At 08:22 PM 11/16/2005, Paul Kislanko wrote: >Yes, there's a big difference beteen the "trustee" paradigm and the "proxy" >paradigm. When it comes to using proxies in public elections representing >voters, it is MANDATORY that the "proxy" cast her vote the way she said she >would when "campaining" for voters to select her as proxy. Hence, anyone >casting more than one vote (i.e., hers and all the proxies she holds) must >make her vote public.
This is a different usage of "proxy." Some jurisdictions allow a voter to vote by proxy if the voter is unable to vote, perhaps is legally blind, unable to get to the polls, etc. I would expect this kind of voting to be explicitly what the voter desires. But this is not at all what we are talking about when we talk about proxy voting. We are talking about someone who *makes decisions* in your absence, on your behalf. And the delegable proxy systems I'm working on, the proxy simply votes his or her own preference. I choose that proxy based on my knowledge of how he or she has voted or debated or discussed in the past, based on my personal trust of him or her. The proxy does not cast my vote as a separate thing. Rather, when votes are counted, my vote is counted with hers. Yes, that could be done, the proxy could vote my vote separately, but in order to do it, the proxy would have to determine what my vote was. For the separate voting not to be moot, the proxy would have to understand that I would vote differently than her. Yet I'm not there, and I have not participated in the discussion. How is the proxy to know that I would not have changed my mind? What a responsible proxy would do, in the systems I propose (which would not accomodate split voting by a proxy, it adds entirely too much complexity with not enough benefit, if any at all), would be to inform me that such and such an issue was coming to vote, that she thinks I might disagree with her conclusion. She would discuss her conclusion with me, and, if I remained unconvinced, she would advise me to vote directly, which, of course, invalidates the proxy for that particular vote. Now, consider Asset Voting as an election method. Let's suppose the simplest Asset Voting, where you can vote for one candidate only. I'm also going to assume Asset Voting where every candidate for whom you can vote is *actually* a candidate, rather than someone who is merely collecting votes to be recast, but who is not seeking to serve in the elected office. So you vote for whom? You vote for the person you most trust, in two capacities: to serve in the office, or if that is not going to happen, to help select the one who actually is going to serve. Now, suppose that the candidate for whom I vote is actually elected. She is going to hire, let's say, staff, who are actually going to do most of the work. In reality, it happens that her ability to make good choices in delegating responsibility is an important aspect of her ability to function in the office. And that same ability would serve if she is called on to recast the votes she received in the asset redistribution phase of the election. (It's been argued that I might think that a person was good for an office, but not good to select who would be good in the office. I think this unlikely; indeed, the best person to choose who should serve in office would be the next-best person for the office. Or the best person.) What Asset Voting does is to convert an election into a deliberative process. If candidates are limited to what can be anticipated and promised, the process is severely hampered, and you end up with the various weird election phenomena which result from attempting to use rigid rules to produce winners from raw votes. Asset Voting should avoid wasted votes. It would be quite practical with Asset Voting to require a majority winner in a single-winner election. But in an impasse, the collection of candidates could decide to allow a plurality winner (for they can cast their votes as they choose, and if a majority of them agree to a process, they can then cast their votes to implement the process. i.e., they would vote, determine the plurality winner, and then all vote for that winner, who would then have a majority....) ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
