Improved version of democracy

Great Debates
1

In order to avoid the problems of a system where every fool gets the same vote as everybody else, I propose an improved version of democracy.

As it is right now, every vote has a value of 1 when counted. That is, if I vote for Joe, Joe’s vote tally increases by 1.

Why not have votes that have a value between 0 and 1? So, if I vote for Joe, Joe’s vote tally increases by w, where w is a value between 0 and 1.

Now, how do we decide how much value each person’s vote has?
There are many ways, but I propose the following:

  • A quick multiple-choice test is administered in the voting booth.
  • You take the test, vote, and the system registers your vote, along
    with the value of your vote. Closer to 1 if you answered most questions
    correctly, and closer to 0 if you answered most questions incorrectly.

The test should ideally consist of

  • simple logic (analytical thinking) questions, like the ones given in the SAT’s,
  • factual questions about the positions of the candidates on various issues.

If you can’t make logical deductions from simple statements, then your vote shouldn’t count very much. Also, if you don’t know what the positions of the various sides on issues are, then your vote shouldn’t count for much.

This test will have the added benefit of people trying to find out more about the candidates’ positions before the election. Parties may even give their members quick “cheat sheets” about the various candidates’ positions on issues, in order to have their votes count more.

Some things that the test satisfy:

  • The test should be short. About 10 multiple choice questions.
  • Each voter gets a different set of questions (chosen at random from a larger pool of questions), so that people who voted can’t go and tell others what the questions were.
  • Each question is accepted by all parties, and they also agree on what the correct answer is.
  • There should be a paper trail, to minimize fraud.

Of course, there are many problems with this proposal, both practical and theoretical/ideological.
Practical:

  • How are the questions decided?
  • People, who are already disinclined to vote, will be more so if there is a test involved (so be it)
  • How do you go about convincing people to change from the current system to this one?
  • etc

Theoretical/Ideological:

  • The proposed system might not be better than today’s system. How do we measure that anyway?
  • Some might say that people should have equal votes as a matter of principle
  • etc

Since the proposed system has many practical problems that mean it most likely will never be implemented, I am more interested in the more theoretical and ideological problems.

For me, the analogy that works well is that we are all in a ship in the middle of a storm and the crew has died, and we must decide on the next course of action. Do we simply ask everyone on board what to do and take every one’s opinion with the same weight? Or do we give more weight to the opinions of people who are demonstrably more logical and knowledgeable than the rest?

On a final note, one of the benefits of the proposed system is that campaigns will be much more issues-based and logical, and not buzzword-filled attempts filled with non-sensical arguments. The reason is that with the current approach, a stupid TV ad can convince thousands of lemmings, but if the votes of those lemmings don’t count for much, the parties will have to try to convince the more logical and knowledgeable voters (like Dopers, for example :slight_smile: )

2

I’ll let others weigh in on your new system, but you have made a flawed analogy. We are not in the middle of a storm. We are simply all passengers on the same ship deciding where we want to go. Perhaps your desire to reform democracy is based on a flawed assumption about what it is designed to do.

3

That’s not democracy, that’s sophiacracy - or in plain Greek, autocracy. I’d fight it tooth and nail.

Though there are other kinds of democratic enhancements I would support. Like several votes per person. Many more direct polls. Etc. But they all go towards giving more power to the common people (regardless of intelligence) not less.

4

Well, its kind of silly, considering that under your system you yourself would not be qualified to vote; anyone who thinks limiting the vote to an aristocracy is still democracy is not intelligent enough to vote.

5

I’m not “limiting the vote to an aristocracy”. Every one will be able to vote. It’s just that every vote won’t count the same.

And if people disagree on using some analytical resoning questions, we can just use factual questions about the positions of the candidates on the various issues.
The more you know about what the candidates stand for, the more your vote counts.

How can anyone disagree that a more informed electorate is better?

6

Does this actually solve any of the practical problems with our current voting system?

7

From www.m-w.com

How on earth is my proposed system autocracy?

8

In a system that is de facto two party, such as that in the US, I doubt your new plan would make a difference in the outcome. I suspect that the “dumb” Republican vote would cancel out the “dumb” Democrat vote.

