Good Morning, Kristofer
In this message, I'll respond on the topic of accountability. I'll also
attach a copy of the original draft of the concept which may make my
ideas a bit clearer.
(Items from your letter, so I can see which ones I've answered.)
re: "Yes. I think recall and the likes would be important. I'm
not sure how you would include other options - other than
recall - and not slow down the council, but we'll see."
re: "I think that's a good idea, as well, as long as it doesn't
turn too slow. There's probably a sweet spot in this matter:
if it goes too fast, it's prone to being guided by mindless
populism. If it goes too slow, you can get a group who
grumble about everything that's wrong and say "we would
change it all if we could just gain power", and that group
would grow simply because it has no challenge.
Things are going very fast currently, so having something
slower might work well. Since parliaments and the likes
don't make any direct mention to the sweet spot, yet still
work, I'm going to assume it's not very sensitive to it;
that is, that methods can work even if they err somewhat in
this respect."
re: "I think that if one were to corrupt your system, it would be
through the observation that the levels are only indirectly
connected to the people, so, again, we need some countering
method there (like recall, as mentioned earlier)."
re: "The accountability problem, I think, lies in the number of
levels one has to traverse. Our options is to either
compensate for it in the determination process (where
candidates travel upwards through the layers), or by having
more tools on hand after they've been chosen. I'm not really
sure how one would anchor the layers to the people in the
first process, though each councilmember will be so to some
extent already by the other members of the council of that
layer. So that leaves the second. We've already discussed
recall. What other "tools" do you think could be used? One
could also fix it indirectly, by strengthening the people's
power, such as by initiative and referendum, automatic
sunset laws, and the likes."
re: "Yes. I'll amend that slightly so I don't exclude my own PR
versions: The official should be responsible to those who
elected him to the degree that their vote contributed to his
election."
The proposed electoral method uses computers to maintain a database of
the electorate, generate random groupings, and record the selections
made at each level, This makes the process inherently bi-directional.
Each elected official sits atop a pyramid of known electors, so
questions on specific issues can easily be transmitted directly to and
from the electors for the guidance or instruction of the official.
How extensively this capability is used depends on those who implement
and administer the process. For example, the town council, state
legislature, and/or national congress can decree that certain questions
must be referred to the people who selected the representatives serving
in the body. In such an event, the representative would instruct the
database administrator to send the question down through the chain that
elected him.
This capability should be used with caution, however. Some of the
matters public officials must decide do not admit of simple answers.
Some may be unpopular or painful to the citizenry ... restraining the
cancerous growth that currently dominates (and threatens) our existence
will not be accomplished easily. We want to elect people with the
courage and wisdom to improve our society, not destroy it. We can not
expect to be happy with all their decisions. We've taken pains to
select people of integrity and judgment, we should not restrain them
unnecessarily.
The matter of how and when this option should be used raises several
questions. For example, it leaves open the matters of how the questions
should be framed and evaluation of the responses. The answers to
questions that elicit 'yes/no' responses can be influenced by the
phrasing of the question. On the other hand, anything more complex than
a 'yes/no' response requires interpretation which could be difficult,
since clarity of written expression does not seem to be an inherent
human trait.
We must also consider how responses are to be transmitted upward. My
initial idea was that the people would give their response to the person
they selected from their group, and that person would pass it upward. I
anticipate, though, an objection that this method would preserve the
biases that influenced the selection of the official in the first place.
I think that's a valid guess, but I suspect the matters to be resolved
this way are more apt to involve nuances than significant changes of
attitude. The method refines the public attitudes. It should not
encourage abrupt changes. If the selection process is repeated
frequently, and, as you suggested, each election only replaces a portion
of the elected body, it will be responsive to current circumstances and
the need for 'public questions' will be reduced.
In addition to the possibility of questions mandated by the public body,
the system will support voluntary requests for guidance by elected
officials. In my view, this is the preferred option. We elect people
to perform a function and we should trust them to carry it out.
However, partisans, in fulfilling their role, will raise questions and
publicize alternatives that should inspire a wise public official to
seek the guidance of his constituents. This method provides the means
for doing so.
The original draft of the concept is below.
Fred
PRACTICAL DEMOCRACY
(Selecting leaders FROM the people)
FOUNDATION
To select better leaders, we must find a way to select the most
principled of our people as our representatives. The method must be
democratic (i.e., allow the entire electorate to participate),
egalitarian (i.e., give everyone an equal chance to participate), and it
must be in harmony with natural human responses.
This outline will present such a concept in the simplest, most direct
way possible. It will, necessarily, mention a few of the mechanics, but
they are secondary. The important thing is the concept of harnessing
human nature. Once we've seen a way to do that, we can concern
ourselves with the myriad other details.
Although the process is continuous, I will describe it as having two
phases. The human factors dominating the first phase will metamorphose
into a different set of factors as the second phase develops. This
metamorphosis is the "magic" of the process.
METHOD
1) Divide the entire electorate into groups of three people.
2) Assign a date and time by which each group must select
one of the three to represent the other two.
a. No participant may vote for himself.
b. If a group is unable to select a representative in the
specified time, the group is disqualified.
3) Divide the participants so selected into groups of three.
4) Repeat from step 2 until a target number of selections is
reached.
