On democracy 2.0

 The main idea: various amendments to the democratic procedure that may be of interest.

0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 11.12.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form. I will keep adding new relevant ideas to this post as I go.

0.1 Whilst I have little faith in a possibly less shonky version of democracy to be attempted once ours crashes, such faith is still non-zero, so see below some ideas related to better electorate selection algorithms and other design changes to be considered for such a system. Goes without saying, that any such system would uphold the sovereignty of the legislature, enough of this judicial review nonsense. All these I consider inferior in promise to Gohlke's idea on this matter.

1.1 First, everyone votes, but voting rights are issued well in advance of an election (probably right after any election, valid for the next one) and are fully transferable / tradable. 

1.2 If you can make a piece of paper safe enough against tampering, actually issue these and ask for one to be shown to get a ballot come election day. Ask for nothing else, no ID or proof of citizenship. Ask no questions if anyone comes with a big pile o’ papers. 

1.3 If no such tamper-proof paper can be produced, go about this the old fashioned way where the transfer has to be made with a notary public.

1.4 Voila, only those who care enough to vote can do so now. Aristocratic republic.

2.1 Second, only citizens over 18 can vote (as today) but, only those who agree to be subjected to a Russian Roulette game with a 1% chance of death will cast a ballot (technically, make a 10-rounds revolver and shoot it twice, the first time using one blank). 

2.2 1% would be the long-run annual risk of death from disease way back before modern medicine, the rate we've adjusted to and consider the default. Or so I read once.

2.3 This is more in the vein of Henlein, obviously. 

2.31 A generalised version would see voting power for a given 4 or 5-year period allocated in proportion to the roulette's odds of death, these taken voluntarily. So, a guy willing to take even odds (and surviving them) would be given fifty times the voting power of his fellow who only went in for 1% odds.

2.4 You can combine this with the first scheme, and allow the gentlemen who agree to be subjected to such a game to transfer their hard-earned ballot away. Plenty of guys with nothing to lose around, maybe we don’t want them to actually vote.

3.1 A fancy one, do away with any age requirements to vote. But citizens can only cast one or more votes in proportion to the living legitimate, direct descendants they have. 

3.2 Each parent can cast as many votes as they have children, and none at all if they have none.

3.3 Fancier still, each grandparent can cast as many votes as they have children and grandchildren, and so on.

3.4 Yes, a gerontocracy, but one weighted towards future orientation. 

4.1 Switching gears to the legislature itself. Elect a small portion of it every year or even twice annually. 

4.2 Depending on the size of the body, one can get away with electing a tenth every year to a fortieth twice a year. This yields an individual tenure of ten to twenty years, much better than the current four to five.

4.3 Still, it also allows a democratic signal through.

5.1 Yet another idea inspired by Fred Gohlke’s design. You vote by Single Transferable Vote (rank as many candidates as you like), and specifically either by Meek (yuck!) or Warren (yay!), which systems you use to elect exactly three candidates with the exact same number of votes of a third of the valid votes (both of these systems, and only these systems, can do this, but Meek is communist and Warren ain’t). It is key that the three have the same number of votes.

5.2 The guys you have picked are not the winners, but the Electors, each of whom elects one of the other two, with whoever getting two votes being the winner. Even after the winner is thus elected, the Electors are still Electors, and can at any time change their vote to elect either one of the other two (obviously changing your vote into a three-way tie does nothing). Three-way ties at the first instance just elect the candidate with the smallest keep value.

5.3 Obviously a very centrist system, even more so than approval voting would be. Maybe a chaotic system, even more so than IRV has proven to be. 

5.4 If applied to a society with two main parties, of which one slightly more popular, you’d likely get two Electors from the popular party and one from the less popular party, with the latter deciding who among the former would be elected. A reasonable setup.

5.5 To generalise 5.4 even further, the system would allow sizable minorities a greater say than plurality elections of one winner.

5.6 Now, once this is implemented the political landscape would change such as to (most likely) allow for four main parties, three of whom would elect Electors. But again, using either Warren or Meek would be key in allowing this to happen. And to repeat myself, a system with four main parties appears ideal to me.

5.7 Easier to implement for Mayoral elections to sort out the quirks. If CEO nominations ever become contentious, worth taking a look as well.

6.1 Now for a vanilla one: restrict the ability to run for MP or Mayor to only those who have served at least one term as a local councilor, and restrict the ability to be nominated Minister, PM or President to those who have served at least one term as MPs. If you have intermediate steps between local government and central government - states or provinces, for example - add that as a second step predicated on the first: councilor - state MP - federal MP. Just formalising best practice, but help cut down on inexperienced people and focuses the mind to get in on the action early.

7.1 (I'VE SINCE COME TO SEE THE SILLINESS OF THIS AS A VOTING METHOD, BUT STILL LEAVING IT UP AS A POTENTIALLY USEFUL METRIC) How about you count only the votes of the voters who have changed their mind from the last election in which they voted? Obvious freebie for those who cast their first vote (who’ll strategically vote for any party except their true favorite in order to change their vote next time), but this is a one-time thing only. A much more severe issue is enforcing this, and ensuring that parties don't just change their name to make a vote to them count as a "changed" vote. No obvious solution comes to mind.

8.1 And how to forget Curt Doolittle's great idea, of each gender electing their own House with perfect bicameralism required for government. Would surely lay bare the chasm.

9.1 Another aristocracy-light system, where you only allow firstborns to vote. This is obviously inspired by recent research suggesting firstborns score much higher across a series of relevant metrics. Maybe this was indeed part of the strength of western aristocracy. Compound this by allowing all firstborns to vote, but only firstborns of firstborns to be elected to office.

10.1 Back to structural matters now. You could attempt to accommodate a federal structure within a single chamber instead of the usual double system. You calculate the size of the chamber as per usual, cubic root of population.

10.2 Then, you allocate approximately half of it to the federal entities, all of which elect the same number of representatives here. Obviously this can only be approximated as the portion you can fill will depend on how many entities you have. Anyway, ideally should be half.

10.3 The remainder of the chamber is then filled such as to minimise the voting imbalance between citizens in the most and least populous entities across the entire chamber.