Third party candidates would probably get a boost, as you have to be pretty well informed to even know that they exist in this country!

9

Well, I would think if the electorate was smarter

  • Parties would be forced to come up with candidates that have real and workable plans, and not candidates that are “folksy and likable”.

  • Campaigns would be more issues-based and not buzzword-based (“flip-flopper”, “tax and spend liberal”, “gun nuts”, “bible thumpers”, …)

The above should be good for the economy and national security, because a better candidate with positions that have been vetted by a proper campaign will be much better equipped to run the country.

10

Right. And since the scale starts at 0, some people could be deemed to stupid to vote at all, i.e they would rate a 0.

Part of the cause of the electorate being uninformed is the misinformation spread by the parties.

But tts not necessarily that the electorate is uninformed, its that the political parties and candidates are uninformed about the things that really matter to the electorate. Either we live in a representative democracy, or we dont. Its the representatives job to learn the views of their constituents, not the other way around. If the representative doesnt agree, he/she is free to try to convince them otherwise, but if he/she cant, hey the constituents are the boss, not the representative.

Why dont we turn your idea on its head; every congressman has to take a test on how the majority of people in their districts feel upon various subjects, these subjects to be determined by the constituents themselves (i.e the consituents should be dictating the issues of importance, not the parties or candidates). If the congressmen get a failing grade, say less than 75% correct, they lose office immediately and a new election is called in that district.

Or similarly yet alternatively, if it can be shown that a representative votes against the wishes of their constituents x% of the time, again they lose office and a new election is called in that district. After all, nothing is more disgusting than a representative who votes the way their party wants ahead of how their constituents want.

Why is it you assume its the fault of the electorate if there is a disparity in priorities/values/opinions between an electorate and their representative?

11

Consider a two-candidate election where candidate A gets 51% of the vote, and candidate B gets 49% of the vote. As long as the average weight of candidate A’s supporters is less than .96 the average weight of candidate B’s supporters, candidate B will take the election even though most people prefer candidate A. That’s hard to stomach.

Additionally, why is this meritocracy method better than approval voting?

12

There’s nothing in your proposition to guarantee either point. If you think so, please explain how?

13

(It’s getting quite painful to reply with the slowness of the SDMB…)

  • We can start the scale at 0.2 if you like.
  • Even if it starts at 0, and even if 5% of people get a zero, that is still not aristocracy, as you claim. I would assume an aristocracy is when a small minority of people rule. 95% of the people is not the minority.

I don’t have a problem with that.

Barring some practical problems in determining when exactly the representative has passed the x%, I don’t have a problem with that.
This can certainly be put into effect when a senator switches parties after being elected.

I wasn’t addressing the disparity in priorities/values/opinions. I was addressing the fact that, if it is election day and you are in the voting booth about to vote, you better know what Joe and Jack stand for before you vote for one of them.

Now, *why * Joe and Jack stand for what they stand for is another issue. But, as I said in another reply above, hopefully, with a smarter electorate the positions of the candidates will be better thought out and vetted.

14

For proof, see the SDMB.

Here, no one uses buzzwords to convince others. There is a (mostly) well-reasoned debate. People still disagree of course, but I think the outcome of the debates is based on someone’s arguments, not on some PR campaign that finds the most “convincing” slogan, or the most “likable” candidate.

Imagine if the political debates on TV, and even the presidential debates, were anything like the debates we see here. Don’t you think more serious topics would get discussed? And wouldn’t this lead to the two parties having to propose better plans than they have to today?

Since I assume the SDMB population is smarter than the average population, I assume that a smarter electorate would result in similarly more intelligent debate of the issues.

15

You don’t get the right to vote because you are smart, you get the right to vote because you are a citizen. Why should one citizen’s voice count more than another’s, just because they can pass some arbitrary test. If citizen X decides s/he’s voting on issue Y–and only issue Y, dammit !–That is that citizen’s right. Democracy is rule by the people, not rule by the intellectual elite. Each citizen has their interests and ideas, and they have the right to push them at the ballot box.

