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> considered that voting would just lead to aristocracy or oligarchy. Well, looking at the US at least, they weren't wrong.

by thayne 6y ago

eru 6y ago
Perhaps. I actually think some variant of sortition is superior to most voting systems to eg fill up a parliament; but to take the US as an example to argue that voting is bad would make the job too easy. Eg the German electoral system is also a bit messy, but seems to work well in practice. That might be a better yardstick to measure what voting can do, before we dismiss it. (My favourite sortition variant right now: - everyone can register as a candidate, if they want to - every voter can pick one candidate to put on their ballot - we select a few hundred ballots at random to fill up a parliament For completeness sake, add some mechanism to handle a single candidate being selected by more than one randomly drawn ballot. Eg you could draw again, or you could give that candidate extra weight in parliamentary votes, or you could form a chain and add a person of the double-candidates choice to parliament, or you could have voters write down multiple candidates in order, and just pick a later one on the voters list etc. Parliament can then select the executive, like it is already done in the UK or in Germany.)
- thayne 6y ago
  My post was a little tongue in cheek. I don't think a voting sysyem necessarily leads to an aristocracy/oligarchy. But it certainly can, and it needs to be carefully crafted to avoid that.
  - eru 6y ago
    Well, voting leads to specialisation of labour, and thus a political caste. The sortition system I sketched would still reward specialisation of labour, but there would be fewer threshold effects: if you convince thirty friends friends to ballot for you, you'd have a ten times higher chance to make it into parliament compared to only convincing three friends. With voting you have threshold effects. In all but the smallest towns, getting thirty people to vote for you has exactly the same outcome as zero votes.

> considered that voting would just lead to aristocracy or oligarchy. Well, looking at the US at least, they weren't wrong.

by thayne 6y ago

> considered that voting would just lead to aristocracy or oligarchy. Well, looking at the US at least, they weren't wrong.

eru 6y ago

Perhaps. I actually think some variant of sortition is superior to most voting systems to eg fill up a parliament; but to take the US as an example to argue that voting is bad would make the job too easy. Eg the German electoral system is also a bit messy, but seems to work well in practice. That might be a better yardstick to measure what voting can do, before we dismiss it. (My favourite sortition variant right now: - everyone can register as a candidate, if they want to - every voter can pick one candidate to put on their ballot - we select a few hundred ballots at random to fill up a parliament For completeness sake, add some mechanism to handle a single candidate being selected by more than one randomly drawn ballot. Eg you could draw again, or you could give that candidate extra weight in parliamentary votes, or you could form a chain and add a person of the double-candidates choice to parliament, or you could have voters write down multiple candidates in order, and just pick a later one on the voters list etc. Parliament can then select the executive, like it is already done in the UK or in Germany.)

thayne 6y ago
My post was a little tongue in cheek. I don't think a voting sysyem necessarily leads to an aristocracy/oligarchy. But it certainly can, and it needs to be carefully crafted to avoid that.
- eru 6y ago
  Well, voting leads to specialisation of labour, and thus a political caste. The sortition system I sketched would still reward specialisation of labour, but there would be fewer threshold effects: if you convince thirty friends friends to ballot for you, you'd have a ten times higher chance to make it into parliament compared to only convincing three friends. With voting you have threshold effects. In all but the smallest towns, getting thirty people to vote for you has exactly the same outcome as zero votes.