A Proposal for Direct Democracy Based on a Non-Binding Proxy System
by James Green-Armytage
THE PROPOSAL
Proxy system
Although democracy seems severely incomplete when it is limited to the selection of representatives, it is challenging to apply direct democracy on a large scale. It is difficult to imagine that every citizen of a large nation would be able to come to a fully informed decision on every piece of public policy that would make it to a legislature. Or, if they were able to do so, it is hard to imagine that they would have time to do much else. If everyone voted whether they were well-informed or not, then public decisions may become somewhat arbitrary, or they may become more vulnerable than they already are to manipulation by expensive public relations campaigns. If those who lacked the time to become fully informed refrained from voting, the system would become an effectively discriminatory one.
One possible way to cope with this problem is to develop a proxy system. The basic idea of this is that voters have the option of designating a proxy to carry the weight of their vote in deciding an issue. Voters should be able to change their proxies at will, and there should be no minimum threshold of votes needed for anyone to serve as a proxy. The value of a proxy system is that even if people do not have time to become fully educated on the issues, then they may know of someone who does, someone with whom they share common values and beliefs.
I propose a proxy system with the following features:
Proxy system with optional direct vote
As a voter I can choose from issue to issue whether to vote directly on that issue or to defer to their proxy. This is important because it preserves people's ability to express their opinion directly when they have one, while still maintaining the benefits of the proxy system.
Proxies of proxies
If I indicate someone as my proxy, and she indicates someone as her proxy, then the weight of my vote will be passed along to her proxy. And perhaps to her proxy's proxy, and so on. This will prevent votes from being wasted, and allow the accumulation of votes to people who are trusted by people who are in turn trusted by others.
Ranked proxy lists
I can have a ranked list of standing proxies (rather than only a single proxy), so that if my first proxy neither shows up for the vote nor has a standing proxy of her own, then the weight of my vote instead is transferred to my second proxy. And so on. This is another mechanism to prevent votes from being wasted.
Issue-specific proxies
On any given issue I also have the option of indicating a proxy or list of proxies different from my standing list, just to receive the weight of my vote for that one issue. One reason this might be good is that it would allow voters to indicate as proxies people who are knowledgeable in the field that a specific issue relates to. For example, if the issue is relevant to ecology, then a voter might indicate an ecologist as their proxy for that issue, or a staff member at an NGO that deals with the environment. Or, rather than being a matter of a field of study, a voter may delegate his vote to someone whom he knows has educated themselves well about that issue in particular. For example, if the issue is choosing between different versions of a trade bill and the voter knows someone who has read all of the different versions personally. Even if most voters would not know such a person, their proxies and their proxies' proxies might.
To sum up, each voter has 3 options when faced with a given issue:
1. Specifically vote on the issue. (This could include formally abstaining.)
2. Indicate a specific proxy or ranked list of proxies, other than those indicated on their standing list, just for the purpose of their vote on the issue.
3. Do nothing, in which case their voting power goes in the direction indicated by their standing proxy list (assuming that they have such a list on file).
Paradox resolution
If a voter indicates a new proxy list specifically for an issue, the effect for that issue should be the same as if that list had been their standing proxy list and they had indicated it by default. In either case, a proxy list is indicated.
It is possible that a paradox might arise, if for example voter A indicates B as his first proxy, B indicates C as his first proxy, and C indicates A as his first proxy. One possible rule to resolve this paradox is as follows: "A vote shouldn't travel the same proxy path twice."
Given the above case, A's vote has traveled the path A-->B, then the path B-->C, and then the path C-->A. Therefore, according to this rule, once A's vote returns to A, it should not once again travel the path from A to B. Instead, it should travel to the next proxy as ranked on A's proxy list.
The proxy path rule is not very important, since such paradoxes are not especially hairy. Other rules are possible, for example "a vote shouldn't be assigned to the same person twice," in which case A's vote would be transferred to C's second proxy rather than being assigned to A once again.
