At 01:02 AM 3/30/2007, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 02:52:20 -0400 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>>That's correct. What I'm suggesting is that voting rights
>>immediately respond, but that deliberation rights float to some
>>degree. You've travelled to the capital, you rented an apartment,
>>and then somebody changes their proxy and you lose your seat?
>
>
>The proposal here is that proxies become effective (both as to floor
>rights and voting power) some time after filing - I suggest 10
>days. Thus you would know your future status for the next 10 days.
I'm going to imagine that we actually make decisions here, that we
will vote on things. It can be a useful fiction. Or we can actually
set up polls....
Okay, so Mr. Ketchum's motion is on the floor. It has not been
seconded. Ignoring standard deliberative rules, I go ahead and
propose an amendment, which is that proxy rights become effective
immediately, and that floor rights depend on the rules established by
the assembly. Might be 10 days, might be some other number.
Because this is an online list, it is possible to have two motions on
the floor at the same time, and to vote for both simultaneously. I'm
not entirely comfortable with that, preferring the
Condorcet-compatible standard deliberative process (which functions
as a round-robin between alternate motions, through the amendment process).
Mr. Ketchum seems to think that he can define "the proposal." Sure,
he can define *his* proposal. We know that is what he has proposed,
it has been clear from the moment he proposed it. He tends to object
to suggestions for change as "not *the* proposal, which he has just
done again here. Instead of debating the suggested changes. Once
again, he has not given a reason for delaying voting right changes,
beyond an assumption that voting rights and participation rights are
rigidly and immediately connected. Yet he elsewhere allows the
assumption of voting rights upon 10 day delay at reaching a specific
vote level, with deliberation rights being assumed at double that vote level.
In other words, he does separate voting rights from deliberation
rights, using a fixed but different level of proxy counts for each.
Having done that, the question is then why voting rights have any
delay whatever. And he hasn't given one single reason for this, other
than it is not "the proposal."
Given that neither Ketchum's proposal and my own version have been
seconded, the whole thing is moot. Until someone chimes in and says,
I think "this" -- whichever one is preferred -- is a good idea, the
best raised so far.
Still, because I have another purpose here, which is to examine the
issues around proxy democracy, something which has seen far too
little discussion, I'm going ahead and commenting, understanding that
all of this is dicta.
>Now, if you were on the edge of losing your seat, renting an
>apartment is a bit dumb. More profitable activities right now would be:
> Campaign to round up some more proxies.
> Concede that you do not have that much support from the voters
> and give up.
> Do a sideways proxy to give a legislator who shares most of
> your goals your votes.
But the conditions of the problem are that you *have* enough votes.
You just obtained them. And it is becoming clear that "sideways
proxy" means, simply, that you delegate your proxy. Since you aren't
exercising the votes yourselves, I fail to see why this is different.
Nor why it is called "sideways." It is upward, that is, it is a
transfer of votes from one with fewer votes to one with more votes.
Now, in Ketchum's system, proxy's don't take effect for ten days. So
you can't delegate your votes "sideways" for ten days. Look, it's
Rube Goldberg. There is utterly no reason to delay voting rights,
beyond an *assumption* that they go with participation rights, and
there are reasons to delay them. Sometimes. The necessary delay
depends on so many variables that it is wisest to leave it to the
assembly rules, and the assembly, by common law, already has the
right to regulate its own debate.
Standard proxy, but delegable. Standard assembly rights. That's it
folks. It does not need to be complicated by a priori rules that do
nothing but gum up the works.
(It is arguable that standard proxy *is* delegable, unless the proxy
assignment forbids it or limits it to direct exercise. If I'm on
vacation, and I give a power of attorney to someone to sell my house
-- usually it would be my attorney, but it can be anyone -- and then,
on the day of closing, that attorney is unavailable, he or she can
designate someone else to sign the documents, as I understand it.
