I did speculate that if low-info voters self-exclude, it would improve the voting pool.
You did, but it does sound a little elitist, you have to admit.
Whilst I may agree with you, when I’m feeling emotional, I nevertheless feel that, irrespective of my feelings, the only moral stance is that of universal suffrage. So, discouraging people (whether directly or indirectly) should, itself, be discouraged.
For the approach to work, everyone has to be encouraged to participate. Moreover, that way, nobody can turn around afterwards and say that the system is rigged against them for any reason other than an imperfection in it rather than a deliberate exploitation of the system.
It’s not their votes I want, it’s their participation, otherwise
You’ll need to clarify your thinking for me there.
That’s what I meant about my views counting. I wasn’t being humble, but any ideal I have about how society should be organised needs to take into account how inclusive it would be.
Well, inclusivity is what we’re striving for with this, no?
And I haven’t yet seen you say anything that seems to advocate an actively exclusionary approach. Yes, you remark upon how undesirable it is that low-information voters have an impact, but you haven’t outright suggested they should be restricted from doing so. So, unless I’m misunderstanding your views, I think you’re being a bit harder on yourself than you need be. Yes, it’s good to be rigorous in analysing one’s own thinking and motivations, especially as the road to Hell has often been paved for many with others’ good intentions (the Russian revolution didn’t turn out too well in the end, did it?), but don’t overdo it — of course your opinion matters … everyone’s opinion matters (even if we then have to lock them up for it ¹ ) … and should be heard (even yours 😜).
In any case, don’t we need some kind of buy-in to make the change in the first place?
Yes … which is why I’m keen to focus on the mechanics People are sceptical of new things … particularly things that have the potential to disenfranchise them. So, having the mechanics worked out and being able to provide answers to their concerns is the core to it, I feel. We can debate with people as to why/not the system should be changed, but … however much they might agree with us in principle that we need a better approach … we won’t persuade anybody that this is the one, if the alternative we present to them seems ill thought through and incomplete. — yes, some people can be fooled by Nigerian princes … but most aren’t.
In terms of the long game, I just meant that this idea may take some time to grow into the discourse.
Whether strategy or not, there has been a low level campaign to leave the EU from some in the press and backbenches for as long as I can remember.
By the time it went mainstream, or became a serious debate, people had a long history of stories they could refer back to, reinforcing the narrative.
Maybe UBI is a better example of an idea that was pretty fringe not long ago, then grew in the public consciousness until people were seriously looking at it.
It may not have stood up to scrutiny, but getting it there is a start.
Most likely, yes.
But, just occasionally, we can be surprised (nobody expected the Labour party to win the 1945 election so decisively) and I’d say that, right now (jingoists and vulture/disaster capitalists aside), the result of the Brexit referendum is a sign that there’s a serious desire for change … that people feel they are unrepresented and their votes ineffectual — and that’s without those who feel the same but still felt it better to remain in the EU.
The AV vote was a failure not simply because it was complicated … in Scotland, until the UK left the EU, they used five different systems in the various elections hey hold and you don’t hear people there complaining that it’s all too difficult … but because, for the extra complexity, it offered little benefit in return.
Thinking about it today, I wondered if a single column numbered, top to bottom, from n through zero to minus-n and a sheet of stickers with the photos and names of the candidates might work: literally stick your favourite candidate at the top and work down from there and/or your most dislieked candidate at the bottom and work up from there.
There’s still the problem of people starting in the wrong place, but that can be normalised out by simply adjusting for the error: if they start their most favourite candidate of nine at ‘4' you simply move all positive votes up by ‘five places to start at ‘9’ … likewise, if they start their least favourite candidate at ‘-4’, you simply adjust down to ‘-9’and the other negative votes are repositioned accordingly — when voting, it isn’t the numbers that count but the order … and as long as all adjustments are made in the same way then, when the time comes for the numbers to matter, they all do to the same degree.
I don’t think it beyond the ability of the vast majority to get to grips with … and it doesn’t require them to do calculations in their head before voting as they try to work out all the potential correlations when votes are taken from losers and added to winners’ scores before they’re sure how they want to score them, the way AV would (or even, to an extent, STV) — you either like someone (positive placement) or you don’t (negative placement) … and you like/dislike some more than others and place them lower/higher on the corresponding side of the ‘zero’ line accordingly.
So, yes … it could take a long time, but it could be surprisingly popular. The real problem either way around is getting it through Parliament and onto the statute books in the first place — that might take some time. But, however long it takes (and whatever elements of what we suggest do or don’t make it in the final cut), we have to start somewhere … so my suggestion is that we start here and iron out the mechanics, so that we’ve got something concrete to present to people and, furthermore, doesn’t start falling apart when people ask questions about it.
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¹ Not necessarily to punish them either: I can only wonder just how miserable one’s life must be to be a paedophile, unable to form an adult relationship. But, nevertheless, even if the locking up is not punitive as such and their life made as pleasurable as it can otherwise be in a gated (and guarded) community, the danger they pose still needs eliminating — they’re entitled to the opinion that adult/child sexual relationships should be sanctioned, but I’m not holding it the same regard as the opinion that, no, they shouldn’t be.