Tally method
When
designing the new direct democracy (DD) system, ranked ballots should of course
be used when there are more than two options available to voters. The official
tally method should be Condorcet efficient. The exact cycle-resolution method
isn't extremely important, since the result is non-binding. If a cycle existed,
the result might not be able to offer a single mandate to policymakers,
although of course it would suggest that they should choose an option from the
Schwartz set. A possible exception to this is if it could be strongly argued that
one of the pairwise defeats was dependent on insincere votes.
In cases where multi-winner proportional results are desired, STV or CPO-STV can be used. Other methods might be attractive as well, given different circumstances.
Logistics and role of direct vote in government
I
propose that to begin with, the direct democracy system should be legally
non-binding, and yet be formal, official, secure, and fully funded as a
government program. The system should apply for decisions made at the federal
level, as well as decisions on the state and local levels.
That
is, polling stations should be organized on a regular basis, perhaps a few
times per year. Voters would then have a chance to vote directly on major
policy issues. Although elected representatives would still retain the option
to act against the majority decision, there would be some pressure to act in
accordance with it. The stronger the majority and the larger the turnout, the
more weight the decision would carry.
The
frequency of voting is up for grabs, but I would suggest something like three
or four votes per year. The number of issues per ballot is also up for grabs.
For example, around ten issues per ballot seems reasonable.
I'm
currently not sure about the viability of internet-based voting, because of the possibility of hacking, and
because people do not have equal access to the internet. If internet voting is
not feasible, then voting should take
place at official polling stations. Voting machines should produce a paper copy
of ballots as well as storing them on digital discs which are manually
transported by couriers to the central tally location. (Unofficial results may
be carried over the internet, if desired.)
Voters should be able to choose their proxies from a national list. The list of people registered as proxies should be kept on a secure national master file which is also a matter of public record, available on the internet, etc. Aside from just their name, there should be a few keywords and some basic information about them so that people who want to choose them as a proxy can distinguish them from others with the same name. Proxy registrations should be filed some time in advance of the vote, to give couriers a chance to bring secure copies of the proxy list from the central file. Voters could change their standing proxy list either at the time of the vote or at other times. When choosing their proxy lists, voters would be able to search through a copy of the full national file in order to find the right people.
Generation of issues
I propose that some issues should be generated by the legislature, and other issues should be generated outside the legislature. I suggest that you would want to set the agenda for a few direct votes at a time. For example, let's say that there were five direct votes per year, each with about ten issues on the ballot. At the end of one year, you could decide which issues to vote on over the course of the next year. Each time people go to the polls for a direct vote, there should be a combination of congressionally-generated and publicly generated issues on the ballot.
For issue-generation inside the legislature, I suggest a system of single transferable vote proportional representation. For example, you could take an STV vote to fill a certain fixed number of slots for issues in an upcoming direct vote. You might want to give the legislature the ability to add extra issues to be voted on in case of emergency.
For issue-generation outside the legislature, I propose that issues should first be nominated via a public process, and then nominated issues should be placed on a ballot for a direct agenda-setting vote.
One possibility is to have a separate agenda setting section of a direct vote, which provides agenda for subsequent direct votes. This can also be based on STV, filling a fixed number of slots.
How would issues can be nominated to qualify for the agenda-setting vote itself? A certain number of petition signatures?
I propose that there should be a role for "super-proxies", that is people who have been named as a proxy by many other people. Super-proxies would be given a score, calculated yearly, which would be based on how many votes they actually cast on specific issues. That is, if there was a vote where many people named me as a proxy, but I deferred the votes to someone else, it wouldn't count toward my proxy score. But if I applied the weight of those votes toward a specific position, it would count. Proxy scores should be averaged / normalized so that a score of 300 basically means that on average during the previous year, I executed direct votes on each issue for 300 people including myself. Hence it would be meaningful to say that a single super-proxy's score was equivalent to 1/200 of the total number of participants, or 1/80, for example.
