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I'm on my way to China again.  And here's the blog: https://deborda.substack.com/p/debordaabroad2

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The de Borda Institute

aims to promote the use of inclusive, multi-optional and preferential voting procedures, both in parliaments/congresses and in referendums, on all contentious questions of social choice.

This applies specifically to decision-making, be it for the electorate in regional/national polls, for their elected representatives in councils and parliaments, for members of a local community group, a company board, a co-operative, and so on.  But we also cover elections.

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The Institute is named after Jean-Charles de Borda, and hence the well-known voting procedure, the Borda Count BC; but Jean-Charles actually invented what is now called the Modified Borda Count, MBC - the difference is subtle:

In a vote on n options, the voter may cast m preferences; and, of course, m < n.

In a BC, points are awarded to (1st, 2nd ... last) preferences cast according to the rule (n, n-1 ... 1) {or (n-1, n-2 ... 0)} whereas,

in an MBC, points are awarded to (1st, 2nd ... last) preferences cast according to the rule (m, m-1 ... 1).

The difference can be huge, especially when the topic is controversial: the BC benefits those who cast only a 1st preference; the MBC encourages the consensual, those who submit not only a 1st preference but also their 2nd (and subsequent) compromise option(s).  And if (nearly) every voter states their compromise option(s), an MBC can identify the collective compromise.

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DECISION-MAKER
Inclusive voting app 

https://debordavote.com

THE APP TO BEAT ALL APPS, APPSOLUTELY!

(The latest in a long-line of electronic voting for decision-making; our first was in 1991.)

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FINANCES

The Institute was estabished in 1997 with a cash grant of £3,000 from the Joseph Rowntree Charitabe Trust, and has received the occasional sum from Northern Ireland's Community Relations Council and others.  Today it relies on voluntary donations and the voluntary work of its board, while most running expenses are paid by the director. 

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A BLOG 

"De Borda abroad." From Belfast to Beijing and beyond... and back. Starting in Vienna with the Sept 2017 TEDx talk, I give lectures in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Tehran, Beijing, Tianjin, Xuzhou, Hong Kong and Taiwan... but not in Pyongyang. Then back via Mongolia (where I had been an election observer in June 2017) and Moscow (where I'd worked in the '80s).

I have my little fold-up Brompton with me - surely the best way of exploring any new city! So I prefer to go by train, boat or bus, and then cycle wherever in each new venue; and all with just one plastic water bottle... or that was the intention!

The story is here.

In Sept 2019, I set off again, to promote the book of the journey.  After the ninth book launch in Taipei University, I went to stay with friends in a little village in Gansu for the Chinese New Year.  The rat.  Then came the virus, lockdown... and I was stuck.

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The Hospital for Incurable Protestants

The Mémoire of a Collapsed Catholic

 This is the story of a pacifist in a conflict zone, in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.  Only in e-format, but only £5.15.  Available from Amazon.

 

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The director alongside the statue of Jean-Charles de Borda, capitaine et savant, in l’École Navale in Brest, 24.9.2010. Photo by Gwenaelle Bichelot. 

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WELCOME

Welcome to the home page of the de Borda Institute, a Northern Ireland-based international organisation (an NGO) which aims to promote the use of inclusive voting procedures on all contentious questions of social choice. For more information use the menu options above or feel free to contact the organisation's headquarters. If you want to check the meaning of any of the terms used, then by all means have a look at this glossary.

As shown in these attachments, there are many voting procedures for use in decision-making and even more electoral systems.  This is because, in decision-making, there is usually only one outcome - a singe decision or a shopping ist, a prioritisation; but with some electoral systems, and definitely in any proportional ones, there can be several winners.  Sometimes, for any one voters' profile - that is, the set of all their preferences - the outcome of any count may well depend on the voting procedure used.  In this very simple example of a few voters voting on just four options, and in these two hypothetical examples on five, (word document) or (Power-point) in which a few cast their preferences on five options, the profiles are analysed according to different methodologies, and the winner could be any one of all the options.  Yet all of these methodologies are called democratic!  Extraordinary!

« 2024-15 An Article in The Ecologist, 29th May | Main | 2024-13 SCOTLAND vote of confidence »
Saturday
May042024

2024-14 The Threat of AI

DateSaturday, May 4, 2024

PRESS  RELEASE  125           AI:   INFLUENCING  ELECTIONS

 

THE  SIMPLER  THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM, THE  EASIER  IT  IS  TO  INFLUENCE. 


The worst electoral system in the world  -  “Candidate X, yes or no?”  -  is in North Korea.

The most manipulable is the binary  -  “X or Y?”  -  as (almost) in the US, where the dangers of AI are huge.

Next, also Orwellian, is FPTP, as in India and UK.

Then comes any single preference procedure, like the list-PR in The Netherlands.

Multi-candidate systems  -  the PR-list system in Switzerland, AV in Australia and PR-STV (RCV) in Ireland  -  are less vulnerable.

Some countries have tried a less- or even non-sectarian system: e.g., the ‘minimum-three-preference’ version of AV in Papua New Guinea, and the non-religious version of FPTP in Lebanon.

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In contrast to them all is the late 

Professor Sir Michael Dummett’s

 Quota Borda System QBS.

This colour-blind procedure encourages the voters to be inclusive, each to cast a full slate of candidates; for those in a conflict zone, each to treat the democratic process as an integral part of the peace process, each in casting their ballot to perform an individual act of reconciliation.

In a six-seater constituency, 

(A)        the voter may cast up to six preferences; 

+          he who casts only his 1st preference gets his favourite 1 point;

+          she who casts two preferences gets her favourite 2 points, (and her 2nd choice 1 point);

and so on.  So:

+        those who cast all six preferences get 6 points for their favourite, 5 for their 2nd choice, etc.

(B)         +        as in PR-STV, no one party (or ethno-religious faction) best nominates six candidates (lest it splits its vote). 

(C)         +        six candidates shall be elected, those on a good score of top preferences and then those on a good score of points. 

NB                   a 1st preference is always a 1st preference but, as in (A), the points may vary, but QBS is unbiased: a voter’s (x)th preference always gets 1 point more than their (x+1)th preference, regardless of whether or not they have cast that (x+1)th preference.  

In effect, parties are encouraged to campaign, and voters are encouraged to vote, across the gender gap, the party divide, and (in conflict zones) even the sectarian chasm.  When countered by such sophistication  -  (mathematically, QBS is simpler than STV)  -  AI would be less effective.  

 

PS    PR-STV allows the voters to be non-sectarian; QBS actually encourages them to be so.

 

2.5.2024

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |

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