What we are doing is make delegability a clear assumption. Yes, the
voters could provide in their assignment that proxies cannot be
passed on. A foolish idea, but people, when it comes to voluntary,
free-choice representation, which is the goal, should be free to be
foolish. And the default systems set up organizationally might not
take this restriction into account, in which case it would be up to
the proxy to satisfy the restriction.
There are many problematic details of delegable proxy, and, though it
seems to me that they are all soluble, I prefer to start with the
Free Association context because proxies can do little or no harm in
such a context. They serve to discover and measure consensus, not to
actually implement it. Implementation, unless specific powers have
been granted to the proxy -- typically independently of the FA -- is
not decided or determined by the proxies, it is the prerogative of
the members directly.
(As an example of a specific power, a member could set up a special
bank account and give the proxy the right to transfer funds from it.
FAs might be interested in such accounts -- they add weight to votes,
in the free interpretation of proxy expansions that I propose -- but
they aren't a part of the formal FA process. The FA is not going to
collect funds and spend them, beyond nominal sums for its own
operating costs, which should be very, very low. So low that they can
typically be satisfied by direct payment by members, as donations.
For example, I pay the $8.95 per year domain registration for
beyondpolitics.org. Big whoop! I also provide the storage space and
bandwidth, and the extra bandwidth that beyondpolitics.org consumes
might actually be costing me $5 or $10 per month, I haven't looked at
it. Donations accepted. But you'll notice there is no fund-raising campaign.)
>>>If a change in proxies means different delays between the old
>>>proxy ending and the new one taking effect, the legislature will have either:
>>> A period with no support for those voters, or
>>> A period when those voters will have double representation.
>
>Abd disagrees, but not convincingly.
Ketchum reports the obvious. Obviously, I have not convinced him. So
we should care?
He has not argued the point. He merely proclaims, again and again,
that he is not convinced. Yet he has not even attempted to establish
his proposal as having any necessity at all. What is the reason for
delaying voting rights, given that we have already separated them
from participation rights, i.e., floor access rights?
>>DP and other proxy assemblies can be smaller, ordinarily, than
>>standard peer assemblies, for a given level of completeness of
>>representation. Having ten percent more seats would mean, probably,
>>less than ten percent more communication traffic. Not a drastic
>>change, particularly if temporary.
>
>
>Interesting thought, and size is a topic for careful thought.
For me, this thinking entirely preceded the question of how to solve
the problem. And a solution, it turns out, is *extremely* simple.
> I suggest two limitations:
> Number of seats in the legislature, filled by the candidates
> with the most proxies.
Sure. Asset Voting does it. Then take Asset and allow the voting
rights of those elected to float. Which makes, among other things,
representation more accurate, it removes even the small digitization
noise from making vote transfers in precinct blocks.
(This is proposed because it creates district-based representation,
*mostly*. Normally, a citizen, even though the citizen has voted
secretly, will know exactly who was elected with his or her vote, and
this member will by local if there are sufficient local votes
assembled to justify it. I assume that when Asset holders are
distributing them, they will do it in precinct blocks, especially if
the rules allow a little slop.)
However, this initial proposal, while a vast improvement over
standard practice, still involves terms of office. Not a great deal
of harm would be done by this, because if votes can be reassigned by
the electors (the initial holders of assets), then in an assembly of
reasonable size, *views* with snowball's chance of being accepted
will rather easily find someone to incorporate them in motions and to
discuss them. However, once we have floating voting rights, it
becomes possible to consider floating deliberation rights. This
essentially abolishes the fixed terms.
However, there are some obvious problems with that, in a very large
assembly where the business of being a member is a full-time job.
There are two responses to this: disallow the reassignment of
deliberation rights -- the proposal above -- or delay or otherwise
restrict such reassignment. Ketchum does both. But he *also* delays
the movement of voting rights, which are, even in his proposal,
distinct from participation rights. That is, you can have voting
rights, but not participation rights.
