Many experiments in a new democracy
Moving from plurality elections
Much of my “TDG election” writing assumes a pluralistic electoral structure. This means the neighbor with the most votes earns the position of neighborhood representative for the next year.
Plurality elections often find a representative that earns less than 50% of the vote. To many watchers of democracy, plurality is not democratic because a true majority was not attained.
Let’s use a future TDG neighborhood election as an example of plurality. About 100 voters cast a ballot. As the votes are counted, there are five individuals who earned votes: Peter got 32 votes, Paul 29 votes, Mary 27 votes, Emily 7 votes, and Herman 5 votes. If this is a plurality vote, Peter would get the position of neighborhood representative for the next year.
Critics of plurality systems would state that the 68 people who did not vote for Peter might prefer someone else. It’s not hard to see that if there were three rounds of voting, with the lowest contender being dropped, Paul or Mary could move ahead of Peter. In other words, a plurality election that produces this close result might lack some legitimacy in finding the “best” candidate because a majority was not attained in the first round.
Personally, I’m not overly concerned about this plurality result. If Peter, Paul, and Mary each garnered about 30% of the vote, that means each of them has earned the trust and respect of a significant number of their neighbors. And the TDG election has picked one of them to represent the neighborhood. The election is a success, in my books.
Having said that, I can see many TDG-like people not agreeing with me. So I say, “Go ahead with a different way as long as the four salient features are retained.”
I have alluded to multiple rounds of voting. While this approach would still fall within the four salient features, I do not recommend this way. A second round would require two or more elections instead of one, which would double the work of the executive committee and its loyal volunteers. To me, this extra work is not worth finding that majority vote. Plus, too many voters would drop out in the second round, which then questions the legitimacy of the election in a different way. And I think such a contest might lead the top contenders campaigning for the job. The TDG is not about suspenseful elections.
A better way would be to have a ranked-choice ballot. TDG voters could order their preferred choices. At the end of the first round of vote counting, the contender with the lowest votes has his/her votes cast toward the second preference. This process continues until one contender has a majority. In a 100-voter election, each round of vote counting would take another five minutes. So ranked-choice voting would find a majority vote without much extra effort.
So ranked-choice is an option worth trying, The only serious flaw I can see is that some TDG voters will be confused with ordering their preferences. I suspect a few TDGS will go in a ranked choice direction, and the other TDGs will learn from their experiment. It might work out well.
In summary, replacing plurality elections with rank-choice elections means a little extra work and some possible confusion. There is no free lunch with ranked-choice, so the TDGs will have to decide on which path is better for them.
Bigger Electoral Units
When I got my vision for the TDG in 1992, a voice said: “Reduce the size of the electoral units to about 200 voters.” This is much less than my provincial constituencies of 40,000 and federal constituencies of 100,000.
A few years later, I learned about the Dunbar number of 150, which is the number of people most of us can manage in our lives. Strange how close 200 is to 150. Was the universe speaking to me?
Without a lot of effort, we can get to know some of our neighbors a little better. Just start some chats when you see them outside. Consider these chats as the main reason to find someone of good character and capacity for governance to vote for later. Heck, we might even find new friends and support network.
But I can envision geographical situations where 400 voters would be better. In this electoral unit, the neighborhood should be electing two representatives, giving the positions to the first and second place.
Again, worthy of trying out to see what happens with this “going bigger” option.
Or maybe we want to “go smaller,” with 100-resident neighborhoods. This might increase the chance of having some neighbors in our Dunbar group. We would have to try “smaller” to find out.
Multiple Votes per Voter
Similar to ranked-choice voting, give each voter more than one vote. For example, a voter can write down two names on the ballot.
In this way, a voter is not so torn to voting for one of two preferred candidates. He/she can write down both names, giving both preferences their support. Some voters may have a definite candidate in mind—and they can cast both votes to that candidate.
The only disadvantage is multiple votes would mean more votes to count. This is a bit more complicated but not as complicated as RCV. If a TDG goes this way, I recommend keeping the multiple votes to two or three. Three votes should find and ascertain the “will of the voters.” Four votes would complicate more than legitimize.
Advanced polls and mail-in ballots
In much of my TDG writing, I refer to using these two above tools to increase voter turnout. A higher turnout should increase legitimacy.
But, again, implementing these two tools will mean more time and effort required from the executive committee and its loyal volunteers. Rules need to be written and adhered to. Great care must be taken that the votes cast before election day are not tampered with.
So there is a trade-off that each executive committee must make. Keep the election simple with an in-person, election-day-only voting or provide the above features, at some cost of extra energy and greater chance of the election going wrong.
If the simpler approach is used and if the TDG membership seems happy with the result, even with a lower turnout, then maybe the election should stay simple.
Representatives serving multiple tiers
My TDG writing assumes that a representative would be serving in multiple tiers. In my hypothetical city I use for an example, a third-tier representative would also function as a first-tier neighborhood representative and a second tier district representative. If the representative loses his/her neighborhood job, he/she would serve out the remainder of term of the higher levels but would not be eligible for re-election to those higher tiers.
There are some advantages and disadvantages to this arrangement.
So maybe a representative moving to a higher tier means an automatic resignation of the lower tier position. The lower tier can be filled later. The constitution should provide for incumbents to be re-elected.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this arrangement as well.
Conclusion
As the TDG grows and matures, there will be experiments with this new democracy. Some new ways may be appropriate for local situations. Some new ways could be universally applied. Some early ways could be retained for generations.
There may be other ways that I cannot think of.
As long as the four salient features are adhered to, each TDG should experiment with new ideas. This experimentation would be great practice for TDG governance — because most actions to change society are also an experiment.
Published on Medium 2024
