10 years ago.  It was my first introduction to the idea of Asset voting and you will also see how it still offers an essential element in my explanation of EPR.  Still, I want to understand your current proposals more exactly.  Below, I wish to comment upon and ask you about a number of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs which I have selected from your recent contributions to EM.  For example, I want clearly to understand why you say that, *taken simply and literally, [EPR is] a Really Bad Idea*.

S:  This is because we seem to agree that :



  1.  A democratic constitution should have the *goal* of achieving *consensus*, yet *the majority always has a right of decision*, i.e. such a constitution is *about empowering the community, in using deliberative processes to maximize consensus, which creates stronger organizations*.

  2.   If so, I would like to convince you that an EPR legislature, perhaps with the addition of your Electors, would maximize the probability of achieving both, i.e. EPR is the method which is most likely to provide *a reasonably aggregated Asset Assembly*.

  3.  S: If EPR were used for your general election, the primary you have in mind would be redundant.

  4.  Also, in the following answer to Kristofer, you mistakenly confuse SCORE voting with the *grading* that is use by EPR and MJ, i.e.  each voter to evaluate as many of the candidates she might wish with regard to their fitness for the office: ECELLENT, VERY GOOD, GOOD, ACCEPTABLE, POOR, or REJECT.  Grades are more meaningful, discerning, and informative.  This truth is illustrated by the fact that SCORES can be deduced from grades, but grades cannot be deduced from SCORES.  Also, averaging scores is more likely to prompt strategic voting than MJ’s or EPR’s different methods for counting all the grades.

  5.  *Weighted voting is a tweak on that which moves toward "majority" as referring to
majority of the voting public rather than majority of Assembly members.
But I prefer, greatly, to create a "trusted assembly" and empowering
them, fully. … Choose someone you trust, then *trust them*.*

S: With regard to your Asset and Proxy proposals, please correct me if I am mistaken about each of the following:

  1.  During its term, your Assembly is the sovereign law-making body within the state’s democratic constitution.  This constitution also has a parliamentary form since you prefer the state’s chief executive to be both elected and replaceable by a majority decision of the Assembly.

  2.  Your Assembly is elected for a set term (e.g. 4 or 5 years).  There could only be a new election before the end of this term if a majority of the votes in the Assembly agreed to this.  Also, during an Assembly’s term, no additional proxy votes can be added to or taken away from any elected member (*seat*), i.e. none added or taken away by citizens or Electors. Also, the set number of members to be elected will be determined in advance.  I see these features to be some of the *rules as may be necessary to maintain order* as you might put it.  The will help to make the total debating, negotiating, and voting context within which each member must operate as clear as possible from the start.  These arrangement provide the optimal context within which each member should be expected to maximize her affect upon any majority decisions made by the Assembly (supporting or opposing).  This also makes it as easy as possible for each member to be held to account by his or her electorate.

  3.  During the general election for the Assembly, every citizen can only secretly give her proxy vote to one of the voluntary Registered Electors (these also include all the candidates for the Assembly).  Any citizen can arrange for her identity to be made known to the member (*seat*) of the Assembly she has helped to elect.

  4.  Each Elector will probably have a different number of proxy votes which she must transfer publicly to help elect the members of the Assembly, i.e. each Elector may have a different *weighted vote*.  Given this, I do not yet understand why you currently want each of your members to receive only a droop quote of proxy votes.  In order fully to respect the principle of one-citizen-one-vote and to help to minimize any qualitative *wasting* of these votes as defined by the second paragraph of my article, it seems to me that you should allow each member to have a different *weighted vote*.

S: Please consider EPR as the best method both for your citizens and the Electors, and for them to elect the Members of your legislative Assembly.  What do you think?  I look forward to your feedback.

Steve




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