Alternative voting systems

[Topazan]

I know some people here are against democracy altogether, but we can leave that talk for other threads.

The plurality/first-past-the-post voting system used in the US and many other countries is frankly terrible at representing the actual wishes of the voters.  It forces people to vote tactically, leading to two-party deadlock, and ensures

Of the alternatives that have been proposed, I used to support instant run-off voting, but someone on this forum convinced me that approval voting is better simply because of its simplicity.  That said, almost anything would be better than what we have.

Just for the heck of it, I created a petition on whitehouse.gov.  I'm not optimistic about getting the 100,000 signatures in time, but I figured why not try.  If we could at least get the 150 needed to make it publicly searchable, that would be a start.  Changing the voting system is pretty much the only chance we have of getting any "non-traditional" candidates in power.

[Lethn]

I'm a big fan of Direct Democracy myself, the type they have in Switzerland, not because of any math based argument but purely because in that system if a politician tries to pass a law a citizen doesn't like that citizen can start a petition, if the petition reaches the threshold set then by law the law petitioned against has to stop. It's also quite well safe guarded because of course if a dick politician tries to sneak around this system and change the threshold to make it higher or get rid of the petition system altogether then citizens can of course stop it.

This to me is a much better system than electing dictators every few years who can just do what they want, a lot of times in the first past the post system you have everyone voting a person in and then of course they turn out to be an arsehole but people have a way of stopping them from passing laws while they're in office instead of just shoving them through with the buddies they've brought into parliament etc.

[Akka]

Well, we already have the technology to make a real direct democracy on every decision.

Imagine every Person has a Voting public and private key. (Some Anonymity must be added to make votes anonymous, but it's possible).

Now every person could vote on every decision with signing with their private key.

Of course not every person wants to get directly involved. Therefore we would have representatives, that we could give our vote to, again by signing with the key. (Note: could not must)

Every of this representatives would vote with the exact amount of voices he has. All it takes is my representative to make one single vote with my voice that I don't approve with for me to take my voice away and give it to someone else, or a new person that enters and presents my personal opinion better.

Also if a Topic really interests me, I can always vote directly and my representative has one less voice on this topic, because my key has already been used on this topic.

Topics to vote on / discuss could be chosen by the same way. Basically everyone could at any time pass a proposal to vote upon and people start signing immediately.

Only to prevent someone to sneak laws through, by having very little approve votes a less against votes, only laws with a certain amount of votes pass.

So it would be enough for everyone to check "hot votes" all few weeks.

Of course this is only a concept. There are certainly flaws in this Idea.

[CIYAM]

Imagine every Person has a Voting public and private key. (Some Anonymity must be added to make votes anonymous, but it's possible).

The problem (which has been discussed numerous times) is just how do you limit 1 person to 1 vote (i.e. I can just create as many votes as I like if I have enough funds to do so).

AFAIA no-one has really found any successful method to do so (if they did we'd already have seen it - and yes I've read various *papers* about such ideas but have seen *zero* implementations).

Whenever someone tries to involve a central authority to *identify* people to limit their ownership to 1 vote then the libertarians scream *decentralise* but whenever they are asked *okay - how?* silence or vague *papers* are the response (i.e. they simply do not have any solution at all).

[Akka]

Imagine every Person has a Voting public and private key. (Some Anonymity must be added to make votes anonymous, but it's possible).

The problem (which has been discussed numerous times) is just how do you limit 1 person to 1 vote (i.e. I can just create as many votes as I like if I have enough funds to do so).

AFAIA no-one has really found any successful method to do so (if they did we'd already have seen it - and yes I've read various *papers* about such ideas but have seen *zero* implementations).

Whenever someone tries to involve a central authority to *identify* people to limit their ownership to 1 vote then the libertarians scream *decentralise* but whenever they are asked *okay - how?* silence or vague *papers* are the response (i.e. they simply do not have any solution at all).

That's a point, it's hard to prove that there is only one key per person.

What I don't understand, what has this to do with funds?

I'm not talking about Bitcoin here.


Also, I already have a ID number on my passport. That could be replaced by my public key.

Votes need to be Anonymous (not possible to trace who voted for what) so that's a different problem.

[CIYAM]

That's a point, it's hard to prove that there is only one key per person.

What I don't understand, what has this to do with funds?

I'm not talking about Bitcoin here.

Sure - the proposals I was referring to (and was involved in a number of threads about) were about using the blockchain to try and achieve this - but even without using Bitcoin the same problem is still there.