Furthermore rule by “The best and the brightest” doesn’t always turn out so well. Anybody remember Vietnam?

16

This is where we have a disconnect.

Say a situation was in place where candidates were required to vote the way their constituents want them to vote. Why then is it necessary for a candidate to stand for anything? Because the candidate would have no choice in how they vote, they would have to vote how they were instructed by their constituents. The candidates ‘stands’ would be irrelevent.

Youre coming from the underlying assumption that we are electing rulers, not representatives/servents. Its only necessary to know a candidates stands on issues if you are electing that candidate to do your thinking for you, to make your decisions for you; in which case its no suprise that the electorate is less and less concerned and takes less and less steps to inform itself.

If you want people to become more responsible, you give them more responsibility, and in this case that would mean taking the responsibility of having ‘stands’ away from the representatives themselves and giving (returning) it to the constituents.

17

(<aside> And what the hell is wrong with the “intellectual elite” anyway? It’s been made into an insult these days, and this is disgusting.</aside>)

Who said anything about “elite” anyway? If, say, 85% of the people get a vote that is close to 1, are they the “elite”?

I don’t propose to reduce most peoples’ votes to zero, I propose minimizing the vote of people who are uninformed and/or of very low intelligence.

If someone can’t use simple reasoning such as “A-implies-B and B-implies-C results in A-implies-C” why should their vote count? They are easy targets for illogical “convincing” by politicians.

This is not a theoretical question. I have seen politicians many times use fallacies to convince people, simply because the people weren’t able to realize that those were fallacies.

Also, Democracy is not an end in itself. It is just the best system we have come up with so far. If another one comes along that results in greater prosperity and happiness, then screw Democracy.

18

If what you are saying were true, we wouldn’t need elections at all.
If " the candidate would have no choice in how they vote, they would have to vote how they were instructed by their constituents", then any old civil servant would do the job; why even go through the process of elections?

I see elections as picking politicians with the best plans to get us where we want to go.

For example, New York City wants a monument to replace the Twin Towers. They want it to be respectful, and beautiful, etc. But they don’t know what it looks like. So, they get proposals from a bunch of architects who say that their plan is the best. Then NYC chooses among these plans.

The same with elections. The people, as a whole, want a good economy, national security, cheaper healthcare, etc. How to get there is not known. If it were, again, we wouldn’t need elections.

So, if Joe says, “I’m going to increase jobs by implementing plan X” and Jack says “I’m going to increase jobs by implementing plan Y”, the voters get to decide which plan might work better, since they are both in the spirit of what they want, which is more jobs.

19

Um…because there is no such thing? If its been made into an insult, it is accompanied by other religous beliefs, such as God as well. The belief in an intellectual elite is a secular religon, and like all religons, lately it is (rightly in my opinion) becoming something some people may not want to admit believing in, especially in a serious conversation about public policy. In your vote scale, I would say that admitting to believing in such a thing as an intellectual elite would knock you down to about a .00001.

I was approaching this whole thing thinking you were honestly trying to think of ways to get the electorate to better inform itself, but its starting to seem as if youre trying to use your imagination (not intellect) to come up with ways to give some theoretical but non-existant group disproportionate control over others.

20

OK, my first post may have been a little too abstract and unclear.

Lets say I’m a farmer. I have alot of concerns about farm policy. But while I’m great at farming and know what I want from my government to farm well, maybe I’m not great at abstract logic and I don’t know as much as I should about the candidates policy in regard to, say, Taiwan. Why should my vote, my voice, count for less?

We all have desires and ideals. The idea behind democracy is that we can express these desires and ideals equally. That’s why we have one person one vote. Democracy assumes self rule and equality of power as a given and a fundamental right. It’s a right people have struggled and died for, even in this country, (Martin Luther King, Jr. for one) and I don’t want to take it away from anybody, even if it could be proved that this would lead to better government, which I’m not convinced is true.

BTW, I’ve got nothing against the intellectual elite. I am the intellectual elite, doodz :smiley: . I read Joyce and Kant, do math for fun, and follow politics in the Atlantic and the Economist. I just don’t think that makes my vote worth more than anyone else’s.