They are wrecking the country, right?
After an election loss, the losing side has blame being cast all around. Often that blame is cast toward the less informed voters. These voters have obviously not invested enough time or thought to cast a wise vote. Or they have failed to understand the consequences of not voting. I find the “less informed” voter reasoning somewhat comical for two reasons.
First, it implies that those casting the blame have garnered the right kind of wisdom. Anyone who voted for the other side is obviously foolish. Anyone who did not vote is obviously lazy.
Second, nobody has all the insights to vote wisely. Whatever wisdom we may think we have is only a small fraction of total wisdom possible. In essence, we, “the wise,” are really not that much wiser than the people we like to call “less informed.”
Why Democracy Failed
Medium contributor Allan Milne Lees wrote Why Democracy Failed. He explains the reasons for the failure quite well. This section of the book is a great read.
But Mr. Lees’ solution is lacking. He posits that 86% of us are “less informed.” So this demographic really cannot cast a wise vote. So Mr. Lees seems to suggest that only the 14% get the right to vote. Unlike other political thinkers, Mr. Lees believes that most of the 86% are mostly incapable of being more informed, at least to the extent that some of us would consider them to “be informed.”
Who decides who is the 14% and who is in the 86% is something Mr. Lees did not elaborate on.
Catch 22
While I was in politics (1986–1992), I too wrestled with how to make voters more informed. This was back in the days when I thought I had all the answers. If only people would understand the issues like I did, we could end all this unnecessary conflict and implement my solutions. I guess I used my political volunteering mostly to get more “influence.” My thinking was so superior.
The closest I got to a solution was from Colonel Cathcart. Colonel Cathcart was a villain in the famous novel Catch 22. His goal was to be an air force general someday, and all his thinking and actions were based on his future promotion. He did not care one bit about the aviators under his command.
The colonel was also obsessed with democratic voting. He believed that “good” people should be given more votes than “bad” people. Somehow that thought churned in my mind in my formative political years. It had merit; it still was universal suffrage. People like me would get more votes. But how to implement and operate, I could not put the pieces together.
Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG)
Then in 1992, I somehow invented the TDG. I then realized that knowledge of the issues was not that important in casting a wise vote. Rather it was the voters’ judgement of “good character” and “capacity for governance” that would be the criteria. Here is my reasoning for this:
Any election campaign can hold only a handful of issues at any one time. Sorry, that is the limit of the media and general public. We cannot juggle many issues — as individuals or as a society.
And those handful of issues can change with time and events. What is “hot” today can quickly become “not” tomorrow. We are fickle.
Yet each society has thousands of issues that need resolving. So is it really wise that we cast our vote to the candidate or party who seems best able to handle those handful of issues — and then give them free rein on all other issues?
Let me explain this in a different way. Our favorite elected politician can say: “I was elected to deliver a mandate on Issues #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5. I will try my best to follow that mandate. But for issues #6 to #1000, I will decide how I want to decide.”
Or more likely, that politician will just vote with his or her party. Conforming to the will of the party is being “more informed,” right?
Actually, this politician would likely acquiesce on his party’s position for #1 to #5 as well.
In other words, most issues that are eventually resolved never had any kind of voters’ mandate to resolve them. Think about that.
So rather than align our voting to some kind of mandate, TDG voters vote for someone of good character and capacity for governance. When we get people with good character and capacity, these people are more likely to find satisfactory solutions in all issues rather than casting our votes to “five mandates.” We get the good character and capacity for Issue #3, Issue #33, and Issue #333.
Conclusion
In essence, we don’t need more informed voters. Let citizens decide how much they want to be informed.
Instead, let’s train them to vote for someone in the neighborhood who has good character and capacity for governance. That will be a lot easier than forcing them to be “more knowledgeable”
That character & capacity vote will have more positive effect than any “mandate” vote.
Published on Medium 2024
What if my TDG Representative Won't Serve?
