At 11:09 AM 7/26/2008, Michael Allan wrote:
(May I use the list as a scratch pad, to record ideas? There's a
theory somewhere in these technical pieces, and maybe it connects with
the social architecture being mooted in other threads.)
http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/4yAf4tghgQ5b53pGbPDRpZ
http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/XfrpCKqPLfZVDbcSnRQHY
I could also suggest the list [EMAIL PROTECTED], which really
could use some activity. This would be exactly on point there.
I've been wondering how the previous argument would apply to an
election in which the issue was an office (executive, jurist,
bureaucrat) as opposed to a norm (policy, law, plan).
(4)
\ \ | / / \ | /
\ \ | / / \ | /
--- E --> C <-- D --- --- X ---
/ / | \ \ / | \
/ / | \ \ / | \
This is the bottom view of an election, showing the two roots (C and
X). Higher branches and leaves are largely omitted.
If the issue here is a norm (such as the Public Health Bill) then
there is no sense in which the election will ever produce a "winner".
C and X are never going to become traditional legislators. The
incoming vote flow will never confer on them a *power* to legislate.
It will only give them temporary license to *assemble* legislative
ideas that are flowing toward them. This is another sense in which
the formal vote flow must correspond to actual need. As long as C and
X are successfully assembling the incoming flow of text, they will
receive a corresponding flow of votes; otherwise the vote flow will
shift elsewhere. In this sense, C and X are just tools of the
electorate.
In a sense. In another sense, they are leaders. In AA: "Our leaders
are but trusted servants, they do not govern."
Moreover they are disposable tools. Figure 4 is just a snapshot in
time. It shows a particular stage of norm construction at which C and
X happen to be the best assemblers - the best tools for the job. It
is unlikely they will remain the best tools at all stages of the
construction. This is especially true since the election will never
terminate. Although a "final" legislative draft (say C's) might be
pulled from the root of the tree at some point and promulagated as a
law, the election will nevertheless continue uninterrupted. No norm
is ever final - it always remains open to the possibility of amendment
or even withdrawal. So the electorate always has an interest in it.
In Asset Voting, it's possible that not even officer elections have a
term. Rather, it would be a parliamentary system. The electors hold
votes that they received in the secret ballot phase, which would
presumably take place periodically. So that "office" has a term. But,
note, those are unconditional elections. The voter simply chooses the
elector. The elector could be the voter himself or herself, under
some conditions. (Under conditions where security is a severe
problem, there might be some restrictions, so that one would only
know one's own vote count if one received more than some bottom
threshhold of votes, which might be low, like five or so.... but
these are governmental applications and this kind of thing isn't an
issue in FAs, I'd say.)
The electoral college that is created could be a standing one, i.e.,
when seats are created by it in the Assembly, the votes could be
withdrawn. For stability, I'd not have the seat's rights in
deliberation terminate immediately (absent a vote of the Assembly to
terminate, presumably for some kind of abuse). Rather, the voting
power of the seat diminishes, possibly even to zero or whatever votes
the seat had from the election, and a new member is possibly seated
(so the assembly size might vary a bit.
Officers, as distinct from seats, then, would serve at the pleasure
of the Assembly, as with any servant.
But, again, this is a utopian scheme. It's not far away from what we
have, but what can be implemented immediately is the FA/DP concept,
outside of government, for many different possible purposes. One
project was a parent association for a Waldorf School. Again, highly
influential people, supposedly, were interested. And, again, ...
nothing happened. People will say, "What a great idea!" and then do
nothing. At least they will do nothing the first time they hear about
it, and maybe the second or third. Sooner or later, though, two or
three people will realize that they can Just Do It. And they will,
and then others will join.
Technically speaking, it appears that the formal flow of votes at any
moment is the *medium* that connects input (i) to output (o):
(i) actual interest of the electorate in the norm
(o) formal expression of the norm, as a text
But how does this apply to an election in which the issue is a
political office? How would the formal medium of assent relate to the
exercise of executive power? Or juridical? What precisely are the
inputs and outputs to be mediated?