[Akka]

Well, I some democracies you have to be a registered voter in order to vote.

One private key per registered voter, would do the trick.

Issues that remain would be:

Guarantied Anonymity of votes.

Expired of Keys, so nobody could harvest dead peoples keys / stealing of keys is less effective.


This would not be a pervert System, but certainly a huge improvement with potential to improve further.

[CIYAM]

One private key per registered voter, would do the trick.

This I have discussed in detail before and it *can* be done (although I think it got so technical that no-one was interested in the details so I left it a long time ago).

If you are interested take a look at this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=61359.0

In short though - don't waste your time - no-one is actually really interested in this at all (I wasted about a month contributing to such threads). People on this forum love to "talk the talk" but rarely if ever "walk the walk".

[Mike Christ]

I posted a topic recently on here about the exact same thing (although Akka's system is much more detailed than I was able to figure out.)  I don't believe it's a technical issue, it's a problem getting people on board. You have to make it simple so the general public can easily pick up on what it's about; save the technical side for later. The more people advocate a direct democracy (not my favorite type of gov, but a gigantic leap in the right direction for democratic countries), the more the snowflake will roll down the hill. Nowadays it's something to laugh at when someone points out how politicians are corrupt liars, because it's so painfully obvious. Nobody talks about a new and improved system tho, and most would be extremely interested in an alternative.

[MonadTran]

Changing the voting system is pretty much the only chance we have of getting any "non-traditional" candidates in power.

That is exactly the reason why there are not going to be any changes in the voting system.
A petition to White House is like, "Oh, please, please, let us replace you guys with nicer people!"

[Mike Christ]

Suppose you could guarantee that each person would get exactly one vote in a direct digital democracy.

Would you really want a system where 51% of the people could pass propositions such as "Every computer must run Microsoft Windows"?

Sounds more of an issue with a society of stupid people than an issue with the system itself   It'd be like blaming BTC for Silk Road; people do what they want with it, it's just a tool.  And if a society really wanted to (and fail miserably at that) enforce a law which required computers to run one operating system, they have way worse issues than having the ability to push a topic like that in fruition.  That's a neon red flag right there if Microsoft got a monopoly on OS, and if a society can't realize why it would be a terrible law to pass, I'd rather not live with them to begin with.

[Elwar]

The only fair system of voting is one where 100% of people agree on where their money is spent.

Otherwise you need systems for robbing people and the tyrannical side of government grows from there.

[MonadTran]

The only fair system of voting is one where 100% of people agree on where their money is spent.

+1

[Mike Christ]

The only fair system of voting is one where 100% of people agree on where their money is spent.

Otherwise you need systems for robbing people and the tyrannical side of government grows from there.

Good point   My gov teacher explained it well, "Politics has no right or wrong.  It is simply who gets what and how much; you rob Peter to pay Paul."

[interlagos]

Interesting topic!

Some time ago I started a thread about provable trust-free voting system based on Bitcoin private key signing.

"Consensus-based society with provable trust-free voting"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=124477.0

Some of the technical aspects of the system have been described on pages 2 and 3.
Solutions to some of the problems raised here have also been proposed.

You might take a look and see if it fits your ideas about how to actually implement such system.

[Topazan]

This isn't really the direction I intended to go.  I was talking about the way votes are counted, the winner-take-all approach that keeps us locked in a two party system.  Alternative systems have been proposed that allow voters to vote for more than one candidate, so they can simultaneously vote for the third party of their choice while simultaneously hedging against their less-preferred major party.

But, if that's what you guys want to talk about go ahead.  One problem I see (and this is also a problem with bitcoin) is that the average person isn't very savvy when it comes to computer security.  If a private key is the only means of authentication used in the system, then a considerable number of people will have theirs stolen.  You would need some degree of centralization in order to assign the keys, and to provide multiple forms of authentication.  However, the advantage of using a crypto-solution is that the blockchain would provide a public record of votes, for more transparency.

I'm not really sure that direct democracy is really that preferable to the current system.  What's the advantage?  Normal people are just as selfish and short-sighted as elected officials.  I guess you could say it would stop politicians from passing bad policies to enrich themselves, but plenty of bad policies get passed for populist reasons.  Special interests would still be able to lobby just by targeting the population directly.

[Mike Christ]

This isn't really the direction I intended to go.  I was talking about the way votes are counted, the winner-take-all approach that keeps us locked in a two party system.  Alternative systems have been proposed that allow voters to vote for more than one candidate, so they can simultaneously vote for the third party of their choice while simultaneously hedging against their less-preferred major party.

