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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Dear election methods fans,</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">It's good to see that this list is still alive and well. I attended the public choice society meeting in Monterey two weeks ago, and it made me think of the list. Really there is a lot of overlap between the two. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Anyway, as some of you know, I've been thinking about proxy voting systems for a long time, but for some reason I've been a bit leery about attempting to publish anything formally. Well, I've decided that this is silly of me. There is already a fairly recent (2006) paper about proxy voting in the Public Choice journal (by Dan Alger), so there's no need to write a paper that simply introduces the concept. What I'd like to do instead is to write a paper that reviews as many as possible of the different ideas and applications that people have come up with (I'd like the online literature to get some recognition in the academic literature), and then introduces an idea or two of my own, probably focusing around the idea of "continual consideration of all issues". </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">So, I have two topics to address with you all:</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">1. To ask for any references that you think I should include. </font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2. To introduce and discuss the idea that I will probably want to focus on, which is "continual consideration of all issues", plus one more idea, which is the idea of "proxy committees". </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">==================================</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">=== 1. REQUEST FOR REFERENCES ===</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">==================================</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Let's start with the call for references. Basically anyone who can shed any light on the history of the proxy democracy concept will be helpful at this stage. Citable papers (whether published formally, published online, or unpublished as long as some date of origin can be established or reliably vouched for) are useful, and organizations who have promoted proxy voting are useful as well. So far I've found a few excellent sources via the wikipedia page for proxy voting, so thank you to those of you who helped to build that page. Here are a few of the references that I want to include so far:</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Tullock, Gordon: Toward a Mathematics of Politics. University of Michigan Press, 144-157.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Miller, James: A Program for Direct and Proxy Voting in the Legislative Process. Public Choice 7 (Fall 1969), 107-113.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Black, Duncan: Lewis Carroll and the Theory of Games. The American Economic Review 59:2 (May 1969), 206-210.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Ford, Bryan: Delegative Democracy. Unpublished manuscript, dated 2002.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Alger, Dan: Voting by Proxy. Public Choice 126 (2006), 1-26.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Yamakawa, Hiroshi, Michiko Yoshida, and Motohiro Tsuchiya: Toward Delegated Democracy: Vote by Yourself, or Trust Your Network. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (Spring 2007), 146-150 </font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Plus one or two of my own online papers, I suppose. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">I'd like to say something about Demoex, but I'm not quite sure what paper to use. There is one called "Flexible Representation by Use of Delegated Voting", which seems pretty good. It's in Swedish, but I can probably get the gist using google translate. Likewise I'd like to say something about Vivarto, but I'm not sure exactly what. I'd like to say something about Abd's work on free association delegable proxy, and I'd like to know if there's a specific core document that I can cite for that. I see references to something called Liquid Democracy here and there, but so far I haven't been able to find a specific document for that either. Does anyone know about this? If there's anything else important that I'm missing so far (and I would have to imagine that there is), please let me know. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">==========================</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">=== 2. NEW PROXY IDEAS ===</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">==========================</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Now on to the introduction of new ideas.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2.1. "Continual consideration of all issues": (One of the more futuristic, utopian versions of the proxy democracy concept.) The basic idea here is that everyone has a computer account that stores their vote on every single political issue in their nation or jurisdiction, of which there may be thousands. Included are issues that may have already been voted on, but have ongoing effects, and can be feasibly changed or reversed in the future. Anyone can go ahead and change their vote on one of these issues at any time, and there will be a central database that keeps track of these changes, and continues to aggregate them into a majority position, which may change over time. In the interest of stability, I'd say that policy doesn't change immediately when this majority position changes, but rather that the
legislature and/or executive have some discretion in terms of delaying any policy change until a period of public focus and discussion on the issue can take place.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">The reasoning behind this idea, of course, is that it would vastly expand the number of issues that people can formally act on at any given time. Without this system, there may be many issues on which the majority opinion differs substantially from the status quo, but the political system does not take notice, because it can only handle a few things at a time. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Of course, this idea would be ridiculously impractical without the use of some kind of proxy system. For example, when you first sign on to the system (e.g. at age 18 or whatever), you have nothing but thousands of blank issues with no preference registered. Rather than filling them all out one by one, which would take far too long, you can start by simply naming a proxy, i.e. someone who has elected to make their own votes known. Then, immediately you have all of your issues filled in, and they will track any vote changes that your proxy makes. Beyond this, you can go on to customize it as much as you like. You can view your votes as they stand, and change them individually if you find that you disagree with your proxy's position. You can, for a single issue or for a category of issues, indicate a different proxy. And so
