ByDarko Savic
A platform where citizens define the top problems they want the government to work on, resulting in a prioritized national to-do list
3 years ago
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Idea
Darko Savic Jan 15, 2022
Motivate people to vote by making all votes go to the default option unless people go out and change theirs
Image credit: ADL
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Motivate people to vote by reverse psychology. All votes go to the well-known default option unless people explicitly go out and change it.
Why?
- Motivate those who wouldn't vote to do so. Some people are easier moved to prevent something from happening than to gain something. They might vote just to prevent others from deciding in their place (which is ironically what happens anyway).
- Save some people the trouble of voting. Those that agree with the default option don't have to move a finger. It would be done for them anyway.
- People who are otherwise disinterested in voting might be willing to "stick it to the man" by preventing the default option. In the process, they would at least check out the options and possibly find something they can actually vote for.
- This doesn't really affect the way decisions are made. It's just a more honest/transparent representation of reality.
How it works
The outgoing authority or a panel of experts decides what the default option is going to be. If you agree with it, you don't have to do anything. Your vote would be assigned to the default option anyway. If you don't agree, go out and vote for a different option.
As the voting period approaches, we would surely see various campaigns explain why the default option is bad and why people should prevent it.
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Creative contributions
Democracy is Broken
I absolutely love this idea! As someone who has lived in several countries around the world and experienced different forms of "democracy", I have to say that this method seems like a fantastic way to increase voter engagement.
It has become abundantly clear that what we think of democracy is broken and the system is in dire need of a major revamp. Democracy works best when EVERYONE has a vote, but voter apathy and political disdain has led us down a very slippery slope into a system that just doesn't work for the people. The Ancient Greeks are currently looking down upon us from the Elysian Fields and shaking their heads in disbelief and shame.
I would argue that we could create several different kinds of default in this system though. Having the default setting decided upon by the government or panel of experts is certainly a good idea, especially when technical knowledge is required on a decision (I'm thinking along the lines of a pandemic). With more and more voting being done electronically, I think you could also have the default as what a person had previously voted for whereby the voting database already knows your preferences and creates your default. If you wish to change from your default, vote!
Regardless of whether this is the best option or not, I think we can all agree that change needs to happen so that the people can become once again enchanted by politics and the decisions made in their country. Mr. Savic, you've got my vote!
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General comments
Goran Radanovic3 years ago
What if you're not satisfied with any of the parties? Should an option for 'no vote' exist? That way, it diverts from going to default, but it still represents your beliefs.
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Darko Savic3 years ago
Goran Radanovic Yes, if the majority casts a protest vote all the candidates should be barred from the next round.
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Shireesh Apte3 years ago
I also like my idea of a fractional voting system because the degree of disenfranchisement of the voters is passed on to the elected representative. This incentivises the party to improve the constituencies where the quality of voters is low. We abandon the one-man-one-vote paradigm using a mass country wide referendum to replace it with a fractional vote algorithm. My abstract (and selected text) to my proposed system appears below:
The fractional voting system measures what each individual's vote is worth, depending upon his/her contribution to society, willingness to participate in the democratic process, education and adherence to law. The elected representative from a constituency has a fractional vote that is the average or median of the fractional vote of the voters from that constituency. Legislation is passed; not by numerical majority; but by fractional vote majority. Since the fractional vote of individual legislators is strongly correlated to the average fractional vote of their constituents, it becomes obligatory for the former to increase the latter, i.e improve the quality of their constituents. The fractional voting system hence acts as a positive feedback loop between the constituents and their elected representatives. By disenfranchising the elected representative to the same extent as the average disenfranchisement of the constituents, the fractional voting system reinvigorates the political podium as a calling and a service rather than as the naked pursuit of money and power, decreases the influence of special interests, lobbysts and oligarchs in formulating legislation and policy, discourages fanatisicm, tribalism and demagoguery and actualizes the full socio-economic potential of the populace.
The fractional voting model calculates how much an individual's vote is worth on a scale from 0 (does not count) to 1 (counts as 1 vote). Each individual is assessed on four categories: Productivity and Social contribution, Political activity, Education and Moral and Financial responsibility. The metrics to measure these four categories are drawn from already existing databases such as social security, voting records, educational qualifications, credit rating and convictions. Weightages are assigned to each category by the voters themselves, perhaps based on a national referendum. An algorithm then assigns each individual a 'fractional voting power' based on the aggregate scores for each category. The fractional voting power of a congressional representative or a senator is directly tiedto the average fractional voting power of their constituents. This is what abjectly distinguishes the fractional voting system from other systems of political structure, such as an epistocracy, which selects elected representatives who are disproportionately answerable to whiter, maler, richer, more middle-aged, and better employed persons than the population at large ( Delli, Keeter,1996).
The model is no different from - and can be construed as being a logical extension of the analogous practices of - points being taken off one's driving licence for failure to follow the rules, charging higher interest rates (or lower FICA scores) for unscrupulous, levant or recalcitrant borrowers and imposing restraining orders or restrictions on convicted individuals.
Any objections to such a model hence stem more from a sense of reactionary apprehension of gravitating away from the one-person, one-vote enshrined in the constitution, rather than from logical fallibility. Dissatisfaction with representative democracies is partly due to the perception of politicians as being inefficient, corrupt or out-of-touch ( Wike, Silver, Castillo, 2019).The quantityof voters is more amenable to manipulation than is their quality; as an example, social welfare recipients can be made to vote for a certain candidate due to the candidate's welfare expanding manifesto, however, the recipients will - in all likelihood - still be on welfare after the election. Politicians can only be incentivized to get their constituents off welfare if their voting power decreases in direct proportion to the number of their constituents on welfare; i.e if their fractional voting power is directly tied - not only to the quantity - but also to the qualityof their constituents. This quality can be measured by assigning scores to the four categories mentioned above for all the constituents.
It must be noted that any similarity that the fractional voting model may be perceived to have with epistocracy (Estlund, 2003)(Landemore, 2012),ends with the fractional voting model assigning voting power to the elected representative that is correlated and aligned with the average fractional voting power of the constituents. Therefore, the politician is only as previleged as his/her least previleged constituents and suffers the same fractional level of disenfranchisement as the average level of disenfranchisement of the constituents.
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Shireesh Apte3 years ago
I was reading on the Labor victory in Australia recently. It appears that voting is mandatory in Australia.
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Darko Savic3 years ago
Shireesh Apte Cool find. As of August 2013, 22 countries were recorded as having compulsory voting. Of these, only 10 countries (additionally one Swiss canton and one Indian state) enforce it.
In Belgium: Legal sanctions for those who fail to present themselves are fines from 40 to €80, and up to €200 for reoffenders. However, the Belgian government has declared that it has other priorities than prosecuting offenders and no one has been prosecuted since 2003.
In Australia: For first-time offenders, a fine is issued for AU$20 with a maximum penalty of AU$180 which is regularly enforced.
Uruguay doesn't play around: Registered voters who abstain from voting without justification are fined. Fines are doubled if the nonvoter is a public servant or a graduate professional. In cases of non-payment, the person concerned is barred from dealing with public bodies (whether acting in a personal interest or as a legal representative), collecting fees or salaries, registering for exams in universities, purchasing registered property, or buying tickets for travel to another country.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting
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