So, I suggest that when signing petitions to nominate issues, the signatures of super-proxies would carry the full weight of their normalized proxy score. Hence, instead of having to get thousands of individual signatures, you could get the same effect by getting the support of a few super-proxies. However, once again, this wouldn't guarantee the issue a place on the actual direct vote agenda; only a place on the agenda-setting ballot, subject to further filtering via an STV-tallied vote.
So, you would do an agenda-setting vote about once a year, with the Congress filling a preset number of issue slots, and the public filling a preset number of issue slots. Once the issues-to-be-voted-on have been decided, you would divvy them up onto different ballotings (e.g. one in February, one in May, etc.), and you would get to work on generating the options for the issues on the first upcoming balloting.
Generation of options
Once it has been decided that there will be a direct vote on a given issue, the next step is to generate the different options that voters will choose from when voting that issue. The goal here is to make sure that a less-than-ideal option doesn't win because a more-effective compromise option didn't make it onto the ballot.
Again, the Congress would be able to generate options. Again, you might want to use an STV vote, but in this case, an option called "no additional option" should be in competition with the other options that have been proposed. A certain number of maximum slots would be available to be filled with options, but if many Congresspeople are satisfied with less than the maximum, some of the extra slots could be filled with "no additional option", that is to say, unfilled.
There should also be a public process for generating options. I think that this is where the existence of super-proxies would prove most useful. My current opinion is that it would be too cumbersome to have separate public votes for issue selection and option selection. So, you could set a relatively high threshold (number of individual or super-proxy signatures) for option nomination, but allow nominated options to go onto the actual ballot without further filtering. Thus, getting an additional option on the ballot would require a very large number of individual signatures, the support of some people with very high proxy scores, or a mixture of the two.
Remuneration
One interesting issue in proxy systems is whether those who serve as proxies for many other people should be given monetary compensation. The argument in favor of this is that the extra money could help them reduce the hours they spend at other jobs, in order to make more time for policy research. The argument against it, aside from the cost, is that it might produce 'impure' incentives for people to act as proxies, and to over-represent their understanding of policy in an attempt to advertise themselves.
Anyway, if you do decide to compensate super-proxies, what money-allocation formulas might you want to use?
Here is one idea. There is a total preset budget for proxy remuneration, which is divided among those who receive compensation. Each super-proxy's share of this overall budget is proportional to a modified proxy score, which I will explain.
The modification comes as a result of a minimum threshold, such that those whose proxy scores are below the minimum will not receive remuneration. Instead, their scores are added to those whom they list as a proxy, and they continue up the proxy chain until they coalesce into an above-threshold score somewhere along the line.
For example, if I am the proxy for about 10 people, and thus have a proxy score of 10, that might not be enough to justify the paperwork of having the government send me a check, etc. So the remuneration-weight of my score should be passed along to my proxies, and perhaps their proxies, and so on, until it gets to someone who is over the minimum threshold. If you like, you could do this in a series of successive rounds, such that first you eliminate below-threshold people with the very lowest proxy scores, and transfer their remuneration-weight before doing the next round of eliminations.
For those with modified proxy scores over the threshold, but without scores that would entitle them to huge sums of money, you could probably just send them a check and not worry too much about what they do with it; hoping that they would use it to take more time for research. However, you might want to set a money limit, such that remuneration under the limit can be used freely, but use of money over the limit would be subject to certain rules. You wouldn't want people making hundreds of thousands of dollars on the proxy system and then spending it on lavish luxury items. I'd say that the above-limit money could only be spent in funding research groups that meet certain federal guidelines. A super-proxy with a very large modified proxy score could start their own research group and automatically be the executive director of that group, hiring staff, deciding on the focus of the research, etc. Or, if they didn't want all that responsibility, they could hand the money over to another accredited research group, or a few different ones. I imagine that these research groups would help to further the democratic goals of the proxy system.
