The Guardian brings us a rather interesting suggestion: How the Kickstarter model could transform UK elections.
You hear variations on this theme a lot - no one wants to vote for the minority party because everyone knows that no one wants to vote for the minority party. As time goes by, the number of people willing to vote at all declines, so that a smaller and smaller number of ever-more cynical people elect representative that are answerable to fewer and fewer voters, and policy gets more and more corrupt.
Now, if there's one thing the Internet's good at, it's collective action problems. Reducing the cost of working together is at the centre of the Internet's biggest success stories, from Wikipedia to GNU/Linux to Theyworkforyou. It may be that with the right code, we could crudely bodge a kind of AV system into the establishment-friendly, incumbent-favouring first past the post system.
In democracies all over the world, voting is in decline. A permanent political class has emerged, and what it has to offer benefits a small elite at the public's wider expense.
We hear a lot from tech circles about "disruption" of complacent, arrogant and entrenched industries. Politics is the foremost example of such an industry and it's overdue for disruption
This sounds like a fantastic idea to disrupt the political class, and get people that would normally be shut out of the primary process back into the game. So how do we implement it? I would assume the US model would look different than the UK.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mtrycz on Friday August 01 2014, @08:31AM
While you can surely go on and try your wit at it, I'll prudently postulate that there is no possible ruleset allowing for the desired outcome, because the game is rigged from the start.
There is no (and there can not be) a possible way out of this mess within the borders of the capitalistic ruleset.
But please, by all means, prove me wrong.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @12:37PM
voting with points would fix that..
I want to give this minority group 5 points and the alternative party to the one i dont want 2 points
This way, you can vote for minority while still voting effectively against the party you absolutely dont want to win
(Score: 2) by forsythe on Friday August 01 2014, @02:15PM
If we're voting for voting systems, I side with the Soystaff and favor Debian's. No voting system is perfect [wikipedia.org], but some are a lot less perfect than others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @02:24PM
The fundamental flaw in all voting systems is that they rely on an informed and engaged electorate that will take the time to understand the options on offer and make a rational decision or ordering among them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @07:28PM
> The fundamental flaw in all voting systems is that they rely on an informed and engaged electorate that
> will take the time to understand the options on offer and make a rational decision or ordering among them.
Eh, high-school libertarian retardation for the lose.
Your argument logically concludes in authoritarianism.
What you consider "uninformed" and "unengaged" I consider different perspectives reflecting different personal circumstances.
(Score: 1) by helel on Sunday August 03 2014, @09:35PM
That is an idealistic interpretation of other people's political stances. I've specifically tried to dig at the reasoning behind people's voting habits and all to often I've found their choices were based on demonstrably wrong facts.
For example, a few years back CA had a proposition that would require GMO foods to be labeled as such. When I asked people why they voted against I got the following responses:
• Labeling GMO foods will create a panic. This one you could call differing life experiences.
• All foods contain GMO's and so the law is useless. Demonstrably false because any ingredient certified as organic cannot be a GMO.
• Labeling GMO's would put undo difficulty on local restaurants, driving them out of business. Demonstrably false because the proposition did not cover restaurants at all.
Those were the three reasons people told me for voting against the proposition, with one person giving me the first reason and the other two coming from 2-3 people each. Not a statistically significant sample size but my personal experience with this and other issues tells me that many, perhaps most, people are basing their voting behavior on undeniably wrong facts. That, or their voting their party line and pulling BS out of their ass to justify it.
It's not just people on one side of any issue either. People that supported the GMO labeling proposition mostly supported it because they felt it was a logical extension of existing labeling laws but there were a few ... less right reasons including the belief that the proposition would make it illegal to use GMO's in restaurants (it still didn't apply to restaurants in any way) or that it would prevent the use of GMO's in CA (it was a labeling law, nothing about farming).
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Friday August 01 2014, @02:17PM
I think a "whoosh" is in order. What you suggest would be changing the game. What the GP is suggesting is that the game is rigged, and thus can't be fixed because it's designed to work as-is.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday August 01 2014, @05:23PM
I'd like to think the problems of lax regulation and regulatory capture are separate from the problems of representative democracy. However, I could be wrong.
Ideally, I'd like to ban party politics. If I vote for a representative, I want the best person to represent the aggregate position of the voters. I don't want cartels or collusion with other people's representatives.
If we're going to have party politics (as opposed to true representative democracy), I'd like to vote individually for each member of a cabinet. Personally, I'd like to vote for socialist healthcare, merit-based immigration, absolute privacy and absolute autonomy regarding weapons. At present, I get vaguely unappealing bundles of policies and individuals. Or I get center-ground policies where no credible party represents my views.
