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“Referendum democracy” and the Condorcet theorem


Linkey

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A believe that the best political system would be a “referendum democracy”: if an online referendum is performed at least each week, and these referendums should cover not only laws, but also decisions within the competence of the judiciary power (fines and punishments). If the population votes to ban a mass media, so be it; and vice versa, if the population votes to fine people who slander this mass media, so be it. I hope my logic is clear.
However, with this system new problems will arise due to the Condorcet and Arrow's theorems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox

https://youtu.be/qf7ws2DF-zk

These theorems can be illustrated by the following example. The voters have three candidates - A, B and C. A third of voters think that A is better than B and B is better than C; a third of voters think that B is better than C and C is better than A, and a third thinks that C is better than A and A is better than B. It is easy to show that it is a "rock, paper, scissors" situation, i.e., depending on who goes to the second round, anyone of A, B, C can confidently win.
Theoretically, this problem can be solved as follows: the voter does not just vote for one of the candidates, but gives each candidate a score on a ten-point scale. If these scores were honest, everything would work well. But voters can lie with these scores, i.e., for example, if there are many candidates, a voter can give one a 10 and all the others a 1. It is quite unclear how to solve this problem; but this will be a formulated scientific problem for future generations. For example, I can suggest the following solution: select three hundred voters by lot after voting and ask them to take a lie detector test.
Such a system would be necessary in case of implementation of the "dictatorship of the majority" that I propose: so that, roughly speaking, it does not happen that 90% vote to make the remaining 10% slaves.
I want to find a word to name this hypothetical correct political system, please help me with this.

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27 minutes ago, Linkey said:

an online referendum is performed at least each week

How do you avoid “survey fatigue”?

https://blog.hubspot.com/service/survey-fatigue

“Survey fatigue is when respondents lose interest in your surveys due to the large number of survey requests they receive or the number of questions and effort required to complete them. Fatigue usually leads to low response rates, rushed completion, or abandonment, which can affect your survey results”

 

27 minutes ago, Linkey said:

Theoretically, this problem can be solved as follows: the voter does not just vote for one of the candidates, but gives each candidate a score on a ten-point scale

Ranked choice voting

https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV)

 

The issue of protecting minority rights can be addressed with a constitutional democracy

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11 minutes ago, Linkey said:

A believe that the best political system would be a “referendum democracy”: if an online referendum is performed at least each week, and these referendums should cover not only laws, but also decisions within the competence of the judiciary power (fines and punishments). If the population votes to ban a mass media, so be it; and vice versa, if the population votes to fine people who slander this mass media, so be it. I hope my logic is clear.
However, with this system new problems will arise due to the Condorcet and Arrow's theorems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox

https://youtu.be/qf7ws2DF-zk

These theorems can be illustrated by the following example. The voters have three candidates - A, B and C. A third of voters think that A is better than B and B is better than C; a third of voters think that B is better than C and C is better than A, and a third thinks that C is better than A and A is better than B. It is easy to show that it is a "rock, paper, scissors" situation, i.e., depending on who goes to the second round, anyone of A, B, C can confidently win.
Theoretically, this problem can be solved as follows: the voter does not just vote for one of the candidates, but gives each candidate a score on a ten-point scale. If these scores were honest, everything would work well. But voters can lie with these scores, i.e., for example, if there are many candidates, a voter can give one a 10 and all the others a 1. It is quite unclear how to solve this problem; but this will be a formulated scientific problem for future generations. For example, I can suggest the following solution: select three hundred voters by lot after voting and ask them to take a lie detector test.
Such a system would be necessary in case of implementation of the "dictatorship of the majority" that I propose: so that, roughly speaking, it does not happen that 90% vote to make the remaining 10% slaves.
I want to find a word to name this hypothetical correct political system, please help me with this.

So you advocate mob rule, then? 

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43 minutes ago, swansont said:

How do you avoid “survey fatigue”?

I think that a good decision would be to fine people for not taking participation in a voting. But these fines can be used only together with an option "I don't know" in the voting: this option means that the voter considers himself not sufficiently informed for a decision, but he has honestly logined to the app for voting and read the basic information about the voted suggestion.

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2 hours ago, Linkey said:

I think that a good decision would be to fine people for not taking participation in a voting. But these fines can be used only together with an option "I don't know" in the voting: this option means that the voter considers himself not sufficiently informed for a decision, but he has honestly logined to the app for voting and read the basic information about the voted suggestion.