NOTES ON THE PROPOSAL
Reason for starting with a non-binding system
It would be a good idea to begin with a non-binding system so that public participation and trust can be developed before it begins to carry the weight of legal power. This way it is essentially an organ of communication, a kind of public communication that is largely unfiltered and which gives people an unusually equal ability to express their opinion.
Cost
The
only serious objection I could see being made to this system is that it would
cost a lot of money. And indeed it would. (However, note here that public works
projects can be a good way to stimulate the economy in times of recession...
better, in my humble opinion, than regressive tax cuts.) Also it would take a
lot of time to set up, to get people registered, to educate voters on how the
system works. However, it would actually allow the voice of the people to be
heard clearly and as a result of direct political action, rather than through
the dubious conduits of pollsters and focus groups. In contrast to proportional
representation, which can be (unfairly, in most cases) painted as some sort of
elitist strategy to increase the power of political parties and weaken local
representation, a direct democracy system would be hard to portray as anything
other than a leap forward in democracy. Because it is legally non-binding it
would not carry the risks that are generally associated with direct democracy.
The benefits of Condorcet as a
tally system
I
suggest that Condorcet-efficient methods would have the potential to give us
effective compromise solutions to social problems.
For example, let's say that
there was a vote on marijuana, where the options are as follows
1. make marijuana totally legal
2. reduce penalties for
marijuana use to confiscation and fines
3. maintain current penalties for
marijuana use
and the votes are cast as
follows:
33%: legalize > decrease >
maintain
16%: reduce > legalize >
maintain
16%: reduce > maintain >
legalize
35%: maintain > decrease >
legalize
In
light of these votes, we can predict that a single up-down vote on legalizing
marijuana would fail. Also, use of plurality or IRV to tally votes would also
result in the status quo. A Condorcet tally, however, picks the compromise
solution when there is one, the reduced penalty option above.
The
marijuana vote could be even more detailed than it is above if you lay more
options down that roughly fall along a given spectrum, that is a spectrum from
light or absent penalties to harsh penalties. A Condorcet method is likely to
pick the median even with a large number of options, as long as they are
arrayed across a single spectrum.
Just
to be redundant, I can make a similar point with a gay marriage issue. Let's say
that there are three options on the ballot in a given state:
1. Legalize gay marriage
2. Allow civil unions between
same-sex couples
3. Allow neither civil unions or
gay marriage
and the votes are cast as
follows:
35: marriage > civil >
neither
6: civil > marriage >
neither
19: civil > neither >
marriage
40: neither > civil >
marriage
Again,
a single up-down vote on gay marriages would fail. Use of plurality or IRV
would also result in the 'neither' option. However, Condorcet reveals the civil
unions to be a majority-supported compromise. I think that Condorcet is by far
the best bet if you want centrist, non-polarized results, provided of course
that a sufficient compromise option exists on the ballot.
Would the Congress be capable of generating the most effective compromise solutions?
If the congress was based on high-magnitude STV, I wouldn't be so worried about this, but of course at present it's plurality-bound and quite badly polarized.
It is not impossible to expect Democrats and Republicans to come up with appropriate compromise solutions to social problems, especially as a congressional representative who initially suggested a solution which turned out to have majority support might get some good PR.
However, there is a real chance that both sides would have an interest in creating weak or impractical pseudo-centrist options in lieu of genuine compromises, for at least two reasons. One, congresspeople who developed compromised solutions might be accused by their party or constituents of straying too close to the values of the other party. Two, in hopes of getting their first choices approved by the popular vote by default. However, in doing so they would stand an increased risk of having their last choices approved; hence whichever party felt that their primary proposal was weaker might be likely to suggest a more centrist alternative.
Honestly, I don't know how issue and option generation would play out if you left it up to the congress; it might work well, or it might work poorly.
