Voting systems theory should properly be a subtopic within social
choice theory, which is -- or should not be -- based on instantaneous
process, as from a single ballot, but from the whole set of
procedures whereby a community of interest discovers and makes choices.
In small-group process, choices by secret ballot are quite unusual,
outside of elections, and, again, in such process, even with secret
ballot (which is by no means universal), voting is traditionally
vote-for-one, with a majority required for a result to be declared,
otherwise the election is null as to legal effect and "must be
repeated," in the language of Robert's Rules of Order. Which means,
among other things, no eliminations are automatic, they are voluntary
or up to whatever renomination process is used. However, the repeated
ballots are based on information from prior ballots as to likely
results, thus the results shift as voters compromise their positions,
with communication outside the ballot process being quite likely. In
the end, the proof of adequate compromise is in a result approved by
a majority, and, in some organizations, even a supermajority is required.
Generally, standard democratic choice is through votes which are Yes
or No on stated propositions, which are themselves amendable through
Yes or No votes on proposed amendments. The amendment process
typically procedes until there is a supermajority in favor of closing
debate and process on each amendment and then on the main motion.
Thus a single final Yes or No decision may have been preceded by many
polls, compromises, etc.
Elections with multiple candidates might be seen as an exception;
however, if the majority requirement remains, it represents a
collapse of a longer process that would be the more rarely used
election by orginary motion. Election by motion is, intrinsically,
with adequate participation, Condorcet-compliant, and probably tends
to be more social-utility optimizing than we might expect, in healthy
organizations.
However, with public elections, and particularly with secret ballot
and the lack of an ability to conduct repeated ballots in short
order, the focus came to be on methods of determining some kind of
ideal winner from a single ballot, and this has suffered from lack of
precision in the definition of "ideal winner," there are competing
criteria that can sound optimal at first blush that may not be so.
Returning to basic social choice process, it is easy to demonstrate
that, under some conditions, the winners required by the Majority
Criterion or the Condorcet Criterion may not be ideal, with ideal
being defined as a result that would be approved by *all* voters
given full information. (I have used the "pizza election" to show
this, with an "ideal result" that would be approved unanimously by
voters, even though the first preference of a supermajority of voters
was different.)
It is possible to roughly predict such results using social utility
analysis, in situations where true absolute voter utilities are
known. Those situations are rare; however, their value was not
recognized by Arrow et al. Individual voter preferences are not fixed
things, they are an interplay between the voter's ab initio
preferences, which may be initially uninformed, and the preferences
of the rest of the society. It is possible for voter preferences to
actually reverse based on knowledge of the preferences of other voters.
But when it comes to representation in public process, where scale
does not allow direct participation by all voters, it has sometimes
been assumed that representatives would be chosen based on overall
utility for each choice, and this is diametrically opposite to the
principle of representation by choice, as distinct from
representation by appointment. I.e., the King might appoint a
representative for a colony, that's by appointment, obviously. A
choice of a single representative for a community by majority vote
(or worse, plurality) is representation by election for the community
as a whole. But it is not representation of the individual voters by
choice, and those who did not explicitly accept the winner cannot be
said to be personally represented in whatever decisions the elected
representative makes.
Proportional representation was intended to address this, bringing,
at least and in theory, various factions to the legislative table so
that they may negotiate more broadly acceptable solutions, which then
become, to the extent that they are, in fact, more broadly accepted,
unifying factors for the society, which increase efficiency and
voluntary compliance and support and a sense of connection with government.
However, the concept of representation remained collective rather
than personal, severely limiting this approach. Generally, with PR,
it is a party that is represented. If one is in a minority in the
party, one can easily end up inaccurately represented. A totally
different possibility has been suggested from time to time, but it
has never, to my knowledge, been used in political elections. It's
standard practice with corporations, in theory, though it is in
practice corrupted by certain power-centralizing practices which were
allowed to disrupte the democratic character of corporate elections,
and shareholders were not sufficiently organized, independently of
the corporations -- centralized power -- to resist this.
Corporations generally allow proxy voting, so that those who actually
vote in corporate elections or other decisions made at regular
meetings of the shareholders are casting votes not only for their own
shares (if they have any, there are professional proxies who do this
representation), but for those who have voluntarily chosen them as
representatives.
Attempts have been made to apply this to public elections. I forget
the city, but there was a proposal in the early 20th century to hold
an election for a City Council where, in the council, representatives
would exercise the votes they recieved in the general election. This
would have been, for the first time, true and accurate representation
before the Council. Because some council members would have many more
votes than others, others would have less; this would produce a more
representative result than a scheme in which votes are allocated to
seats equally, because smaller groups could still obtain seats.