To me, it is a question of who is the most trusted. Generally, the
question of the officer is the same question as the question of who
chooses the officer. It's a question of delegation. One of the
biggest responsibilities of a major officer is the delegation of
responsibility; thus, I claim, the most essential skill involved in
serving as an officer is the same skill involved in choosing who will
serve as an officer. Theoretically, if we trust that A would serve
well in the office, we should trust that A, if A is not going to
serve, would be a reasonable person to make the choice. For a limited
time, not for all time, like a King. Now, this election.
So, yes, an ad-hoc structure assembled from votes, where every voter
votes -- say, secretly -- for one person, and then these single
persons may reassign those votes by choosing a personal
representative, could work very well to rapidly assemble a winning
combination of votes. In some cases, those initial choices would
self-assemble directly to a majority without further ado. In others,
I assume, there would be horsetrading, logrolling, and all the rest.
(What is being pictured here is a single-winner election using Asset
Voting plus a delegable proxy structure to assemble the votes. The DP
structure is open, all vote flows in it are public, and reassignable
at any time. Electors are not obligated to name a proxy, but ... tell
me, if you knew that a "candidate" would not name a proxy, would you
vote for that candidate? I can say that I wouldn't. Someone who
trusts only themselves is not the kind of person who should be
running a government! So the DP system *might* be in place prior to
the public election. It might even be required by law.... there are
zillions of possibilities.
I prefer to work it all out in Free Associations first, where it is
fail-safe, before putting much effort into control structures where
governmental power is at stake, or substantial collected assets.
I wonder especially how vote delegation relates to power delegation.
If my neighbour has leadership qualities, and I vote for her as Mayor
(my delegate), do I thereby assent to her becoming the Mayor's
lieutenant in my neighbourhood? Might the Mayor delegate actual power
to her, if the need ever arises?
Sure. Why not? With Asset Voting, I see the electoral college
becoming an extension, from one perspective, of the Assembly. But it
is also a broad contact network. You want to get a message to a Seat
in the Assembly? You know who your vote elected. That Seat will
likely have many electors who gave the Seat the votes to fill the
quota. You also know, definitely, who you voted for. Likely this is
someone you know. So you have an identified communication path to the
Seat, with likely rapport of some kind. Nobody knows for sure who you
voted for, but you. But that doesn't really matter all that much. The
electoral college becomes a penumbra around the Assembly, individual
electors sometimes actually voting where they take an interest in the
particular vote. Some of these electors will eventually gain seats,
and will already be familiar with assembly business. Former seat
holders, perhaps no longer wishing to be so active, may still remain
as electors. Some of these might even have courtesy rights in the
Assembly, i.e, the routine right to attend and speak could be
granted. The structure becomes flexible and, quite likely more stable
than present electoral structures, where power hinges on what party
is in the majority.
Have you noticed that political parties no longer are necessary in
order to assemble a quota of votes? That this produces proportional
representation without parties or even any specifically defined
groups that are being represented? (That is, if people vote strictly
by party, the representation would be strictly by party. If they
voted strictly by location, the representation would be strictly by
location. In reality, it will be all of these, some in one case and
some in another, and it is, on the one hand, largely unpredictable,
but, on the other hand, probably quite stable. Would the person you
most trust change frequently? Asset Voting allows you to vote for
that person, without your vote being wasted. No other system does
that with any reliability.
Lewis Carroll, when he first described Asset in 1884, was thinking of
the "common man," who might only know a single candidate to trust. He
was concerned about exhausted votes in STV, and realized that if the
candidate could reassign the votes "as if they were his property,"
the exhausted vote problem would be solved. Quite a better solution,
don't you think, than the Australian one, where, if a voter does not
rank all the candidates, the ballot is considered spoiled and is
void? It is, in fact, a blindingly obvious solution, so obvious that
when I first read about STV -- only a few years ago -- I thought that
the votes were transferred by the candidates. Isn't that the most
obvious way to do it?
Apparently not!
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
