I perfer recallable representation the ward is sovereign and makes the decisions and the representate puts them forward if they go off script their recalled
But if the ward only has one representative, then a lot of viewpoints will go unrepresented. So to make it proportional, you could have STV electing one person, plus top-up seats.
The other reason I dislike single-representative districts is you need to readjust boundaries every few years to take into account changing populations. But with multi-member STV you can have natural boundaries (e.g. a city) and simply increase/decrease the number of people who are elected in a district.
I have no opinion on the number for representatives really, I suppose wards should contain equal numbers of people, my main concern is that we elect representatives who then vote how they like? There should be regular ward meeting to tell them how to vote. I did see a online system trialed in a Spanish town were residents put issues on a app and the town voted if it got 50% it got discussed over a certain percentage it went straight to the council meeting for discussion I'm sure there the possibility for real involvement in politics with today's technology though I think we need to get back to communities and discuss things in person that effect us.
Murray Bookchin writing discuss our need for horizontal sovereign democracy not the vertical control corruption and lobbying we have now
> There should be regular ward meeting to tell them how to vote
Then that's a delegate, not a representative.
> I did see a online system trialed in a Spanish town were residents put issues on a app and the town voted if it got 50% it got discussed over a certain percentage it went straight to the council meeting for discussion I'm sure there the possibility for real involvement in politics with today's technology
There are issues with electronic voting, specifically how do you make it so:
(1) we can verify the votes are correctly counted
(2) no-one knows how anyone else voted (to prevent coercion/bribery)
(3) the system for achieving 1 and 2 is known to everyone
NB there are complex cryptographic protocols for achieving 1 and 2, but they fail 3.
My comment has disappeared. Do you want comments?
I'm always happy to have comments. Your previous comment was on my other blog Pontifex Minimus II.
I am copying over all the articles there onto my original blog, for reasons see:
https://pontifex.substack.com/p/im-having-issues-with-my-substack
https://pontifex.substack.com/p/back-to-the-old-blog
I perfer recallable representation the ward is sovereign and makes the decisions and the representate puts them forward if they go off script their recalled
But if the ward only has one representative, then a lot of viewpoints will go unrepresented. So to make it proportional, you could have STV electing one person, plus top-up seats.
The other reason I dislike single-representative districts is you need to readjust boundaries every few years to take into account changing populations. But with multi-member STV you can have natural boundaries (e.g. a city) and simply increase/decrease the number of people who are elected in a district.
I have no opinion on the number for representatives really, I suppose wards should contain equal numbers of people, my main concern is that we elect representatives who then vote how they like? There should be regular ward meeting to tell them how to vote. I did see a online system trialed in a Spanish town were residents put issues on a app and the town voted if it got 50% it got discussed over a certain percentage it went straight to the council meeting for discussion I'm sure there the possibility for real involvement in politics with today's technology though I think we need to get back to communities and discuss things in person that effect us.
Murray Bookchin writing discuss our need for horizontal sovereign democracy not the vertical control corruption and lobbying we have now
> There should be regular ward meeting to tell them how to vote
Then that's a delegate, not a representative.
> I did see a online system trialed in a Spanish town were residents put issues on a app and the town voted if it got 50% it got discussed over a certain percentage it went straight to the council meeting for discussion I'm sure there the possibility for real involvement in politics with today's technology
There are issues with electronic voting, specifically how do you make it so:
(1) we can verify the votes are correctly counted
(2) no-one knows how anyone else voted (to prevent coercion/bribery)
(3) the system for achieving 1 and 2 is known to everyone
NB there are complex cryptographic protocols for achieving 1 and 2, but they fail 3.