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corc4tcol THE DE BORDA INSTITUTE

MULTI-OPTION ELECTRONIC PREFERENCE VOTING IN COUNCILS AND PARLIAMENTS.

Most decisions in most elected chambers are taken by a (simple or weighted) majority vote. This voting procedure, however, does not identify the will of that body, nor even the will of a majority within that body; in most circumstances, it identifies only the will of the author.

For reasons which are pretty obvious, many politicians like the majority vote; after all, they like to control things. And these politicians have included, over the years, Napoleon, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Duvalier, Pinchet. Mugabe and, not least, Saddam Hussein.

So, the will of the people, or the will of their representives, cannot be identified by a majority vote, the most primitive measure of collective choice ever invented. It can be identified, however, by a multi-option preference vote. Take, for example, the UN Security Council debating Iraq. The UK and the USA wanted one version. France and Germany wanted something else. Syria might have had her own ideas too.

In a plural democracy, all should be able to make their proposals. Then let all the participants debate them, and if the debate does not boil down to one option and therefore a verbal consensus - in other words, if the debate is not conclusive and if there are still a number of proposals on the table (and computer screen), then let all concerned cast thier preferences on the proposals.

If there are, let's say, five proposals - A, B, C, D and E - and if everyone gives option D, say, their 1st preference, then D gets the top score, an average preference score of 1. If everyone also gives their last preference, their 5th, to option C, then C gets a bottom average preference score of 5. In like manner, if everyone gives option B their 3rd preference, or if 50% give it their 2nd and 50% their 4th, then B will get an average preference score of 3, the mean.

The chances of all five options getting exactly the same mean score are just about nil. Something will be above average. If it's way above average, with a score of 1.5 or higher, then that's all but unanimity. If it's a score of 2, that may be described as a votal consensus. And if it's about 2.5, then maybe call it the best possible compromise.

But at least allow the members of the UN Security Council, the members of the US Congress, the members of the UK House of Commons, to enjoy pluralism, to have a multi-option debate, and to express their preferences on all proposed options. In this way, the debating chamber is no longer under the control of the executive, the Bush/Blair clique, the US Presidency, or the UK Government respectively.

In other words, the introduction into the elected chamber of multi-option electronic preference voting will help to ensure that that chamber is sovereign over the executive, which is what George Washington and Tom Payne etc., would have wanted.

More of all this on [1]

Peter Emerson Director The de Borda Institute