DISCUSSION
An Election Commission conducts the process. It names the participants
of each group and supplies the groups with the text of pending
ordinances and a synopsis of the budget appropriate to the group. In
addition, on request, it makes the full budget available and supplies
the text of any existing ordinances. This insures a careful examination
of public matters and encourages a thorough discussion of partisan views
on matters of public concern.
For convenience, we refer to each iteration as a "Level", such that
Level 1 is the initial grouping of the entire electorate, Level 2 is the
grouping of the selections made at Level 1, and so forth. The entire
electorate participates at level 1 giving everyone an equal opportunity
to advance to succeeding levels.
* As the process advances through the levels, the amount of time
the participants spend together increases. At level 1, groups
may meet for a few minutes, over a back-yard fence, so-to-
speak, but that would not be adequate at higher levels. As the
levels advance, the participants need more time to evaluate
those they are grouped with. They also need transportation and
facilities for meeting and voting. These are mechanical details.
* The public has a tendency to think of elections in terms of
just a few offices: a congressional seat, a senate race, and so
forth. There are, however, a large number of elected officials
who fill township, county, state and federal offices. The
structure outlined here provides qualified candidates for those
offices, as follows:
At a predefined level (determined by the number of offices to
be filled), the two candidates not selected to advance to the
next level move into a parallel process leading to selection
for offices; first in the local, then the county, then the
national, and, finally, the state governments.
The initial phase of the process is dominated by participants with
little interest in advancing to higher levels. They do not seek public
office; they simply wish to pursue their private lives in peace. Thus,
the most powerful human dynamic during the first phase (i.e., Level 1
and for some levels thereafter) is a desire by the majority of the
participants to select someone who will represent them. The person so
selected is more apt to be someone who is willing to take on the
responsibility of going to the next level than someone who actively
seeks elevation to the next level, but those who do actively seek
elevation are not inhibited from doing so.
As the levels increase, the proportion of disinterested parties
diminishes and we enter the second phase. Here, participants that
advance are marked, more and more, by an inclination to seek further
advancement. Thus, a powerful human trait is integrated into the system.
Those who actively seek selection must persuade their group that they
are the best qualified to represent the other two. While that is easy
at the lower levels, it becomes more difficult as the process moves
forward and participants are matched with peers who also wish to be chosen.
Each participant must make a choice between the other two people in the
group knowing that they must rely on that person's integrity to guide
their future actions and decisions. Since they are unable to control
the person selected, they must choose the person they believe most
likely to conduct public business in the public interest.
However, they do not make their choices blindly. Elections are a
periodic process. The majority of those seeking advancement will do so
each time the process recurs. Some will be successful. They will
achieve public office and their performance will be a matter of public
record. When they participate in subsequent occurrences of the process,
their peers can evaluate that record to help them decide the candidate's
suitability for advancement. Furthermore, the names of advancing
candidates are announced as each level completes. Members of the public
with knowledge of unseemly acts by an advancing candidate can present
details for consideration at the next level. Since, after the initial
levels, the peers also seek advancement, they won't overlook
inappropriate behavior.
Face-to-face meetings in three-person groups eliminate any possibility
of voting machine fraud. Significantly, they also allow participants to
observe the non-verbal clues humans emit during discourse and will tend
to favor moderate attitudes over extremism. The dissimulation and
obfuscation that are so effective in media-based politics will not work
in a group of three people, each of whom has a vital interest in
reaching the same goal as the miscreant. Thus, the advancement of
participants will depend on their perceived integrity as well as the
probity with which they fulfill their public obligations.
This is a distillation process, biased in favor of the most upright and
capable of our citizens. It cannot guarantee that unprincipled
individuals will never be selected ... such a goal would be unrealistic
... but it does insure that they are the exception rather than the rule.
The process is inherently bi-directional. Because each elected official
sits atop a pyramid of known electors, questions on specific issues can
easily be transmitted directly to and from the electors for the guidance
or instruction of the official.
The cost of conducting an election by this method is free to the
participants, except for the value of their time, and minimal to the
government. Thus, it removes the greatest single cause of corruption in
our current system ... the need for campaign funds.
I originally thought to buttress this presentation by citing two
newspaper articles that discuss the (apparent) lack of interest in the
election process among the majority of the electorate and the working of
corruption in our system. I've decided that to do so would be superfluous.
ILLUSTRATION
This table provides a visual description of the Practical Democracy
method of selecting public officials. It uses the 2004 voting-eligible
population of New Jersey reported by Dr. Michael McDonald, George Mason
University, Fairfax, VA.
At about the seventh level, unselected candidates may enter a secondary
process for selection to positions in municipal, county, federal and
state governments.
Remaining Candidates
Level Electors Selected Unselected
1) 5,637,378 1,879,126 3,758,252
2) 1,879,126 626,375 1,252,751
3) 626,375 208,791 417,584
4) 208,791 69,597 139,194
5) 69,597 23,199 46,398
6) 23,199 7,733 15,466
7) 7,733 2,577 5,156
8) 2,577 859 1,718
9) 859 286 573
10) 286 95 191
11) 95 31 64
CONCLUSION
The idea presented here will be considered radical. It bears little
chance of adoption because it protects no vested interest. The only way
such a process will ever be adopted is if the concept can be made a
topic of discussion, particularly among students interested in achieving
a righteous government.
Fred Gohlke
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