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A MAJORITY VOTE

MAY BE ACCURATE

IF, AND ONLY IF,

THE TWO OPTIONS

ARE A DUALITY.

 

 

DEMOCRACY IS FOR

EVERYBODY, NOT

JUST FOR A (OR

THE) MAJORITY.

 

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Another journey to China, via Baku (COP29), Georgia, India, and return via Mongolia, Russia and (therefore) Ukraine.  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.

               * * * * *

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!

deborda.gif

Vienna TEDx Talk - October 2017

Here's the YouTube,  the PowerPoint, and the text of the speech (more or less).

Monday
Mar042019

2019-3 Majority voting - a sacred cow?

DateMonday, March 4, 2019

Phil Kearney adds this article to a debate which still hasn't started.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Thursday
Feb212019

2019-2 Brexit: if it ain't binary, don't binary vote

DateThursday, February 21, 2019

Letter in the Irish News. See 2019-1, 2018-17, etc. Dear Editor, The British political establishment seems to be mesmerised by "the mystique of the majority,” to use Sir Michael Dummett’s phrase. Nearly all of them act as if a complex problem like the UK’s relationship with the EU was, and still can be, resolved in a simplistic, divisive binary vote.

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Monday
Jan212019

2019-1 Brexit - the bind of binary voting

DateMonday, January 21, 2019

Unfortunately, all too few people question binary voting; but it's part of the problem!  Political Science Association of Ireland, PSAI, has just published:

https://politicalreform.ie/2019/01/21/does-brexit-demand-non-binary-decision-making/

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Monday
Dec242018

2018-18 Paddy Ashdown, 1941-2018

DateMonday, December 24, 2018

Paddy was probably the bravest, most committed, most linguistically gifted of all post-war UK politicians.  

Here he is at our 2012 book launch in the House of Lords, (2011-9 and 2012-4), along with the late Elizabeth Meehan (2018-1) and his fellow lord, Mike Boyce. I first met Paddy back in the 70s at a Liberal Party function: we were both ex-military, both of Northern Ireland, and both of Belfast.  So he took me to Yeovil, and I was highly impressed by his energetic campaigning.  Our paths crossed again in Bosnia, where he was the much-loved High Representative, 2002-6. A Serbian friend of mine sat next to him, flying to London one year.  "Sarajevo?"  "Oh yes, I've been there," said Paddy, never one to boast.  We were often in touch, so I signed my next letter to him, boastfully, Srdačan Pozdrav, (Serbo-Croat for 'yours sincerely'); to which his secretary replied, Dear Srdačan Pozdrav.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Tuesday
Nov272018

2018-17 Brexit: a binary ballot 'meaningful'?!

DateTuesday, November 27, 2018

openDemocracy has just publihsed:

https://opendemocracy.net/uk/peter-emerson/for-people-to-have-their-say-on-brexit-how-best-can-multi-option-conundrum-be-resol

and see 2018-16, 2018-14, etc.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Thursday
Nov222018

2018-16 BBC Radio 4 - PM

DateThursday, November 22, 2018

/Users/owner/Desktop/BrexEmer.m4a

Evan Davies gave de Borda an interview on his PM programme on Mon 12th Nov.

See also 2018-14 and 2017-5

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Friday
Oct262018

2018-15, More on Brexit

DateFriday, October 26, 2018

Dubin City University has one article: http://dcubrexitinstitute.eu/2018/10/a-better-measure-of-the-will-of-the-people/

and Queen's University Belfast has another: http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/brexit-a-meaningful-vote/

 

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Tuesday
Sep112018

2018-14 Malice in Blahblahland

DateTuesday, September 11, 2018

Alice comes to Brexitland...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Monday
Aug202018

2018-13 Brexit: a “meaningful” vote?

DateMonday, August 20, 2018

http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/brexit-a-meaningful-vote/  (See 2018-12, -11, -7, -2, 2017-14, -1, 2016-12, -9 and especially 2016-1, in which we predicted the result of the June 2016 Brexit nonsense.)

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Monday
Aug062018

2018-12 The People's Vote - preferential?

DateMonday, August 6, 2018

Infacts has just published, "There's more than one way to count a three-way People's Vote." It’s on:    https://infacts.org/theres-more-than-one-way-to-count-a-three-way-peoples-vote/ 

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
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