But, if that's what you guys want to talk about go ahead.  One problem I see (and this is also a problem with bitcoin) is that the average person isn't very savvy when it comes to computer security.  If a private key is the only means of authentication used in the system, then a considerable number of people will have theirs stolen.  You would need some degree of centralization in order to assign the keys, and to provide multiple forms of authentication.  However, the advantage of using a crypto-solution is that the blockchain would provide a public record of votes, for more transparency.

I'm not really sure that direct democracy is really that preferable to the current system.  What's the advantage?  Normal people are just as selfish and short-sighted as elected officials.  I guess you could say it would stop politicians from passing bad policies to enrich themselves, but plenty of bad policies get passed for populist reasons.  Special interests would still be able to lobby just by targeting the population directly.

If a direct democracy won't work, and communism won't work, and socialism won't work, only thing we got left is no gov at all.  Unless someone wants to invent something nobody's heard of, but, I'm pretty sure by now we're at the end of the road when it comes to forms of government.  All that's left are the many flavors of what we know.

[Topazan]

As I said, we can leave the anarchism for other threads.  I'm just not sure why you see direct democracy as a leap in the right direction.  If you claim that the biggest problem with the current government is that it isn't populist enough, I'm going to have to disagree with you there.

[Explodicle]

Well, we already have the technology to make a real direct democracy on every decision.

Imagine every Person has a Voting public and private key. (Some Anonymity must be added to make votes anonymous, but it's possible).

Now every person could vote on every decision with signing with their private key.

Of course not every person wants to get directly involved. Therefore we would have representatives, that we could give our vote to, again by signing with the key. (Note: could not must)

Ah, delegated voting! I was thinking along those lines a few years ago:
http://explodicle.blogspot.com/2009/10/delegated-democracy-part-7.html

I hit a roadblock when actually pitching it to people: most people think either
A) The government is pretty close to optimal so leave it to the experts to make tweaks, or
B) The government is totally corrupt/idiocratic and it's not even worth trying to fix it.
I have to admit I've been drifting more towards B, so that's why financial cryptography got me so interested. Voting system reform is a nerdy meta topic, and because voting is unpaid/anonymous the only reason to do it well (or care) is altruism. It's cheap and socially beneficial to be wrong because there are no personal consequences for voting poorly and bullshitting. So at this point I'd rather donate to software development funds and submit bug reports, than stress out arguing with fools for decades.

I support all the voting system reforms you guys are describing, but I'm through waiting for permission to make the world a better place. I want more change faster.

But, if that's what you guys want to talk about go ahead.  One problem I see (and this is also a problem with bitcoin) is that the average person isn't very savvy when it comes to computer security.  If a private key is the only means of authentication used in the system, then a considerable number of people will have theirs stolen.  You would need some degree of centralization in order to assign the keys, and to provide multiple forms of authentication.  However, the advantage of using a crypto-solution is that the blockchain would provide a public record of votes, for more transparency.

The average person would touch their key only once, when assigning a delegate. From there they could use any authentication system they want; most people who vote frequently would probably opt for a feudal security model like Google or Facebook. Personally I suggest that voters select their delegate from a keyring on a secure dedicated terminal, so most people wouldn't even have to learn what a private key is.

I'm not really sure that direct democracy is really that preferable to the current system.  What's the advantage?  Normal people are just as selfish and short-sighted as elected officials.  I guess you could say it would stop politicians from passing bad policies to enrich themselves, but plenty of bad policies get passed for populist reasons.  Special interests would still be able to lobby just by targeting the population directly.

To oversimplify a frequently-debated topic: it's a lot cheaper to bribe one politician than to bribe all their constituents, and the latter might not be so bad anyways.

If a direct democracy won't work, and communism won't work, and socialism won't work, only thing we got left is no gov at all.  Unless someone wants to invent something nobody's heard of, but, I'm pretty sure by now we're at the end of the road when it comes to forms of government.  All that's left are the many flavors of what we know.

I think futarchy could work well too.

[hawkeye]

As I said, we can leave the anarchism for other threads.  I'm just not sure why you see direct democracy as a leap in the right direction.  If you claim that the biggest problem with the current government is that it isn't populist enough, I'm going to have to disagree with you there.

I agree.  Leave the anarchism to another thread and let alternative forms of government be discussed in detail here.  At the end, it will be obvious that none of them are viable.   

As you were.