Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Compulsory voting (Re: Will Victorians vote stupid yet again...?)
From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Date: 6 Nov 92 11:01:46 CST
 <1992Nov1.134734.16208@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au>       
 <1992Nov1.231512.14159@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>   
 <1992Nov2.135535.11020@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au> <brian.720755433@coombs> 
 <1992Nov4.150018.164987@dstos3.dsto.gov.au> <miw.720942261@cc.uq.oz.au>

miw@cc.uq.oz.au (Mark I. Williams) writes:

>mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au writes:

>>Most people would agree that to have a truly democratic
>>system	
>>	Everyone must have the right and practical ability to vote
>>	Everyone's vote must count equally.

>I don't think so. Such a system does not exist, and never will, but
>there are plenty of systems that are democratic. I cannot even imagine
>what you think the difference between "democratic" and "truly
>democratic" to be.

Of course no perfect system exists but like many
mathematical optimisation problems, although no perfect
system will ever exist, you can measure the success or
otherwise of the imperfect systems you create by how well
they approximate the ideal. To use the fact that there are
no perfect systems to justify the continuing use of
demonstratably in adequate ones is not good enough.

>Who is "everyone"? Do you include lunatics? Do you include criminals? Do
>you include children?
No. Everyone = those intitled to vote. Although this is
important and has to a large extent been solved as is
witnessed by the fact that these groups aren't allowed to
vote, this issue is orthogonal to creating an electoral
system that works well.

>What do you mean by "count equally"? If 80% of people vote for X, and I,
>along with the other 20%, vote for Y, then X will be elected. Therefore
>those people who voted for X got the representative they wanted, while I
>and my mates didn't. Our votes didn't count at all, let alone equally.
Firstly, by count equally, I mean that at the point of
dropping the paper in the box, assuming a sea of as yet
unrevealed votes, this vote has as much chance as any other
of combining with other votes to succeed.
This means you must have fair electoral boundaries (within
reasonable levels of error) and that their are no systematic
biases. E.g. First past the post is biased to biggest single
party wins.  I am measuring equal opportunity here. The example you give
is also interesting because it reveals another way that the
will of the people can be distorted. It shows how by makeing
the electorates small enough 20% or more of the population
can end up with no voice in parliament. Proportional
representation allows a very high percentage of people to
have some voice in parliament (and surely if we claim to
have a representative democracy, this is what we must have)
and still allows you and your mates to control the
parliament as they should since they have 80% of the vote.
The difference is not important in your example of two
possibilites because the outcome is the same. However, if we
leave the particularly anglo-saxon idea that there are two
sides to every story and exactly one of them is right, then
haveing a truely representative parliament can have a great
practical difference to how the country is run and what
possibilities exist for change.

>If you live in Queensland, your vote can't get rid of Senator Button,
>because he is a Senator from another state. There is no known voting
>system that can help when the candidates in your area are bozos and the
>people who will be more powerful have a different constituency.
But these people do not claim to represent you and indeed do
not. In this case it is up to you to field better candidates
and elect them so that your representatives could counteract
them in parliament.

>The only way in which everybody's vote could count equally would be if
>everybody elected one representative. That representative would have to
>be the voter, and, of course, everybody would have be of equal ability.
So we should accept grossly unfair electoral systems? At
least we can get systems that satisfy the wants of 95% of
the public.

>Counts equally" rolls off the toungue so easily precisely because it is
>so meaningless.

It is not meaningless as I have demonstrated above.

Michael
--
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