If we move away from paper elections, we have the opportunity to unbundle elections. (I have a personal preference for paper elections. That isn't because it is the best option. It is because the electorate understands it. There is no hope of trusting a system which cannot be understood. So, while we can discuss cryptographic hashes and zero-knowledge proofs, it very quickly becomes voodoo to the average voter.)
Admittedly, this scheme could be subject to gerrymandering. However, this already occurs with party politics.
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Insightful) by geb on Friday August 01 2014, @08:32AM
The proposal seems to be that in advance of an election, campaigners wander round asking voters whether they'd be willing in principle to vote for a minority party, and then if there are enough people interested, let them know before the election that they're not actually a minority.
I'm certainly not happy with the choices on offer in elections here, if you limit yourself to those parties that have a realistic chance of winning, so anything that can give the process a kick has its appeal.
On the other hand, asking people to commit to an action in advance is a well known method of manipulating behaviour to convince people to do things they would otherwise refuse.
If you ask "Would you vote for us?" several months before an election it seems like a very low pressure decision. It's just talking to some guy, not a meaningful decision. You can say yes just to make them go away.
Later on, come election time, if somebody sends you a reminder "You promised to vote for us! I hope you remember that!" they then feel an obligation to go through with it, even if nobody will ever find out how they voted.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @10:08AM
We already had this - for months before the election the electorate were sick of the corrupt, sleazy, spineless and incompetent tories and the corrupt, weasily, sleazy and incompetent New Labour. All the polls were showing that the Lib Dems would win the election hands down.
Two weeks before the election, after a few cosy meetings involving Labour / Tory leaders and Rupert Bloody Murdoch, the tabloids begin a "don't waste your vote" and "better the devil you know" campaign. Surprise surprise, come election day the Lib Dems can't get a majority, and we wind up with a (slightly diluted) tory government, shitty as ever.
You want to reform politics in this country? You want to squash political corruption, regain voters' confidence and put honest policy back at the heart of politics? You can start by taking Rupert Murdoch and anyone who has ever done dirty business with him out into the nearest car park and shooting them all in the fucking head.
Posted AC because, you know, publicly advocating the murder of one of the most influential people in the world might not be the best idea.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday August 01 2014, @01:15PM
That's a bit of an exaggeration.
Poll results putting the Lib Dems in first place were very few and far between, and none of them indicated a "hands down" win. Out of hundreds of polls 4 were for the LDs, and 3 of those were only 1 point ahead of the Tories. Statistical outliers of a narrow but consistent lead for the Tories for 4 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010#2010 [wikipedia.org]
Nevertheless, I share your distaste for Murdoch. He has singlehandedly done critical damage to the integrity of the political system in the UK and USA. And I guess in Australia too, though I don't follow antipodean news.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday August 01 2014, @05:36PM
I get the the impression that Rupert Murdoch bootstrapped from Australia -> UK -> US. Australia has recovered somewhat and the UK is recovering. Unfortunately, the US suffers Fox News. However, with cord cutters, Murdoch's paywalls and his incompetent sons, it will all fall apart after Rupert Murdoch dies.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Friday August 01 2014, @02:13PM
And that's one of the things that makes me scratch my head too.
you certainly arent going to have a start-up that will attract the kind of numbers you would want to cause an effect in a local election; by launching the site alone. You might get national attention but a scarce minority of public would bother- at least to start.
to make this work on a local level - you would need to bring a pad along with you when you go out to get signatures for your candidate and get them onto the ballot. get the signature, and check off on the site - and then hand off the website address so that the signee could pass it along to their friends and relatives.
Even then - you have to have near anonymity to ensure people feel that they aren't being used; and/or will see retaliation for the the political decision.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @09:15AM
The big problem is who can you trust to not rig it? Can you really trust Minority Party A to tell the truth or even run the "elections" correctly and competently?
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday August 01 2014, @01:18PM
You'd need a trusted independent web-site who offers the service to all comers.
I can't see it working though. The British public has already shown an inability to understand anything but FPTP, and have shown themselves too conservative to change to anything better. The chances of them understanding how this proposal works in any significant numbers are slim.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Professr on Friday August 01 2014, @09:24AM
Showing support for a candidate needs to be easy for an individual, because otherwise no one will use the system. Showing support needs to be very hard for an astroturfer, because otherwise no one will believe the system's results. So, the question is, what is easy for individuals to do but very hard or costly for astroturfers to do?
If we go by the kickstarter model, it involves individuals contributing set amounts of money to demonstrate the sincerity of their backing. In current campaign situations, that donated money would be used on advertising, schmoozing, payola, and whatever else - which is why campaigns are so finance-driven. Instead, the kickstarter-style contributions could be evenly distributed across a large set of charities, run first through a corporate entity to prevent people from using large contributions as tax deductions. That way, the benefits of dumping corporate money into astroturfed declarations of support would be at least somewhat curtailed. We could match IP geolocations to public voter records, too, to limit people casting false votes in someone else's name.