Given that the two are separated, it then becomes logically necessary
to consider them separately. We know there are reasons to delay
participation rights. But what is the reason for delaying the
movement of voting rights? At all, beyond the necessities of
registration, i.e., notice.
And what is the reason for not allowing *anyone* holding votes, that
is, any elector, from voting directly? The technical problem is trivial.
Further, if direct voting is allowed (remember, this is not direct
voting by citizens in general, but by chosen electors who received
votes from citizens in a secret ballot election), there is much less
need to change proxies, so the composition of the assembly, in
theory, becomes more stable. (If you disagree strongly with your
proxy on one issue but you generally trust the proxy, you can reserve
your direct voting for the rare occasions that this is the issue
coming up. Otherwise you may feel compelled to change your proxy to
someone else, simply because on one important issue you can't support
the position of the proxy. This, by the way, solves the dilemma of
the person who is socially liberal but is religiously convinced that
abortion is murder. I know a fair number of such people....)
> Minimum proxies to occupy s seat. I suggest 1% to vote; 2% to have
>floor rights and thus full membership
This limits the assembly to fifty people. Not bad, but I'd prefer to
*allow the assembly* to determine its own operating size. If direct
voting is allowed, votes on assembly rules would require majority
support, and would not affect votes on subsequent issues. The
incentive, then, is for the assembly to make its effective size, for
deliberation, optimum for efficiency: efficiency requires that all
significant factions on an issue be represented in debate, and that
the size be small enough to be operationally manageable. I find no
way to predict this, and optimum size would vary greatly not only
with the context but also from time to time.
Note that if, for example, an assembly majority decided to restrict
the assembly size such that it was disproportionally represented, the
minority could form its own unofficial assembly and use it to
deliberate publicly. I'm sure such would be newsworthy, and it would
be insane for members of the official assembly to not follow the
debate in the minority assembly. Their constituents, generally, will
expect them to be informed....
I don't see proxy democracy as nearly as prone to the divisive and
polarized party politics of the present, because much of the driving
force for this is removed. There is no *contest* involved in proxy
democacy. There is only a process of determining, through free
choice, a representative assembly of manageable size, and we have
shown how this is possible while still preserving privacy at the primary level.
>>The confusion arises because we think it best to assign seats based
>>on votes. But that is just an *indication* of whether or not
>>someone should have a seat. I've thought that legislatures might
>>give some people seats who don't have any votes other than their own.
>
>
>Interesting thought. I do not propose such, but do not object to
>legislatures managing such affairs themselves.
Since Ketchum now acknowledges the reasonableness of legislatures
setting their own rules, why then prejudge what size it will choose?
It is reasonable, in discussing how a proxy legislature would work,
to suggest that it might have such and such a size, but most people,
in seeing that comment without it being qualified, will assume that
the size is fixed. I'm just suggesting that, if a formal proposal is
being made, references to sizes be explicitly examples of what an
assembly might choose.
>>>Direct voting would be a complication that would make the basic
>>>proposal harder to evaluate. Such comparatively minor changes
>>>could be considered by themselves later.
>Abd suggests that direct voting is more important than electing via proxy.
>
>I disagree.
Instead of extracting my proposal by quotation, something that he
seems to avoid, quoting only himself, he paraphrases me and then
disagrees with the paraphrase. Nice. So do I. I do not suggest that
direct voting is more important than electing via proxy. I suggest
that direct voting, otherwise impossible, becomes possible if there
is a proxy assembly where direct voting is allowed, but participation
rights beyond that are restricted according to assembly rules.
And if there is direct voting, assembly rules will respect the rights
of all parties -- or there are easy ways around an attempt to
monopolize debate.
What I'm suggesting is that the foundations of democracy are about
the right of direct participation, and that scale and efficiency
demand that representation be the norm. Representation by proxy is an
extension of the right of direct participation.
I find it quite interesting that many organizations do allow direct
participation, but prohibit participation by proxy. Why? I do
understand it, quite well, I've seen organizations in action and see
how this combination of rules works.
