On May 17, 2004, at 12:57 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2004, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:
My concern is to ensure that the process is friendly to multiple-choice
options. My fear is that the traditional yes/no vote could easily be
used to hold the assembly 'hostage', by only giving them a choice
between the lesser of two evils. At the very least, we should make
sure we don't encode anything to prevent it.
Is the current focus on yes/no voting embodied in the Constituation (perhaps in the way it defines vetoes and decisions), or is it really an artifact of Robert's Rules?
And if you count on the senate/parliament to set up mutually exclusive
options for a multiple choice vote, they could abuse that and make
exclusive things you might want both or more of. No system is so perfect
it doesn't require the members to be Good.
I agree, but I want to at least make it easier and more natural to do the right thing. Systems often inadvertently create built-in incentives to do the -wrong- thing, and I presume one of the purposes of this list is precisely to create systems which maximize the incentive to be Good, though we can't of course force Good behavior.
For example, it seems to me that Robert's Rules explicitly require or assume a one-person/one-vote Plurality type of decision-making, and it thus (naively) inconsistent with rank-order voting. Is that a fair assessment? Further, that sort of winner-take-all result seems to lead to a sort of Duverger's effect on committees.
One of my biggest concerns about PR is how to avoid excessive minor-party influence. I suspect this sort of parliament PR with rank-order choices ratified by a DD-proxy assembly might well be the optimal way to avoid that, by ensuring the maximally acceptable policy is both generated and approved. I'm just saying that we need some sort of procedural reform to at least *enable* people to do the right thing, even though we can't force it.
It's also possible that members of parliament would themselves be powerful proxies, unless that was specifically forbidden by law.
Ooh, very interesting point. Hmm, I wonder if that's a good or bad thing...
I think dual-membership should be forbidden. Members of the
senate/parliament should be disenfranchised from the proxy-assembly vote.
This special case disenfranchisement of 100 ouf of 3e8 doesn't trouble me,
given the powerful vote they have in their legislative body.
Meaning they can't even specify someone as a higher-order proxy anywhere? Its a plausible argument, though I think it would suffice simply to not allow them to -be- a proxy for others; they can still specify someone else as their proxy.
Brian Olson http://bolson.org/
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