ELECTIONS

Today local elections in the Netherlands. And I'm voting blank.

I don't think that the Dutch elections system is much worse than of other countries, I suppose other countries have similar systems. At least we do not have only 2 parties to choose from like in the US. In these local elections I can choose among 6, and in the national elections usually between 10 and 20. I have never voted for the same party more than once, because every time I compared the parties' actualized viewpoints, a different party emerged as being the least unlike me. This is not a coincidence.

Imagine that there are 10 important issues about which the political parties have different opinions. Let's say that these issues are defined as clear statements, and that there can be 3 possible opinions per issue. You either support the statement, oppose the statement, or are indifferent to the statement. This means that there are 3^10=59049 combinations. No system based on choosing political parties will ever support so many views, because the amount of parties will be at least a few thousand times smaller.

In the current system most people do not choose parties because of their specific plans and opinions. Most people choose a party because of the general flavor/ political color of the party, and support that party like football hooligans support their team. Or perhaps they support a politician that's charismatic and eloquent. Never mind the rationality behind his ideas, sometimes there is none. What matters is how good he is at selling his story. The fact that we still have religious parties indicates that rationality does not matter. Only (stupid) popularity.

We could have a different system where you choose agree/disagree/indifferent on 10 important statements. Think of it as a referendum as a way to elect parties. Beforehand, the parties should determine their view on those 10 important issues. They cannot change this later. If the opinion of the public agrees with the opinion of the parties, then they receive points for this. For example, if the party agrees on statement 1, and many people also agree with statement 1, that party will receive a lot of points. If few people agree, that party will receive a low amount of points. The amount of points will be used in a similar manner to votes in determining which party gets into the house of  representatives. Not only will the results of the voting be used to determine the winning parties, the results can also be used as a political guide for the government. I don't think the results should be binding, because people do not always know what is best for them. However, the politicians should always try to make most use out of this information, and through the media pressure can be put on those that do not listen to the people enough.

In the Netherlands we have a digital identity (digid), which is used to log in on government websites. Instead of using pencil and paper to vote, and counting the votes manually afterwards, we could use a computer program. The program will ensure that only once a single identity can vote, and will calculate the results automatically. In this way, voting becomes much easier and cheaper. Additionally, during the reign of the elected government, the government can ask people from time to time to vote for particular issues, if they want to know the public opinion. This exists in the form of small surveys, but such subsets of the population do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the whole population.

When people no longer vote for parties, the parties no longer have to advertise so much. Again, this will save a lot of money, and will keep the streets much cleaner. Posters and fliers are purely pollution if you ask me, considering that most of this stuff is not removed by the members of the party after the elections. I never understood what the parties could gain with all of those posters and fliers. They contain no information at all, they only show the party name, and some vague slogan, or the face of a party member. Instead of wasteful advertisement, people could be informed by the ministry of education, culture and science about the 10 issues, so that the people can make deliberate choices. Perhaps a single booklet that is sent to all households in the Netherlands, and a television program on a national channel that most will see.

The only real problem with this new system, is that a neutral party should determine the 10 statements. But of course, nobody is truly neutral. And the most neutral people will have no proof of being that neutral. I think pre-elections can solve this problem. Every political party that is going to participate in elections can write down 10 important statements. All of these statements are combined into one list, from which every voter chooses the 10 most important during the pre-elections. The order of the statements should be randomized for every person, so that the order does not affect the outcome. Such pre-elections can be easily held using the digital ID system online. The outcome of the pre-elections will be 10 statements that are used in the actual elections.

At this point, I don't see any major problem with this system, apart from the fact that some people do not have computers or are not familiar with using them. For these people special voting computers could be used, or perhaps even the old pencil and paper voting method. If it is only a small subset of the population, I think it is feasible. The time every person spends on voting will be longer, but the amount of people coming to these booths will be much lower. When this new system is incorporated (if at all), there won't be many people that do not know how to use a computer.

It is a big step to change the elections system like this, so intermediate steps are desirable. One possibility is to let people vote on statements using their digital ID, but not use these results in the elections. The results can then be used as guide only. Another possibility is to hold small scale (local) trial-elections, and scale up if the system seems to work.

If we truly want democracy, we cannot continue to vote for representatives alone. We need to vote on actual important issues, so that the government can see what the public wants, and can act accordingly. Otherwise it will always remain a polarized battle of political football teams.