The annual meeting is held in the home town of those who control the
organization, and thus a majority of those who show up at the annual
meeting are the managers or those close to the managers. So existing
management, if proxy representation is not allowed, have a huge
advantage, often insuperable, even where the majority of members, if
they could be represented, would make different decisions.
An example of this, in theory, would be Citizens for Approval Voting
or Americans for Approval Voting, I forget which way the corporation
reads. Annual meeting located conveniently for the founder,
dues-paying members can vote, proxy voting not allowed. I'm not
singling them out, because this is quite standard practice. Why is it
standard practice? Well, it benefits those who are the initial
organizers, and they are the ones who write, usually, the bylaws.
There are two reasons why corporations can't get away with the same
thing. First of all, if shareholders became aware of the restriction,
they would be unlikely to hold shares, and, secondly, such a
restriction is generally unlawful by statute. I think that there is
some movement in this direction when classes of stock are set up,
with some classes being non-voting....
But nonprofits aren't regulated in the same way. The state is
concerned that there is a body of people responsible for ensuring
that the corporation acts within the law, and it cares little or
nothing about how these people are chosen, it only wants to know if
they have assumed the responsibility. So nonprofits and political
action groups can pretend to be democratic by having "members," but
can effectively shut out the members from control. Standard practice.
However, if the members really wanted to change the situation, and
were aware of FA/DP, they could do it, rather easily. They simply
form an independent organization of members, and, among other things,
allow a superproxy, or as close to that as possible, to be found, and
then it is arranged for enough members to attend the annual meeting,
one time or as necessary, to change the rules to allow proxy voting.
And from then only, only *one* member need attend....
The evils of proxy voting come when it is allowed, but unused. What
happens then is that someone notices the proxy provisions and
secretly collects a lot of proxies. Perhaps this person even gets
people to join and assign him or her their proxies. Then he shows up
at the organization's meeting and suddenly can vote a majority on
everything. Does tend to get people riled up. And so they outlaw, if
they can still manage it, proxy voting. Jan knows this story, it
happened with the Libertarian Party.
>>If Ketchum is saying that those who vote should understand what
>>they are voting on, great. But who decides who is competent, who
>>understands enough? My claim is that the proper one to make this
>>evaluation is the voter himself or herself. Direct democracy by DP,
>>I expect, will *increase* the participation power of exactly the
>>right people, those who are widely trusted by those who know them *closely*.
>
>Anyone who is TRULY competent should be able to convince enough
>voters to provide proxies as backing.
This argument is incorrect. Someone may be truly competent and
knowledgable, but may be holding a view which is, shall we say, ahead
of its time.
I find value in having a legislative vote, expanded by proxy, of
2,374,089 to 1. Wouldn't it be interesting if, ten years later, that
one vote was seen as being the only correct one? And, with
Asset/Proxy, the one vote would be of an identified person. Perhaps
next time more people would listen to him or her?
From my point of view, the argument does not hinge on how it can
work without allowing direct voting. It can. The question is whether
or not it works *better* with direct voting, and there is another
question, the question of rights.
If I hold a divergent view on a topic, such that to agree on it with
any member of the legislature (100 people in Ketchums' proposal have
the right to vote), I may be forced to not assign a proxy at all,
because I would consider it repellant for my vote to be recorded in
favor of a measure. I am forced, by Ketchum's proposal, to continue
the odious practice of present electoral democracies, that I must
compromise, not merely on issues, but on *representation*.
Again, compromise on representation is necessary as to deliberative
rights, because we cannot allow a million points of view to be
represented in deliberation, nor even much smaller numbers than that.
If my view is sufficiently divergent, it is not going to be heard at
the top level, though it may be heard at lower levels than that, and
I may be able to gain support, but not enough to reach the assembly level.
But compromise on representation in *voting* is odious. I'm *not*
represented if it is not my free choice.
