At 03:45 PM 7/21/2005, Araucaria Araucana wrote:
This now sounds like a primary and general election. That might be
one way to spin it. Consider, for example, that Washington State's
top-two runoff was declared unconstitutional last Sunday:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002384176_webstateprimary15.html
Interesting. I think the judge was right.
One of the nasty consequences of a two-party system is that the conduct of
the parties themselves come to be of great public concern, there are
pressures to regulate, for example, how the parties nominate candidates.
Without that, it would seem to be nobody's business but party members how a
party makes its decisions....
Were it not for the two-party system, there would be a natural consequence
for parties that do not respect the right of decision of their members: the
members would simply leave, or, maybe even worse, remain members but vote
outside the party. (If not for the two-party system, there would be another
party with congenial ideas for the voter to go to.)
I find the whole party primary system to be a reproduction within the
parties of the same insanity that we have in the rubber-stamp electoral
college.... I remember when I first started watching conventions on TV, it
must have been 1956. It seemed to me that these people were gathered not
just to put on a stage show, but to actually make decisions. I think I
remember multiple ballots.... I should look at the history and see if it
was actually that way. After all, I was only twelve years old in 1956. Now,
the conventions are just TV productions, choreographed pep rallies.
This list was discussing approval-based primaries back in early 2004,
if I recall correctly.
Back then, I was thinking about something like this (borrowed from
Jobst's Imagine Democratic Fair Choice page on electowiki):
I | I also
support | approve
directly: | of:
------------------+----------
Anna X | O
Bob O | O
Cecil O | X
Deirdre O | X
Ellen O | O
------------------+----------
(vote | (vote for
for | as many
exactly | as you
one) | want)
The real trick is deciding what to do with the results!
The real *problem* is trying to do with a fixed procedure what actually
calls for an intelligent deliberative process. I don't think it can be
done, i.e., I don't think that any set ballot and counting procedure is
going to produce results even close to ideal. My current favorite method,
Smith's Asset Voting, is as good as I expect it will be because it reduces
the final step to a deliberative process (I consider bargaining to be an
aspect of deliberation). The votes don't just decide on their own, by the
application of a few simple rules (or even some complicated rules, but not
as complicated as the human mind), to drop in the winner's box. They are
placed there by players who understand the consequences.
I have seen Approval voting be a great *pre-decision* tool. Sometimes it is
quite obvious from Approval results what decision should be made (Approval
is not confined to elections, it has relevance wherever options are to be
chosen from among a larger set). Then all that remains is to make this
explicit by a motion to adopt or elect or whatever, which then passes with,
often, a supermajority. As I've written before, I've seen this process turn
a contentious issue into a unanimous decision, once the arguments had been
fully heard and everyone knew how the group, in general, felt.
This, of course, was in an organization which values unity, which dislikes
having a minority dragged along by a bare majority, which prefers, if it
can get it, consensus.
Now, shouldn't society as a whole be like that? I find it interesting that
small towns often run on something that approaches consensus on most
issues. I think a corollary of that is that elections in these towns often
attract only a single candidate. If that were due to the utter hopelessness
of opposition, it wouldn't be good. But that's not it. It is simply that if
someone is doing a good enough job, and is willing to continue doing it,
why bother with a contested election?
In Washington state, parties objected to the top-two runoff, because
some supporters of a strong candidate might vote for the weaker of the
opposition.
Maybe that would happen. Anyway, it was the wrong way to fix the problems
in the system.
The real way is to address the core problem: electoral democracy itself is
a lousy form of communication. It is appropriate for ratifying the results
of deliberation, not as a substitute for deliberation. The media circus
bears some remote resemblance to deliberation, but not enough to genuinely
serve. That we have such close Presidential elections in the U.S. is to me
a sign that the pre-election process is not working.... The wrong
candidates are being presented.
Of course, I'm of the opinion that the last persons to be considered for
high public office would be those who seek it. Politicians know this, which
is why they always want it to appear that they have been drafted.
In a delegable proxy democracy, people who actively campaign to be named as
a proxy would, indeed, be poor choices. Rather, proxies would simply be
active members of the organization who are noticed by other members who
then ask them if they are willing to serve. Since they are already active,
it is not so much more work to serve as a proxy. It's an entirely different
approach to political structure, built from the bottom rather than from the
top. (We have a top-down structure that does include a kind of ratification
process, but little bottom participation in the decisions of what is
presented to be approved, in determining the set of realistic choices.)
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