[EM] Comprehensive, Simple, and Informative Indicative

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

This is all insightful. In a parliamentary setting, with a majority 
required for any conclusion, voting on single issues Yes/No, works very 
well, and problems can be fixed. (under standard rules, any member who 
voted for the majority may move reconsideration, and it takes a majority 
to reconsider, so, in theory, a change that would enjoy a majority will 
be reconsidered. There would then be, with the original motion back on 
the floor, a motion to amend, and then the majority decides which of two 
versions is to become the motion under consideration.

This all can become more efficient if polling is used, which is 
apparently what the British parliament is using. A final decision will 
be put to a yes/no vote, with the poll having informed the members of 
the support enjoyed by the various options, but they will not be limited 
to them. Parliaments do not use top-two runoff! Nor should they.

Referring complex decisions to the public is a Bad Idea, in general. It 
*seems* democratic, but, in fact, it empowers media and those who can 
buy media. Rather, if we care about genuine democracy, government by 
maximized consent, we would focus on electing representatives who are 
trusted, and Asset with open ballots essentially elects seats with 
*unanimity.* That seat was unanimously the choice of a quota of voters, 
or those whom they voted for). Don't trust someone to represent you in 
the process, don't vote for them! Don't trust anyone? I'd suggest 
therapy, one has a social disorder.

Most of the complexity of voting theory is unnecessary. As a polling 
method, score is simple and easily understood and canvassed. There may 
be other forms that can be used, but this is often misunderstood. If a 
decision is made that was approved by less than a majority, basic 
democratic process has been lost. There is no problem if the methods are 
used as polls, as advisory. And I have seen a majority position, that 
would have prevailed in an initial vote (by maybe two-thirds!) reversed 
after a simple approval poll, when those people saw that all members 
(minus only one) approved a different choice. And when the 
implementation vote was made on a motion to change to the 
almost-universal choice, it passed. With unanimity.

We have very bad habits in politics, in aiming for our "favorite" to 
win, instead of seeking what will make society function most efficiently 
and least oppressively.

I agree that it would be the responsibility of Parliament to thoroughly 
deliberate the issue, not to punt to the public. However, once 
Parliament has maximized its own consensus, which can include generating 
minority reports, and because there was a previous referendum, respect 
for the public suggests then submitting Parliament's decision to a 
second referendum. The second referendum could possibly present more 
than one alternative, but not too many, and every option presented 
should have majority support in Parliament! (The public can then reject 
them all by voting no on all of them.)

Standard democratic practice: the status quo remains until explicitly 
rejected and replaced by a majority. Someone else pointed out how 
defective the Brexit referendum was. I agree.

We have very primitive ideas of what democracy can and should be.

On 4/1/2019 9:40 PM, Bob Richard wrote:
>
> Parliament's most conspicuous failure in this regard (in which they 
> are joined by the entire press corps, as far as I know) is to treat a 
> second referendum as it if were an alternative on a list of 
> alternatives. The question whether to put a decision of Parliament to 
> a confirmatory vote of the people is entirely separate from what 
> decision Parliament should make. The questions are politically 
> interrelated, in the sense that MPs on the losing end of a debate in 
> Parliament are far more likely to call for a referendum than MPs who 
> won that debate. (In fact, that's kind of what referenda are, at least 
> in the United States.) But this relationship is no reason to include a 
> such a confirmatory vote as an option in the current "indicative" 
> voting process.
>
[...]
>
> As far as I know, social choice theory and the study of voting methods 
> have very little to say about this problem, except in one setting. 
> That's the more normal kind of parliamentary procedure where 
> everything is laid out as motions, amendments, substitute motions and 
> so on. The well-understood limitations of that process -- the 
> importance of the order in which amendments are dealt with, the role 
> of strategic voting, and so on -- are exactly why we'd like to be able 
> to vote all at once on a list of options in the first place.
>
> info