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The Forum > Article Comments > Dangerous developments for democracy? > Comments

Dangerous developments for democracy? : Comments

By Andrew Norton, published 10/2/2011

Limiting the election spend of third parties like trade unions, companies and GetUp is a threat to proper democracy.

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The problem isn't advertising by vested interests. Neither is it reporting by corporate media, which are vested interests beholden to advertising revenue from other vested interests. Advertising and reporting are merely free speech, which by its very nature favours those who can afford to buy an audience. For the rest of us, free speech is the right to be ignored rather than shot.

The real problem is UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE -- that is, the system in which every enrolled elector can actually cast a vote at every election.

If you're a candidate, universal suffrage maximizes the number of electors to whom you must present your message. Thus it maximizes the cost of a successful campaign, and hence maximizes the influence of those with money to spend.

The solution is CONVENED-SAMPLE SUFFRAGE: For each election, in each electorate, invite a random sample of the enrolled voters to gather in one place (or one video conference). Pay them for their time, so that they can afford to accept the invitation. Let them hear and cross-examine the candidates for several days. Then let them vote as an electoral college -- choosing the candidate(s) that the entire enrolled electorate would have chosen if it had heard the same arguments. In short, don't take the campaigns to the electors at great expense; bring a sample of electors to the campaigns.

The influence of advertising and media reporting on the electoral college would be similar to their influence on the jury in a court case: not very much.

On balance, convened-sample suffrage would increase each citizen's chances of affecting the outcome. The reduction in your chances of voting would be exactly compensated by the increase in your chances of being the "tipping" voter if you did vote; and the opportunity to speak and ask questions in the electoral college would be a further avenue of influence. Universal suffrage is beguiling because it offers the certainty of having a say. But the greater probability of having a say (100%) is more than offset by the reduced probability that your "say" will swing the outcome.

[CONTINUED...]
Posted by grputland, Thursday, 10 February 2011 10:16:07 AM
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[...CONTINUED]

Worse, under universal suffrage, your chances of affecting the outcome are so remote that it is not rational to spend time informing yourself about the issues for the purpose of voting (although it may be rational for other purposes). Thus universal suffrage leads to almost universal RATIONAL IGNORANCE, which in turn increases the susceptibility of voters to the propaganda of moneyed interests.

But if you are selected as one of (say) 100 members of the convened sample in your electorate, your chances of affecting the result will suddenly become quite significant. So you'll make the effort to get informed.

Government by the few tends to be corrupt. Government by the many tends to be ignorant. Representative democracy is supposed to be the solution; but under universal suffrage it merely allows the ignorant many to choose the corrupt few. Convened-sample suffrage induces a sample of the many to purge their ignorance before they choose the few.

Yes, convened-sample suffrage introduces a random sampling error. But that's better than the present systematic bias in favour of moneyed interests. I defy any reader to identify any other problem under convened-sample suffrage that does not have a counterpart, as bad or worse, under universal suffrage.
Posted by grputland, Thursday, 10 February 2011 10:17:12 AM
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No.. its not a limitation on democracy..it's a limitation on the TWISTING and DISTORTION of Democracy by narrow interest groups.

It is the LIBERATION of Democracy from the bondage of thuggish unions and lefty socialist thinkers.
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Thursday, 10 February 2011 1:13:38 PM
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Democracy is power by the people, it is the right of people to express themselves and is throttled in parliament, by parties against their own members, that is if they have got the courage to attempt to express their own viewpoint.
Posted by merv09, Saturday, 12 February 2011 12:06:15 PM
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