--- On Wed, 21/1/09, Michael Allan <[email protected]> wrote: > Juho Laatu wrote: > > > I don't see any big conflict. They are > > free to speak even if the society does > > not provide them with tools to prove > > to others how they voted. (And they > > can still tell others how they voted.) > > The problem was to design a democracy in which people: > > * are free to engage with political issues; > > * know this, and are continually reminded of it; > > * yet fail to do so. > > The design solution was: > > a) a single vote, every 4 years or so > > b) mass voting for a few pre-selected candidates
Could be also numerous. > > c) secret ballot > > d) no voting on laws, only on the law makers Yes, there are not many direct democracies. (One justification is that this work requires expertise. I don't fully buy this though. Proxies and modern means of communication also help.) > > Now the problem is to design a substansive democracy, in > which > political engagement is a fact. Probably you can not force it, but you can make participation easier and nicer. > Oddly, the preceding > design need not > be altered. It remains essential. All we need is to add a > separate, > primary voting system, I didn't yet quite understand what parts of the old system are kept and what will be replaced with the new system. > with these counter-features: > > a) continuous results, with shifting votes Maybe mostly positive, but also something negative. > > b) peer-to-peer voting, with no pre-selected candidates You may need also some approval from the citizens to become candidates. (Or alternatively you could allow them to indicate if they will not accept the role of a proxy.) > > c) open ballot What was the reason why you consider open vote to be a requirement? (or a "counter-feature") > > d) voting on laws, too I read this as allowing individual voters to vote directly too, without any proxies between them and the decisions (on laws and on anything). Quite OK but I have some concerns on what will happen in the tax raise questions. It is possible that the society would spend more than save. One could set some limits on the number of levels. One could e.g. allow only proxies with n votes to vote in certain questions. Use of hysteresis could help making the role of proxies of different levels clear (last minute decisions or alternative direct and proxy votes would be more complex). The proxy systems may allow (also for other reasons) different proxies or direct voting to be used for different questions. Juho > > -- > Michael Allan > > Toronto, 647-436-4521 > http://zelea.com/ > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see > http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