on.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2.2. "Proxy committees": Instead of naming a single person as my proxy, I can name a list of people, to serve as sort of a virtual committee that decides just my own vote. Perhaps I should be able to assign them different voting weights, but this doesn't seem important. Now, my vote will be cast according to the majority opinion of my committee. For example, if I create a committee with 9 proxies, and 6 vote yes on an issue while 3 vote no, then I automatically vote yes on that issue. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">The reasoning behind this idea is that I may be aware of several people whose views are likely to be fairly close to my own, but I may not know whose views are the closest. One way of looking at it is that I view others' positions with some error, and I'm reducing the risk that my vote will be cast very far from my own. Actually, if I think of current politicians (e.g. on a national scale), I would personally feel more comfortable creating a committee than choosing one person to be my sole representative. Another interesting feature of this is that I could program the computer to alert me whenever the vote on my committee is relatively close. In this case, it would be more likely than most to be something that I'd like to take a look at for myself. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Note of course that these two ideas can be combined, i.e. proxy committees can be readily worked into the continual consideration framework.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">I've pasted a copy of my 2007 proxy paper below. (I wrote this in 2007, then posted it to <a href="http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/proxy2007.htm" target="_blank">http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/proxy2007.htm</a> last January -- I'm surprised to find that I didn't post it here as well.) I talk about the continual recalculation idea in section 4, but it's only a few paragraphs; in the new paper, I'm going to try to expand on that a bit. This is the first time that I've posted the proxy committee idea online.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">my best,</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">James Green-Armytage</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">========================</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">=== 2007 PROXY PAPER ===</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Summary: It is commonly believed that "pure" democracy conflicts with practicality; here I will attempt to illustrate how this conflict may be resolved..</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">1. Introduction</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">1A. Problems with traditional direct democracy systems</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> In traditional direct democracy systems, negative consequences may arise due to voters' lack of information, or due to the cost of voters acquiring full information. If many citizens vote despite being poorly informed, then public decisions are likely to be somewhat arbitrary, and perhaps easily manipulable by public relations campaigns. If many citizens decline to vote because they are poorly informed, then the system may become a discriminatory one, excluding the values held by people in particular sectors of society. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> On the other hand, if nearly all citizens do take the time to become fully informed on all public issues, this may excessively remove some people's attention from other valuable endeavors. One could argue that there would be a certain amount of wastefully redundant effort in this last scenario. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Thus, I argue that traditional direct democracy systems are fundamentally impractical.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">1B. Problems with traditional representative democracy systems</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> On the other hand, traditional representative democracy systems are only weakly democratic. That is, first of all, individual citizens cannot vote directly on policy. Second, although citizens may participate in elections, they can't really choose their representatives in the strict sense. Very few individuals are represented by their first choice among potential representatives. Instead, many citizens are "represented" by people whose views and values are radically different from their own, and who tend to make fundamentally opposed choices when faced with controversial social decisions. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> In traditional representation systems, voters' positions on hundreds of social issues must be reduced to choices between candidates or parties, resulting in massive information loss. Some electoral systems (e.g. single transferable vote with a fairly high district magnitude) can mitigate this problem, but they can't eliminate it.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Furthermore, the information problems posed by direct democracy systems are not completely solved by representative democracy systems. Just as many citizens are likely to be uninformed about policy choices, many are also likely to be uninformed about political candidates, especially in a large nation where most voters do not know the candidates personally, and where there are numerous elected offices on multiple levels of government. Again, there is a choice between not voting (a discriminatory system), voting blindly (an arbitrary system), and becoming fully informed (arguably an inefficient system, in many cases).