ELECTIONS PART 2

My second post about politics, following up on the idea of a new elections system. Click HERE to read the first article. I want to address some potential problems related to the new system, and explain some of the details better.

 DEFINING STATEMENTS

I mentioned in the previous article that before the pre-elections, each party must write down 10 statements that basically define their political program. Statements should always be executable. "Soft drugs are bad for your health" is not a good statement because it isn't executable. "Possession of soft drugs should be made punishable" is a good statement. The (properly worded) statements are then combined into one list, which is used in the pre-elections. In the pre-elections everybody chooses 10 statements that they think are the most actual and important.

Most problematic is the list that is created and used in the pre-elections. One issue is that one subject will be represented by multiple statements. It can be expected that the more important a subject is, the more statements enter the list. Votes could be spread among statements on the same subject, in a way that would make those subjects seem less important. Perhaps enough not to be selected for the final elections. See the next example:

Assume that there are only 2 statements, and 1600 people voting.

Statement 1: "the government should invest more in renewable energy sources"

Statement 2: "soft drugs should be completely legalized"

Assume that statement 1 is more important, and that the voting result will be:

Statement 1: 1000 votes

Statement 2: 600 votes

Now assume that there are 3 statements, 2 of them are very similar. The rest is the same.

Statement 1 "the government should invest more in renewable energy sources"

Statement 2 "subsidization of renewable energy should increase"

Statement 3 "soft drugs should be completely legalized"

The result could now be:

Statement 1: 550 votes

Statement 2: 450 votes

Statement 3: 600 votes. 

Apart from a 'spreading effect', it is also possible that the first subject is so important that the 2 statements about 1 subject will 'steal' all the votes away from the second subject. Because people will be able to choose 10 actual, important statements, it is possible that they choose multiple on the same subject. I don't think this is what we want. We want to know the opinion of the public on as many of subjects as possible, so we cannot keep multiple statements on the same subject if they are too much alike.

Statements that are 100% the same can be combined automatically, but other statements must be combined by hand. Preferably a team of politics experts is assembled by the incumbent government. First the team removes all statements that are not executable. Probably none of the statements are wrongly formulated, as parties want to have the most influence. Secondly the team combines all statements that are about the same thing. The trick is to make a new statement that incorporates all elements of those statements, without being too vague. Additionally, the new statements should be formulated as yes/no questions, to make them more neutral. Instead of "the government should legalize this" it should be "should the government legalize this?" If you do not formulate it as a question, people that are opposed to the statement will not be willing to choose it (I think), even though they are only choosing it so that they can later express their opinion on it. Both the original list and the adjusted list should be made public. On the original list there should be 10*X statements, where the X is the amount of parties. After the adjustments by the team there are most likely much less statements, presumably 20-50 (my guess). There should be an option for the eligible parties to file complaints if they think the list is not acceptable. Perhaps the team can be replaced if the majority of the parties thinks that the team is not impartial.

RISE OF THE UNDERDOG

When you no longer vote for parties, popularity no longer matters (that much). In the current system popular parties will get more votes than the other parties simply because they are already popular. In the new system, smaller, less popular parties will have a higher chance of getting into the government than with the current system, if their opinions are shared by the general public. I suppose that this is good, as I (and I assume more people) want politics to be about good decisions, not good looks.

On the other hand, the current voting system serves as a mechanism to punish parties that do not do what the public wants. But if you do not vote for parties, each party with popular opinions will get votes each time. Of course, we do have a way to punish those that do their job badly. Any member of the house of representatives can file a motion of no confidence to a minister that failed at his job. If the majority of the house agrees, the subject is encouraged to resign. Perhaps also such a system could be constructed to allow the general public to show their lack of confidence in the government. If the majority of the electorate wants a minister, or perhaps the entire government, to resign, they should be able to force them. Everybody could use his or her digital identity to log on to the governmental website that has the option to vote for nonconfidence in a minister or in the entire government. At any time. Of course there have to be moments for counting and resetting the counter, which could be every 3 months, or perhaps every year. If such a thing occurred, it should trigger new elections.

EXAMPLE CALCULATION

Finally, I want to give you an example of how party members get their seats in the house of representatives through the new voting system. I will skip the process of the pre-elections now, and assume that there are 3 statements/questions chosen (normally this would be 10 questions).

These are the fictional results after a voting by 3500 people:
Question 1: 900 yes, 2000 no, 600 indifferent

Question 2: 300 yes, 2800 no, 400 indifferent
Question 3: 2200 yes, 1100 no, 200 indifferent

These are the opinions of the 3 parties which they have officially written down before the election. The number after that is how many votes they got, based on the voting result above.

Party 1: indifferent, yes, yes = 600 + 300 + 2200 = 3100
Party 2: yes, yes, no = 900 + 300 + 1100 = 2300
Party 3: no, no, no = 2000 + 2800 + 1100 = 5900

The number of seats in the house of representatives = total number of votes of all parties combined / 150 = 11300/150. The number of seats per party = number of votes/ (11300/150)

Party 1 will receive 41 seats
Party 2 will receive 30 seats

Party 3 will receive 78 seats

1 seat remains because of rounding, and will be allocated normally:
3100/42=73,81
2300/31=74,19
5900/79=74,68 -> highest average

Final result:

Party 3: 79 seats
Party 1: 41 seats
Party 2: 30 seats

Party 3 has enough votes to form the coalition on its own. Party 1 and 2 will form the opposition.

What do you think? Are you convinced by my idea? If not, why? Help improve the system. Democracy must be actively maintained, and our democracy can certainly be improved. We can increase freedom and justice in our world through reason. 

REASON IS PROGRESS