Thoughts?
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Friday August 01 2014, @09:50AM
(Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Friday August 01 2014, @11:47AM
There's two levels of IP-geolocation data: Country specific and county/state/region specific. Not all services provide access to the latter.
As for the mis-location of your connection, it could be that whatever ISP you are using is actually dropping onto the public Internet via a datacentre in London.
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday August 01 2014, @05:49PM
I strongly like the idea of having a corporate entity as a pinch-point to discourage tax shenanigans. However, rather than the corporate entity giving the money to charities, the corporate entity should establish further corporate vehicles (possibly with the original contributors as shareholders) to ensure that the purpose of the contributions remain focused.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by gallondr00nk on Friday August 01 2014, @10:04AM
I don't think the problem, as Doctorow suggests, is one that can be solved entirely by banding together. For one, the pledge wouldn't be binding. Secondly, even if minor parties did get elected to a few seats, what power would they have? Unless they got a parliamentary majority, they'd be powerless to stop the currently entrenched incumbents.
How would we trust them not to be swayed by the same lobbying interests that seem to corrupt the process currently? What's to stop them from forming a coalition, as recently when every Lib Dem vote in 2010 became one for a Conservative government, without anyone asking.
Since I'm on a roll of wide-eyed crackpot theories lately, I'll chuck in another one.
I'm up for challenging the idea of elected representatives directly. Why can't we actually represent our own views? Could we have a system where we could all instruct our representative to vote for or against proposals - so instead of having one vote, our representative has one per constituent, and splits them on account of the instructions they've recieved.
For those who don't have an opinion, the representative votes in accord with what they believe (and they'd have to explain it) to be beneficial to their constituents or abstains. No whips, no party line-to-take, no lobbying (unless a company intends to bribe every voter in a local area).
Representative democracy as we understand it seems to be giving all your power to another person, and then crossing your fingers and hoping they don't enact too many laws that will directly harm you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by geb on Friday August 01 2014, @10:30AM
Putting power in the hands of the public seems to just lead to propoganda and steering the public to think the "right" way.
If you were going to go down the direct democracy route, you need to protect public debate against advertising and spin, and educating the public. Of course, all the ways to achieve that can also be abused for more propoganda. I would not be optimistic.
(Score: 1) by len_harms on Friday August 01 2014, @01:41PM
Interesting ideas. I have been considering this for awhile. Money is a problem in the system. But why? For example in the last presidential elections between the two major parties they spent billions. But what for? Basically like you said basically propaganda. Calling some people several times a day and massive ad blitzes on all tv channels.
Somehow the idea whomever has the most money wins. Which is sort of true. But why?
What if our problem is not money at all. It is ineffective representation. What can we do to show our representatives that they are not representing us at all and basically not doing their jobs. They have wildly easy jobs on the face of it. Read a bill and vote on it. Also propose bills that help the people they represent. Instead we get 'we vs them' style gauntlet bills. With party line voting. It is pretty obvious that a very small group of people are managing congress and the senate. Otherwise you would not see party line voting. Our representatives are afraid to vote other ways. Because of the fear of a lack of money to get re-elected.
Instead of term limits. What if we proposed no two terms in a row and slightly longer terms (3 and 10)? With a minimum gap of 10-15 years between serving in any capacity. Then a very easy way to recall people. We need to remove the party out of these people once they are elected. They are not free to vote the way they need too as the two parties are holding them hostage with money in getting re-elected. We need to remove the reasons money has effectively brought our gov to its knees.
you need to protect public debate against advertising and spin, and educating the public
This is part of the problem money creates. It lets a very small minority of people buy the opinion of others by using advertising and manipulation techniques. I feel at this point in time that the Democratic party is better at manipulation than the Republican party. They have a slicker message. They both use advertising selling techniques.
Such as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_architecture [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_selling [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_management [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_calling [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_marketing [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation [wikipedia.org]
Both parties have very good ideas (and loony ones). But they both have very different marketing. Right now people on the internet seem to prefer the democrat style.
Now this may be a wildly bad idea and I am not thinking it thru. We need to create a system that is gaming resistant. We have a small select group of people gaming the system. But the way I am thinking is not to remove money. But to minimize the damage it does. Make it so money does not have this effect but instead produces better ideas.
(Score: 2) by geb on Friday August 01 2014, @02:22PM
I was talking in the context of the UK government. We already have a partial solution for this problem, and I want to see it preserved. It's not perfect, but moving away from it opens us up to horrors like the infowarfare that is US election campaigning.
The solution is to have an undemocratic section of government with veto power. In the UK, that is the House of Lords. Their power has diminished over the centuries, to the point where they basically just read proposed legislation and either approve, modify, or veto it, with no other role in government.