With direct voting allowed, it becomes much easier to compromise on
representation in deliberation, because no longer is it necessary
that I have no serious disagreements with my proxy. I can simply
follow the business of the legislature, its agenda, sufficiently that
I will know when something important to me, and where I fear that my
proxy will vote in a manner offensive to me, and then I can follow
the debate and process on that and vote as I see fit.
There is no reason *at all* to prohibit this. I see no practical harm
from it. It does not interrupt or make more difficult the legislative
process, and if it introduces delay, such delay would be quite small
and could be bypassed specifically in emergencies. (In which case
votes would be provisional, as to full expression, but still
effective as to immediate effect. I would take away the proxy (my
proxy) of any representative who abused the emergency powers -- some
city councils have emergency rules and use them routinely simply as
an exercise in political power.)
From my point of view, direct voting is the basic right, and the
removal of that right must be justified. What is the justification?
That is the question I'm asking.
So far, Ketchum has advanced these arguments:
1. Direct Voting would be unpopular, so it would delay implementation
2. Direct Voting would be irresponsible, uninformed people
would vote. I presume that this is what is "destructive."
The first of these objections is a path to implementation question,
not one concerned with conceiving of an ideal legislature. I've
proposed a specific path which does not involve direct voting
initially, but which makes it an easy step to achieve: this would be
Asset Voting, which can elect a traditional-looking peer legislature,
except with very exact proportional representation, so proportional
that it can be considered *almost* totally free choice. Asset creates
a class of electors, who effectively hold primary proxies assigned by
secret ballot. These electors then elect the actual assembly by using
or reassigning votes. (Any elector with enough votes may, but is not
required to, assume a seat and then use remaining votes to create
other seats, either independently, if the elector has enough votes,
or in negotiated combination with others.)
So the first argument, while not entirely wrong, is not actually
relevant when it comes to implementation strategy. Asset creates the
class of people who could be direct voters: the electors.
And then this brings us to the second argument. Given that those
voting directly would not be single citizens, in general, but persons
who registered as candidates in the election, they would be, usually,
relatively well informed. The second argument is actually a standard
argument against democracy itself, it is considered that the "people"
are ignorant and irresponsible. It has to be both, because I can be
ignorant and simply abstain from making decisions where I'm ignorant.
Obviously, some people are ignorant and irresponsible. But if that is
a majority, the society is in deep trouble no matter what style of
government you set up. Normally, this is *not* true of the people,
they are collectively intelligent and responsible, given institutions
that allow this to be expressed. Far too often, the existing
institutions don't allow it.
I seriously doubt that the Hutu majority in Ruanda would have decided
through free process to attempt to exterminate their Tutsi neighbors.
Rather, the institutions of majoritarian democracy set up conditions
where a rather small minority of active fanatics could take power.
Our system here is vulnerable to the same thing, potentially.
Hopefully not so extreme!
Proxy democracy, if it is based on maximized freedom of choice, I
expect to select for wisdom and intelligence. The vast majority of
electors under Asset Voting would be quite capable of voting intelligently.
Ketchum has not responded, really, to the Asset proposals as being a
means of electing the legislature that would not involve a complex
local structure to exist first. But his proposals and the Asset
proposal both create potential electors that would be reasonably
qualified to vote.
So where is the beef?
I have alleged harm from not allowing direct voting, and the only
reason we don't recoil in horror from this harm is that we already
tolerate it, such offensive compromises (even worse, indeed) are
routine in American politics. You hate abortion. Fine, I'll represent
you. And, of course, I'll vote for the war, that's my party position.
People offended in this way often simply don't vote. That way, they
avoid, maximally, having blood on their hands. I see no reason to
exclude these people from the political process, indeed, I'd want
them to be a part of it. These are people who *think*.
(What happens in fact, is that one side becomes so destructive that
they *must* intervene, they hold their noses, pray for forgiveness, and vote.)
One of them is one of the most intelligent women I know. Why do we
shut these people out?
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