(Assume a fixed number of seats. Suppose the top N vote-getters are
elected in a vote-for-one election. Look at the minimum number of
votes obtained by a candidate who nevertheless obtained a seat. In a
system which redistributes votes somehow so that a faction with 2Q
votes gets two seats, and Q votes are required to win a seat, and
there are N seats, compared to one where the top N candidates get
seats, with variable voting power, it's obvious that since for some
seats in the latter case, more than Q votes were obtained, some must
have less, and thus smaller factions get representation.)
Arguments against systems like this, on the face, seem to be based on
the idea that it would assign too much power to individuals, though
the power of an indivicual councilmember would probably be less than
that of, say, a single elected mayor; I would more precisely claim
that opposition is based, in the end, on distrust of democracy.
Fortunately, a relatively simple system, rooted in early study of
Single Transferable Vote by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll),
published in 1884 or so, allows the creation of a peer assembly,
where all seats represent exactly the same number of voters. Dodgson
recognized a basis fact of electoral democracy, one which actually
underlies the power of Plurality Voting and explains why, in spite of
its obvious deficiencies, it has remained: most voters have
sufficient information to be clear about their Favorite, but may have
much less information about lower preferences. Thus preferential
ballot, so easily seen as obviously superior, may be collecting
noise, unless special importance is given to the first preference.
And where that preference is not strong, this, too, may be quite
noisy. Dodgson harness the power of first preference, to create
accurate proportional representation that did not effectively
disenfranchise those who only voted for one candidate (when that
candidate did not win). He hit upon the idea of what Warren Smith
later called Asset Voting; it was earlier known as Candidate Proxy
when proposed by Mike Ossipoff and Forest Simmons in the late 1990s.
In an STV election, let the candidate in first position on any
otherwise exhausted ballot recast the vote.
Dodgson's proposal was lost in the noise for a long time, even though
he's been considered one of the foremost experts on voting systems of
the nineteenth century. The implications and possibilities are
enormous, from such a simple tweak.
A long time ago, the United States was founded on rhetoric about "No
Taxation without Representation." But I have personally never been
represented by anyone I chose, nor, even, by the somewhat lesser
standard of being represented by someone who was chosen by someone I
chose. In direct democracy (i.e., New England Town Meeting
government), I can vote directly on many issues. But as the scale has
increased, this ability is almost always lost, for reasons that are
obvious and that are not addressed merely by devices such as internat
voting. Deliberation by representation is essential when the scale
becomes large.
And no voting system that massively anonymizes the process can
actually create this, no matter how idea the system seems on pater as
to "social utility" or various measures of representational quality.
What Asset Voting would do is to create a set of "electors" who then
*publicly* elect an assembly to actually conduct legislative
business, which could include the election of public officers, which
can then use the highly effective deliberative processes, not
depending only on limited single-ballot procedures or even restricted
ballot (i.e., top-two runoff, as an example).
I would know where my vote went, exactly, I would know if it was used
a part of the election quota, or perhaps was wasted, and if it was
wasted, in general, I'd know that the candidate I trusted might be
responsible. I've recommended the Hare quota, i.e., a fixed quota
designed to set a maximum number of seats, not to necessarily elect a
fixed number. I.e., if candidates holding the dregs cannot find
compromises, they and those they represent lose representation, until
and unless they do compromise. If Assembly rules require, at least
for some purposes, an absolute majority of the theoretical maximum,
there is no gain in power by refusing to compromise, there is,
instead, a small loss.
Under these conditions an absolute majority of the Assembly would,
with absolute free choice in representation, represent a majority of
the electorate. I know of no other proposed system of proportional
representation (other than variations such as the early 20th century
variable voting scheme described above) that can accomplish this.
Because the electors are public voters, who have assigned their votes
in a public process, it also becomes possible to separate
deliberation and aggregation. I do not know how much difference this
would actually make, given how freely seats would be elected, but if
electors are allowed to vote directly on any issue before the
assembly (other than Questions of Privilege, another matter), the
seats can be seen, then, as representatives in deliberation and only,
in aggregation, as "default voters." The process would work fine if
no electors vote directly, but it means that the dregs, the votes not
used to elect a seat, would not be wasted, they could still be
exercised, if the electors took the trouble. It means that an elector
might more readily make a compromise based on general usefulness in
deliberation, even if the elector fears that he or she will disagree
with the choice on some issue. An elector holding a lot of votes
might have some significant impact, if the vote was close in the Assembly.
Asset Voting could create a penumbra of electors who serve as
intermediaries between anonymous voters and elected seats. Electors
are directly chosen, presumably with little or no restriction. I
could choose someone with whom I can actually sit down and talk. My
elector will generally be known as someone with influence over the
seat, because the votes are explicitly known. Asset Voting would
connect me with the Assembly. To get something to the floor of the
Assembly, I'd only need to convince my elector that it's worthwhile,
and then the elector must convince the holder of the seat. Yet
general noise, bad ideas, etc., would tend to be filtered out, but
not with simple rejection and igorance, as happens at present. My Bad
Idea would be rejected, hopefully, by a specific person, either my
elector, or, at the next step, my elected seat. Who can explain it,
through the elector. Someone I trust, in general. If it actually goes
before the Assembly, then I know that it has a shot at being
considered by a wider group. If for some reason, my elector and seat
aren't willing to consider it, I can find anyone else with a
different elector, and the idea has a shot.