Since they are unelected, and retain power for life, they don't need to fear public reaction. If the public demand something stupid, the elected representatives have to listen, but the Lords can just say "Haha, no, don't be such idiots." and veto it.
As a recent example, they've refused new legislation on cyberbullying on the basis that existing laws on harassment would cover it, and we didn't need a second law for harassment on a computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by len_harms on Friday August 01 2014, @03:24PM
In the UK, that is the House of Lords.
In the US the senate basically was to take on that roll. The guys building the US constitution knew how it was being abused long term as they were in that system. The US was with a twist with a possible kick the guy out clause every 6 years. Instead the money is being used to say 'sure would suck if your re-election campaign didnt end up with any money'. Which is why I am thinking we need to remove the reason money has its effectiveness. It is being used to bully our representatives. That is why I am thinking slightly longer terms but you only get 1 term at a time. As the idea long term thinking and new blood are both good ideas.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday August 01 2014, @07:42PM
What if representative democracy was run like jury service? We wouldn't need elections, we wouldn't have the expense of election campaigns, we wouldn't get false promises and there wouldn't be any party politics. Representatives would just canvass their constituents and vote on laws.
1702845791×2
(Score: 1) by len_harms on Friday August 01 2014, @11:13PM
What if representative democracy was run like jury service?
I had considered that as well. I think people would treat it like jury duty. There are many out there who do not take it seriously. I think we need at least someone who is interested in the idea and not forced to do it.
we wouldn't get false promises and there wouldn't be any party politics.
I can see the appeal :)
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday August 02 2014, @12:18AM
Too many politicians seek office for their own enrichment. I see no disadvantage by giving political office to people who are less able to enrich themselves and have no opportunity to seek re-election.
Part of the problem with this scheme (and jury service) is that people are not given sufficient time to set their affairs in order. If a person was given one year notice (or more), they would be able to plan their life around it. For example, wind down a business, enrol in education or otherwise plan their life around civic duties.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday August 01 2014, @01:30PM
The danger of direct democracy is the tyranny of the majority. Though your proposal to still have a representative who must allow for implied wishes of those who have not voted, would at least stave off the tyranny of the minority who are politically motived enough to vote.
Besides that, I have no confidence in the public being informed enough to vote on most topics. The majority would probably just vote according to how their preferred newspaper or other media outlet steered them. That would place even more power in the hands of the likes of Murdoch.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday August 01 2014, @07:36PM
That danger is real, but do you really think it's worse than the current tyranny of the (very small, very wealthy) minority?
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday August 02 2014, @06:06PM
I hate to say it, but yes. The 1% are happy so long as they are profiting. But the mob can be full of hate and are easily steered by those with evil motives.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday August 15 2014, @06:55AM
True, but how often are a mob anything remotely resembling a majority? Usually they're a small but very vocal minority.
Hell, here in the US we've got a political two-ring circus with each spitting invective and doing everything they can to tar the other, and between the two of them they usually can't even inspire 50% of the population to vote at all, and those who do vote are almost deadlocked with each other.
You'' forgive me if I don't quiver in fear of the tyranny of the majority when fleets of the best rabble-rousers in the country can barely get 25% of the population behind their cause, and even that is mostly folks far less polarized than the ringleaders.
(Score: 1) by PiMuNu on Friday August 01 2014, @01:38PM
I thought it was illegal in the UK to collectively decide to vote in this manner. My understanding is that it comes under the same legal stuff as buying and selling votes. Perfectly happy to be wrong tho, can't find a good reference for this...
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Friday August 01 2014, @03:29PM
Not sure where you got that idea, I wouldn't have thought that someone publicly saying "I'm going to vote for candidate X!" followed by other people saying "Me too!" would have any basis in illegality as long as they still get their ballot paper and make their final decision themselves. To my knowledge, there have been a number of vote trading sites (e.g.: Tactical-Voter.org.uk [tactical-voter.org.uk]) operating in the UK for some years now.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fritsd on Friday August 01 2014, @04:14PM
I agree with Cory that "First past the post" is the problem here; it has even been mathematically proven (look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law [wikipedia.org]Duverger's Law).
Now if the Brits were even interested to find out how other countries do it, they probably start looking first at how voting goes in countries where they speak the same language (English) or that have other common cultural values.
The problem is, that the English speaking Commonwealth nations are practically alone in having this sub-optimal FPTP voting system, but as long as they only look to each other, they cannot but conclude "everybody else that I checked is doing it the same way as us, so why change?"
Proportional Representation (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation [wikipedia.org] it's even in English ;-) ) leads to a few large centrist / mainstream parties and many smaller "crackpot" / special issue ones; that keeps politicians MUCH more honest because they have to form coalitions.
First Post (for my new account here, anyway ;-) )