So a recessive tax on the poor, who can least afford to take the time to vote. Even if this is internet-based, they’re more likely to not have home access and need to take time to go somewhere to participate 

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5 hours ago, swansont said:

Ranked choice voting

This is a good idea, but maybe I don't fully understand the principle from your link. For me, the best system can be as follows: if we have e.g. 3 candidates, each voter ranks each candidate with 1-3 numbers, and rank 1 means score 10, 2 means 5, 3 means 0. So this will be similar to the vote with scale I proposed, but the voter will be unable to choose 10 for one candidate and 0 for each of two others.
In my example in the op with A, B, C candidates, with this system, each of them will finally get 33%.

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19 minutes ago, Linkey said:

This is a good idea, but maybe I don't fully understand the principle from your link. For me, the best system can be as follows: if we have e.g. 3 candidates, each voter ranks each candidate with 1-3 numbers, and rank 1 means score 10, 2 means 5, 3 means 0. So this will be similar to the vote with scale I proposed, but the voter will be unable to choose 10 for one candidate and 0 for each of two others.
In my example in the op with A, B, C candidates, with this system, each of them will finally get 33%.

Your example is one version of ranked choice. As the link says, there’s more than one way to do it; they focus on the most common one. I was pointing out that there’s a name for such systems

The problem with allowing 10/0/0 is it potentially leaves you with the same problem you have in the paradox, since it allows casting a vote for only one candidate. You need to force actual ranking

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8 hours ago, swansont said:

The problem with allowing 10/0/0 is it potentially leaves you with the same problem you have in the paradox, since it allows casting a vote for only one candidate. You need to force actual ranking

Probably I think the same, and I want to formulate this again. If the voters have e.g. three candidates and the voting with the scale, it is possible that they will tend to vote "10 for one, 0 for two others". This vote seems selfish, and the state must try to fight the egoism of voters. If the ranking system is used. each voter will have to vote "10 for one, 5 for second, 0 for third"; and this distribution seems more fair for most cases, it represents a more common distribution of opinions. If there are not 3 candidates but e.g. 100, but most of them are spoilers, the ranking vote wil not help.

At the same time, for referendums, the ranking vote can't be used. I think that the voting with scale will be not bad for the referendums anyway, but the state must try to solve the problem of unfair voting (vote 10 instead of 6).

Edited by Linkey
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13 hours ago, Linkey said:

A believe that the best political system would be a “referendum democracy”: if an online referendum is performed at least each week, and these referendums should cover not only laws, but also decisions within the competence of the judiciary power (fines and punishments)

This would mean laws change from week to week, according to popular opinion. Problem 1: nobody knows what's legal today, since there isn't time to publish the information before things change again. Problem 2: the legal system can't keep up with the changes. If what was illegal and carried a 2-year sentence three weeks ago and it's just become legal, do all of those prisoners have to be let out? Problem 3: News broadcasters, tabloids, celebrities and social media personalities would have immediate influence on everything. Even women's fashions last at least six months! Shouldn't the law of the land be at least as durable? 

This is completely different from elections.

14 hours ago, Linkey said:

But voters can lie with these scores, i.e., for example, if there are many candidates, a voter can give one a 10 and all the others a 1.

How is it a lie to prefer one candidate overwhelmingly? If I had to rate the current presidential candidates in the US, I'd be hard-pressed to refrain giving one of them a -10. That's no lie. What percentage of voters is likely to feel this way? A large percentage doesn't indicate insincerity, it indicates the relative popularity of candidates. 

 

14 hours ago, Linkey said:

Such a system would be necessary in case of implementation of the "dictatorship of the majority" that I propose: so that, roughly speaking, it does not happen that 90% vote to make the remaining 10% slaves.

In no way does this follow. It's unlikely that the majority of voters prefer a candidate who would enslave their fellow citizens.

47 minutes ago, Linkey said:

If the voters have e.g. three candidates and the voting with the scale, it is possible that they will tend to vote "10 for one, 0 for two others". This vote seems selfish, and the state must try to fight the egoism of voters.

Why not also punish them for vanity, procrastination, lust, ambition, a short temper and a taste for chocolate? It's not the state's job to second-guess why each voter made the choice they did and correct them.

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7 hours ago, Peterkin said:

This would mean laws change from week to week, according to popular opinion. Problem 1: nobody knows what's legal today, since there isn't time to publish the information before things change again.

A lot of legislation doesn’t become active immediately. You could easily implement things months later, for most changes. 

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