</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Thus, representation tends to be "inaccurate" to the extent that voters do not agree with their representatives, and/or do not know about their representatives. Given inaccurate representation of this type, it seems unlikely that decisions made by elected representatives will closely resemble the decision that the people as a whole would have made, had they been fully informed.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">1C. The premise of a proxy system</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> I suggest that, if a political system is to be called "fully democratic", it should give me as a citizen the right to be represented by whomever I choose (provided of course that the person is willing to serve in this capacity). Thus, I should be able to vote directly on issues if I choose, and I should also be able to appoint a proxy in my stead, if I feel insufficiently informed about a given issue. Presumably, I will tend to choose as a proxy someone whom I know well, whom I believe to have integrity, and who shares my views and values; in other words, the person whom I deem most likely to make the same choices that I would make if I was well-informed. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Furthermore, if I name a proxy, he should have the option to re-delegate his voting power and mine to another proxy in turn. This provision is essential in cases where the number of people who eventually vote on the issue is much smaller than the citizenry as a whole, as many citizens may not be sufficiently familiar with the members of the voting group to decide which one most accurately represents them. Presumably, accuracy of representation is roughly transitive, i.e. if B accurately represents A, and C accurately represents B, then it is likely that C represents A with reasonable accuracy. If so, it follows that proxy systems will tend to yield social decisions similar to those that would be reached via direct democracy if the whole citizenry was well
informed, but without the associated costs. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: In part two, I discuss how a proxy system could be used to supplement traditional representative government with periodic direct issue votes. In parts three and four, I discuss how it could be used to replace traditional legislatures altogether. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2. Direct democracy by proxy</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> In this section, I discuss how a proxy system could be used to supplement traditional representative government with periodic direct issue votes. In other words, I'm interested in improving existing systems for initiatives and referenda, and expanding them to wider use (e.g. a federal direct democracy system for the U.S.A.). My proposal is as follows:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2A. Basic system</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Let's say that I'm a voter arriving at my local polling station on the day that one or more issues are to be decided via direct vote. I have the option of voting directly on each issue (or formally abstaining). I also have the option of deferring my vote to a proxy of my choosing. There is no minimum threshold of votes needed for anyone to serve as a proxy.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> If my proxy votes directly on the issue, then the weight of my vote is added to his. If my proxy doesn't vote directly on the issue, but rather names another proxy in turn, then the weight of my vote and the weight of my proxy's vote are both carried by this second proxy. There is no limit to the number of times that a vote can be transferred along a proxy chain in this way. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Even when there are multiple issues on the same ballot, I should have the option of indicating separate proxies for separate issues, while still voting directly on other issues, if I choose. This would allow me to defer votes to specialists in particular policy areas.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2B. Provision for multiple options</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> It is worth mentioning here that very few substantial social decisions can be reduced to a simple up or down vote. Hence, in order to make this an effective social choice process, it's important to allow voters to express preferences between an appropriately wide range of options. When majority rule is the goal, the ballot should allow a ranking of the options, and the tally method should be Condorcet efficient. In case of a majority rule cycle, several possible resolution methods exist, for example ranked pairs, beatpath, cardinal pairwise, and Smith/IRV. For majority rule when the options can be reasonably arranged into a one dimensional spectrum (and preferences can be assumed to be single-peaked), it should be sufficient to ask each voter to specify their
preferred point, and select the median position. If proportional representation is more appropriate than majority rule for a particular issue, then some form of single transferable vote should be used as the tally method. Other ballot types are possible when appropriate for a given issue, for example, an up or down vote, a series of up or down votes, an approval vote, a cardinal (rating scale) vote, or a vote that combines two or more of these methods.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2C. Frequency and bindingness</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> The legal standing of the direct votes, and their frequency (the number of ballots per year and the number of issues per ballot), are simply matters of political choice. For example, the system itself could be initially non-binding, but with most elected officials pledged to follow the results except in extraordinary circumstances. Or, it could be legally binding, but subject to veto by the legislature, executive, judiciary, etc. Direct votes could take place once per year, once per month, etc. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2D. Logistics and privacy</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> I primarily envision the voting taking place at officially designated polling stations (although internet voting might also be possible, if security and privacy can be assured, and if it can be done without disadvantaging those without internet service). Prior to voting day, a computer file is compiled that lists all those who have volunteered to serve as proxies; when voters arrive at the polls, they can then choose the person whom they would like to represent them. I would suggest that proxies' votes should be a matter of public record, unless bribery or political intimidation seems to be an especially serious problem. The advantage of this is that voters will be able to directly verify that their proxy voted in a certain way, if necessary. (A possible