Alternative political leaders
The
proxy system acts as a perfectly 'high resolution' version of proportional
representation, in that voters always get their first choice of representative.
As such it may provide an increased political role for third parties,
nonprofits, and community leaders.
Non-binding proxy system as relatively feasible goal
Since
this direct democracy system is legally non-binding, and since it is something
entirely new rather than an existing institution already governed by entrenched
rules and practices, there is an exciting amount of freedom in its design!
In
contrast, actually changing the electoral systems in the United States, or any
other major country, will be very difficult, and will take a long time, to say
the least. Electoral systems are deeply entrenched, both in the constitution
and in a variety of established practices. The conservative backlash against
even the most well-tested voting method is sure to be intense and
long-enduring. A change here may happen eventually, and should be sought, but
it may be easier to create something new than to fight for changes in the
existing system.
Direct democracy as a way to express and develop the nuance of public opinion
The
problem I'm trying to solve is the problem of people having only a very diffuse
and indirect impact on government policy. It seems like people have to choose
between two ready-made packages, such as "democrat" and
"republican", or "Kerry" and "Bush". Just
choosing between these two packages totally glosses over even the slightest bit
of nuance that might exist in people's political beliefs. Basically it's an
oversimplification so drastic that it's dangerous. I'd like to take the issues
one by one so that we could get some clarity. For example, I'd like a vote on
different kinds of tax policies. How progressive an income tax do people
actually want? Are people interested in starting a wealth tax rather than an
income tax? Is anyone interested in shortening the work week? Is there a
majority in favor of invading a middle-eastern nation? Is there a supermajority
in favor of some sort of anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment? Could we
get a majority in favor of higher animal rights standards or better
environmental enforcement? How about legalizing marijuana, or at least lowering
prison time for possession? What about the death penalty, affirmative action,
abortion? All these are separate issues which don't deserve to be lumped
together into winner-take-all packages, or worse yet, ignored by both paries. So what I'm interested in is using
these direct votes as guides towards overall policy direction.
Direct democracy as a way to
mitigate the paradoxes of voting
Through a study of election methods, we all
learn that
elections are tricky, paradoxical things mathematically, and that they get more
and more difficult to handle the more options there are. A two-option election
is beautifully straightforward. An election where all options are neatly
arrayed across a spectrum is also straightforward. However, most close
multicandidate election scenarios are fraught with paradoxes that we just can't
do away with, i.e. the Condorcet paradox and the strategic manipulability that
inevitably results from it. When you have a vote for a single office, there are dozens and
dozens of issues which are simultaneously at stake, and I suggest that the more issues you have riding on each given
vote, the more this problem is exacerbated. I suggest that by keeping different
issues separate from one another in the voting process you can minimize the
danger of resulting paradoxes.
Direct democracy doesn’t
eliminate the need for electoral reform, campaign finance reform, media reform,
etc.
Of
course I would also like to see electoral reform that encourages more benign and
representative behavior in public officials. I favor high-district-magnitude PR for legislatures, and a
legislative body that is somewhat stronger than the one we have in the US. I
favor a Condorcet-efficient procedure for electing executives. I favor serious
campaign finance reform, de-oligopolization of media outlets, more frequent and
in-depth political debates, and so on.
Direct democracy versus
privately conducted polls and focus groups
Opinion
polls and focus groups have a lot of influence on politics at present, but they
are untrustworthy, and are not an appropriate engine for democracy. Polls have
large margins of error, and are only participated in by a tiny fraction of the real population. Focus groups take place
behind closed doors, routinely have unpublished results, and in general do
nothing to further political discourse.
This is why I want a nonbinding DD system. I want the popular will to come through as a result of direct political action in broad daylight rather than through the doubtful conduits above. I want a system which engages people to get involved, to discuss, and to act, one which includes everyone who cares about an issue, rather than just a few people who are randomly selected by a network news agency, or who strike a focus group firm as being representative of swing voters.