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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!

deborda.gif

Vienna TEDx Talk - October 2017

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

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...

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Sunday
Apr282024

2024-13 SCOTLAND vote of confidence

DateSunday, April 28, 2024

PRESS RELEASE Embargoed: 0001 am on Mon 29th April 2024. SCOTLAND...to be 'Won by One'? The will of Holyrood? Or the will of Ash Regan? In 1949, Germany's ....

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AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Friday
Apr122024

2024-12 Asian Institute of Research 

DateFriday, April 12, 2024

'Politics, its Science, and the Prevention of War' is published in AIOR's Journal of Social and Political Sciences, 7(2), 1-15.  https://www.asianinstituteofresearch.org/_files/ugd/ed8b62_d1cfa3981f2444e894161d6556667758.pdf

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Wednesday
Mar272024

2024-11 BBC Radio 4 on NI's poor elections 

DateWednesday, March 27, 2024

NI elections do not comply with international (OSCE) standards.  PR-STV is good; but the way party activists campaign ON POLLING DAY, and sometimes, INSIDE THE POLLING PLACE, is appalling!  BBC Radio 4, PM programme, interview, 27.3.2024, is on https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001xmfx and it runs from minute 46 to 54.  See also 2023-17, -14 and -09.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Sunday
Mar102024

2024-10 Majority voting is part of the problem

DateSunday, March 10, 2024

A lecture on "Politics, its Science, and the Prevention of War" took place on 14th March in Karlstad University:  https://kauplay.kau.se/media/t/0_o5tvl9uq

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Friday
Mar012024

2024-09 CHINA (and 2023-08)

DateFriday, March 1, 2024

The Chinese Academy of Social Sceinces held their "Third International Forum on Democeracy: the Shared Human Values" on 2023-3-20.  Here's our 'de Borda' contribution: https://vimeo.com/919681575

It starts in Chinese but, two minutes later, it's all in English.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Friday
Mar012024

2024-08 Alexei Navalny and Ukraine

DateFriday, March 1, 2024

Today is his funeral, and 'Remembering Alexei Navalny and helping Ukraine' is in INNATE's latest newsletter:  https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2024/03/01/remembering-alexei-navalny-and-helping-ukraine/ 

Нет войне, (Nyet voinye, No to war!) as was shouted by his many mourners.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Wednesday
Feb212024

2024-07 Again against Trump!

DateWednesday, February 21, 2024

And in the USA, the JTPP (Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis)From Binary and Adversarial to Preferential and Inclusive Politics has published:  https://www.peacejusticestudies.org/

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Friday
Feb162024

2024-06 To stop Donald Trump? 

DateFriday, February 16, 2024

In CANADA's Journal of Politics and Law, the de Borda article concludes, "... politics - a game of no trumps."

https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jpl/issue/view/0/3016

 

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Sunday
Feb112024

2024-05 The Middle East, NI etc (INNATE)

DateSunday, February 11, 2024

We start with a theoretical solution to the problem; next, we examine its most recent causes; and then propose possible steps for a less violent future. THE PROBLEM The ideal would be a one-state solution, a country where

Click to read more ...

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