alternative would be to keep each proxy's voting record in a secure file, and allow them to distribute the password to the file at their own discretion.)</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2E. Issue generation</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> I propose that some issues to be decided by direct voting could be generated by the legislature, while others are generated by the public process itself. For issue-generation inside the legislature, I suggest a system of single transferable vote (STV) proportional representation. For example, the legislators could take an STV vote to fill a certain fixed number of slots for issues in an upcoming direct vote. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> For issue-generation outside the legislature, I propose that issues should first be nominated via a public process (e.g. petitions), and that nominated issues should then be placed on a ballot for a direct agenda-setting vote. (Of course, we do not need to drag voters to the polls just to do an agenda-setting vote; it can be put on the ballot with other issues.) The public agenda-setting vote can also be based on STV, filling a fixed number of slots.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> For example, a fairly conservative proposal would be to allow voters to decide which issues to vote on when they come to the polls for regularly scheduled primary elections, and then to actually vote on the issues (plus those proposed by the legislature) in the general election. A more ambitious proposal would involve adding additional voting days, to accommodate multiple direct voting sessions per year.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2F. Option generation</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Once it has been decided that there will be a direct vote on a given issue, the next step is to generate the different options that voters will choose from when voting that issue. The goal here is to ensure that the Condorcet-dominant option isn't left off the ballot.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Option-generation inside the legislature: Again, an STV vote is logical, but in this case, an option called "no additional option" should be in competition with the other options that have been proposed.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Option-generation outside the legislature: There should also be a public process for generating options. Probably it is too cumbersome to have a separate vote just for this; it should be sufficient to let the legislature submit their options first, and then give the public an opportunity to submit more options by petition if enough people feel that an important and viable alternative has been left out. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2G. Remuneration</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> It would be possible to provide some remuneration to those who serve as proxies, although it's not clear to me whether this is desirable or not. The argument in favor of proxy remuneration is that the extra money could help them do good policy research, by allowing them to reduce the hours they spend at other jobs, and in some cases by allowing them to hire research staff and acquire research-facilitating capital. The money may also serve as an incentive to do good research (in order to earn more proxy votes). The argument against it, aside from the cost, is that it might produce incentives for people to obfuscate their views and over-represent their understanding of policy in an attempt to advertise themselves. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Various proxy remuneration formulas are possible; for example, my remuneration could be based on the number of votes I cast, or on the number of people who directly choose me as a proxy. There should probably be an upward limit to the amount of money that any one person can receive as a result of this process.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">2H. Model voting</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Under current election systems, when voters do not have a great deal of information about the candidates or issues that they're voting on, they often choose based on endorsements, i.e. recommendations from people and organizations whose opinions they value. In a sense, this already gives us some elements of a proxy system. Hence, I suggest "model voting", which is a less radical alternative that nonetheless approximates a proxy voting system:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Again, there is a voting day, and I arrive at the polling station to vote on a number of issues. The equivalent of proxies in this system can be called "models". They are people and organizations who have agreed, ahead of the voting day, to submit a model ballot, i.e. their recommended vote on each of the issues, plus perhaps some commentary on each, if they choose. While I am filling out my ballot, I can search through the database of these ballots to find the recommendations of any given model. I can take this information under advisement, but I still vote however I choose. For example, I can copy all of my votes directly from one model ballot, I can view several before I make a decision on each issue, or I can vote without looking at any