For very popular electors, the scale would be too large, and I'd
expect the system to adjust toward smaller and smaller vote counts
for electors, with, possibly, intermediate aggregations, more or less
along the lines of delegable proxy. But delegable proxy could be
totally informal, advisory, which is pretty much how I've proposed it
everywhere. It's just a way of communicating in large-scale
organizations, that can also help with very small-scale organizations.
So I'm not terribly interested in methods of aggregating
representation through theoretical optimization from a single ballot.
They seems like utterly impoverished approaches to me, that would not
result in true, clear representation. The social intelligence of a
single ballot is very, very limited, given that alternatives not only
exist, they are routine in small-scale direct democracy and in
certain large-scale applications. Proxy voting is considered
inappropriate in membership organizations, by Robert's Rules of
Order, for reasons that I won't go into here, but RRONR was
contemplating only direct democracy, as practiced and implemented for
centuries, and, I'd suggest, the arguments against proxy voting were
shallow, mostly based on the idea that property rights are not
represented; they are quite in favor of proxy voting with respect to
property rights.
But ... what if the members of an organization are encouraged to
think of the organization as "theirs" in some way? What if the
property right analogy is more applicable than was thought, what if
this would encourage a deeper sense of participation and "ownership"?
If I invest a thousand hours of volunteer time in an organization,
how is this different from investing thousands of dollars in some
piece of property. The difference I see is that in the organization,
generally a nonprofit, I don't gain "personal ownership." But there
are other kinds of ownership, including collective pride and a sense
of responsibility.
However, Asset Voting only represents narrow representation by what
resembles proxy voting, in the process of electing an assembly. I
raise the ownership issue because, indeed, I believe that our
societies will function better if citizens feel "ownership." I've
seen it in small New England Town Meeting towns. Citizens have the
sense that it is "their town" and "their town government." They take
responsibility for the town and for each other. What if we could
foster this on a large scale? Wouldn't that be interesting?
The biggest opposition to Asset Voting, once the power of it is
realized, would be from political parties and those who benefit from
the divisions that political parties represent. Parties must
amalgamate issues to be efficient, so minority representation gets
lost; if you are, as an example, a Pro-Life Progressive (they
exist!), you are out of luck. Even though, in theory, if you are
truly pro-life you would also be against war and the corporate rape
of the planet (from this point of view). Asset makes political
parties much less important, I'd expect, because it's people being
elected, not parties or issues, even though these people may have
their own political affiliations and issues they consider important.
They would not need to affiliate with a party to gain voting power as
electors, and because the electors are a reduced set of voters, they
might be readily elected based on personal communication within the
elector body with no need at all for public campaigning, which
requires major expense.
Address campaign finance reform by making it unnecessary! Tell me,
what would you think of someone who tried to persuade you to vote for
them instead of a person you already trust, by spending a lot of
money? Would you be inclinded to trust this person? I wouldn't! The
very fact of campaign spending, in an Asset environment, would mean
that the person has some axe to grind, some cause to advocate, a
cause that can collect money, and the most obvious candidates would
also be major sources of corruption, who, instead of relying upon
cogent argument and relationships of personal trust, want to
influence large numbers through media manipulation.
I don't think this is a difficult argument to fathom! The fact is
that most voters do *not* trust politicians, it's a profession that
is down somewhere below "user car salesman." They don't trust them
because they know that the system requires politicians to lie in
order to gain enough votes to win election, and that politicians must
also gain campaign funding, which is most easily gathered through
large donations from special interests of various kinds. Voters
nevertheless vote for these politicians, whom they do not trust,
because they don't have any other better choice that wouldn't waste
their vote. And many don't vote at all, because they have no
confidence that their vote would make any difference at all.
Asset Voting causes every vote to count, to make a difference. In the
systems I'd propose, if you don't trust *anyone* (a bad condition to
be in!), you can register as a candidate for a nominal fee and vote
for yourself, and then participate directly in subsequent process.
But most people would not bother with that, too much work for too
little benefit, if one only gets one vote. (It might be necessary to
get two or three or more, and registered candidates might be required
to cast a separate identified preferential ballot when they register;
the "two or three" might be necessary for security reasons. Details.
If they get less than the minimum number, then, in the actual secret
ballot process their vote would be reassigned to a candidate from
their preferential ballot and the official results would only show
that the candidate got less than the minumum, it would otherwise be
anonymized. Under this scheme, candidates would not vote in the
general election directly, they would vote by identified ballot.)
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