model ballots at all. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> In this system, the "proxy" component of the process is not even a formal part of the voting structure, but nevertheless voters are given convenient (essentially costless) access to a wealth of information. Given adequate models (people or groups who are well known to the voter, who have similar values but are more well-informed on particular issues), the model ballots should give voters a relatively reliable indication of how they would vote on each issue if they were fully informed, with a minimum of wasted effort, i.e. a maximum of efficiency.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Note that this system gives voters a great deal of privacy. Even if I serve as a model voter by submitting a model ballot to the database, I am not under any obligation whatsoever to actually vote in accordance with it, and so my actual vote officially remains a secret.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> The model voting analogue of the "re-delegation" feature of a proxy system would be a process whereby different people who intend to submit model votes communicate with one another prior to the submission date. To facilitate this, it would be helpful to have a web site where people can discuss upcoming legislation, and post provisional voting intention on individual user pages. (Actually, even in the absence of any official proxy voting or model voting system, this kind of site could improve voter information and participation.)</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Note that a model voting system prevents the problem of "proxy loops" from arising. Under some proxy systems, it is possible in theory to have a troublesome situation where A chooses B as a proxy, and B chooses A, so that neither vote can actually be cast. (Longer loops involving three or more people are also possible.) There are a number of ways to solve this problem (e.g. ranked proxy lists, a provision for a second vote, etc.), but this particular system happens to make such solutions unnecessary.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">3. Representation by proxy</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> In this section, I discuss how a proxy system can be used as a basis for political representation, i.e. as a method to determine the composition of the legislature and the relative voting power of its members. What I propose is as follows:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">3A. Basic system</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> I can name anyone as a proxy, provided that they have agreed to serve. Ideally, I should be able to change my proxy at any time. I can also decline to name a proxy, if I prefer. Whenever there is a vote (presumably several times per day when the legislature is in session), I can choose to cast my vote directly (along with any proxies I may hold). If I decline to do so, then the weight of my vote(s) will be passed to my proxy.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">3B. Legislators and independent voters</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Although every citizen is in principle empowered to vote on every issue, I see an advantage to having a legislative chamber where individuals with a large amount of voting power should be able to gather, engage in debate, and cast votes. To make debate manageable, and to have a legislative chamber that is reasonably small (i.e. not the size of a stadium), it seems reasonable to set a number of people apart as privileged "legislators" (who could be called representatives, members of parliament, senators, etc.). A legislator would serve a fixed term, draw a salary from the government, and would be given a budget to hire policy research staff. My preferred system for selecting the legislators would be to hold a public STV vote at regular intervals (e.g.
every two years), and allow citizens to delegate their vote to proxies (so that the distribution of voting power within the proxy system largely determines who gets a seat).</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> If the legislative chamber only accommodates a limited number of people, then how will people vote if they are not legislators? In theory, they could watch the proceedings within the legislature via a live feed, and then vote over the internet. (If each person's vote is a matter of public record, then the security/authenticity of the internet-based vote should not be a problem.) Of course, when I vote independently in this way, my proxy can't carry my voting weight as well; hence the system needs to keep track of who is voting independently, and deduct their weight from their proxies' usual totals.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">3C. Elections and secret ballots</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Even though voters should be able to change proxies at will, there are still several reasons to have specific days for public voting. First, I recommend that all standing proxy arrangements should be cleared on election day, so that voters who want to keep their current proxy need to return to the polls to renew the designation. (Of course, if I miss the election, I could renew my proxy designation at a later time; the only disadvantage of this is being unrepresented for a short period.) The point of this is to prevent someone from letting a proxy stand for decades without being engaged in the process at all.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Second, an election day could also be used to encourage participation in votes on particularly important issues. In this way, the direct democracy proposal (part 2 of this paper) can be incorporated into the representation proposal (part 3). This should include elections for executive offices.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Third, an election day would provide the opportunity for secret ballots. Those who don't want there to be any records whatsoever of who their representative is could formally designate anonymity, which would give them the right to cast a secret ballot (the kind that is now standard in most elections). If they did this, however, they wouldn't be able to cast independent votes during the subsequent period, because the system wouldn't know which proxy to remove their vote from.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">3D. Divided votes method</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Independent voting, as described above, may be a costly process for some voters. For example, they may have limited internet access, they may have other responsibilities to take care of at the time when a given vote is taking place, or they might not want their vote to be a matter of public record. Thus, I suggest a more decentralized method for quasi-independent voting:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Members of the legislature (and other individuals who hold proxies) should be empowered to vote in a heterogeneous way. For example, imagine that I am a legislator, and that there is an upcoming yes/no vote. Once a vote has been scheduled, I may describe the issue to my constituency, indicate that I intend to vote "yes", and presumably provide some rationale for my decision. However, I invite dissenting votes from my constituency. Let's say that I have one million constituents, and one hundred thousand of them (most likely including proxies that represent more than one person) indicate to me that they would like to vote "no". I can then cast 900,000 "yes" votes, and 100,000 "no" votes. When an important and
controversial issue comes up, there should be a natural procedural break between the announcement of a vote and the vote itself, to give proxies a chance to check in with their constituents, and allow time for dissenting votes to be submitted. Proxies and constituents can communicate by internet, mail, phone, face-to-face conversation, or any other medium that they prefer. Each proxy can make independent decisions regarding the privacy and security of their communication system.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">4. Continual recalculation of majority positions</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> This is somewhat more ambitious than the preceding proposals, but I find it worth noting that a more advanced democratic system could allow people to cast or change their vote on issues even when the legislature is not focusing on them. This system would work as follows:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> When I register to vote for the first time, I gain the ability to cast a vote on any of the hundreds or thousands of issues that have been voted on in the past, and which continue to be relevant to current policy. (Presumably, the system would be mostly internet-based.) I can log onto the system at any time during my life to vote on more issues, or to change any of my previous votes. When I indicate a proxy, the system gives my voting power to my proxy on all of the issues that I haven't voted on. Thus, when I change my proxy, my votes on the issues I have omitted are now cast according to the preferences of my new proxy, and if I don't indicate a proxy, they are registered as abstentions. When I die, my voting weight is removed from the system. (If people
have indicated me as a proxy, then perhaps their voting weight should be temporarily passed along to a person whom I have named as a successor in the event of my death.)</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Thus, on each issue, the distribution of votes among options will gradually change as people register to vote, vote on issues, change their votes, name proxies, change proxies, and die. Over time, the majority (Condorcet dominant) position may shift from one option (the status quo) to another. However, perhaps it is best if this does not, in itself, automatically trigger a policy change, especially if such a change entails some administrative cost, and if the majority position on this issue is liable to change rather frequently. Instead, I suggest that a policy change should not occur unless the legislature (being as described in part 3) sets a specific date and time such that the majority position as of that time will be enacted. (It might help to hold a vote
on the issue when the deadline arrives, to highlight the issue.) This will prevent policy changes from being excessively frequent, and it will give people a chance to focus on the issue a bit more intensely before any change is made. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> When new issues arise, they can be voted on as described in part 3. After these votes are finalized, they can be added to the database of past issues. There should also be a process for removing issues from the active part of this database when they are overruled by more recent votes, or when they deal specifically with conditions that no longer exist. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> The advantage of the continual recalculation method is that it allows formal political engagement on an exhaustive range of issues at all times. In any society, the balance of majority opinion is likely to gradually shift over time, but most political systems fail to adequately keep track of these shifts.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">5. Conclusion</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> I have attempted to demonstrate that a more democratic system of government is both possible and practical. In my opinion, the basic concept of proxy voting should be regarded as an axiom of democracy: that is, people should have the right to choose and representative they like, including themselves. I've described a few different possible proxy voting structures, ranging from more modest proposals (e.g. model voting) to more ambitious ones (e.g. continual recalculation). Many nations currently use some form of direct democracy, but it is typically fairly limited in scope. I believe that direct democracy systems that incorporate proxy mechanisms, improved information flow, ranked ballots, Condorcet efficient tallies, etc., will be able to expand to
take a much more central and effective role in government. In the not-too-distant past, technological constraints may have made a large scale proxy system impractical, leaving traditional systems of representation and limited direct voting as the most reasonable options. Now, however, these systems have become archaic, and the only constraint is political inertia.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Application of the proxy concept is by no means limited to governments. Almost any organization with a sufficiently large membership can potentially benefit by using it. (E.g. labor unions, educational institutions, religious institutions, etc.) For example, corporations typically allow some form of proxy voting, but without the re-delegability feature. As a result, shareholders often do not know much about the proxies whom they designate. If corporations were required to allow for re-delegation of proxies, then I as a small stockholder could potentially delegate my votes to nonprofit organizations that shared my values with regard to corporate policy. This could help corporate policy to conform more closely to the values of ordinary citizens, just as the
general proposal could help government policy to do the same. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Of course, this paper only serves as an introduction. If proxy voting is indeed a viable model for modern political systems, then an enormous amount of analysis remains to be done.</font></div>
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