{"id":4806,"date":"2018-07-23T15:48:18","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T14:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qpol.qub.ac.uk\/?p=4806"},"modified":"2018-07-23T15:48:18","modified_gmt":"2018-07-23T14:48:18","slug":"majority-voting-ancient-primitive-divisive-inaccurate-measure-collective-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/majority-voting-ancient-primitive-divisive-inaccurate-measure-collective-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Majority Voting is a Most Ancient, Primitive, Divisive and inaccurate measure of collective opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brexit was a nonsense.\u00a0 You cannot get the average height of a group of people if some say only what they are not<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not 2m 50,\u201d is an example of totally useless information.\u00a0 Likewise, you cannot get the average opinion, vox populi, \u201cthe will of the people,\u201d if some people say only what they do not<\/em><\/strong> want.\u00a0 In other words, a \u2018yes-or-no?\u2019 (\u2018remain-or-leave?\u2019) question cannot identify the collective will.<\/p>\n

But it could be done in a multi-option vote.\u00a0 If some say \u201cI want the UK\u00a0in the EU,\u201d while others want, \u201cin the EEA,\u201d or \u201cunder the WTO,\u201d then it should be possible to see which option is the most popular.\u00a0 And if the Brexit referendum had offered just those three options, then maybe the result would have been EEA 32%, and WTO 20%… so the EU on 48% would have won!\u00a0 As this Institute said in a press release issued four months before<\/em> the fatal poll, if the question is \u201cyes-or-no?\u201d the answer will be \u2018no\u2019.<\/p>\n

The local and national media ignored it because, for some reason, people seldom discuss decision-making.\u00a0 Electoral systems?\u00a0 Oh yes, we often debate the relative merits of majoritarian systems, proportional systems, single or multi-preference systems, and so on.\u00a0 And apparently, all of these systems are democratic.<\/p>\n

But decision-making?\u00a0 No; apparently, decisions have to be taken by a (simple or weighted) majority vote.\u00a0 There are other methodologies \u2013 the Borda and Condorcet rules, for example, of which more anon \u2013 but the BBC does not discuss them, the Electoral Commission does not mention them, and countless professors of political science in Queen\u2019s and elsewhere act as if decision-making has to be binary.\u00a0 Indeed, many people are as it were mesmerised by \u201cthe mystique of the majority,\u201d to use the late Professor Sir Michael Dummett\u2019s phrase, as if (nearly) every political question has to be reduced (and distorted) to a dichotomy.<\/p>\n

So binary voting is inadequate.\u00a0 In a multi-option vote, the individual can express an accurate viewpoint, not if restricted to an Orwellian single preference \u2013 \u2018this\u2019 option good, those options bad \u2013 but in a preferential system.<\/p>\n

New Zealand had its first multi-option plebiscite in 1894, and in 1992, a five-option referendum.\u00a0 They wanted to review their electoral system, so they set up an independent commission, and it drew up a list of five options: the status quo of first-past-the-post, (FPTP) , (or \u2018fake post-truth polling\u2019); the Irish system of proportional representation, single transferable vote, (PR-STV);[1]<\/a> and three other options in between.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 As a result of press coverage and so on, by the time the people came to vote on the various options, they had a pretty good idea of what was involved.<\/p>\n

With Brexit, in contrast, people are only now, <\/em>post referendum, discovering what the other options might have been: the single market, customs union, and so on.\u00a0 To suggest the Brexit vote identified the will of the people is, yes, a nonsense\u2026 not least because, today, nobody knows what that will is.\u00a0 Hence all the arguments over another dichotomy: is it to be a \u2018soft\u2019 or a \u2018hard\u2019 Brexit?<\/p>\n

In 1985, one week after Ian Paisley shouted \u201cUlster says \u2018NO!\u2019\u201d to 100,000 people outside Belfast City Hall, six of us stood with a banner to say, \u201cWe have got to say \u2018yes\u2019 to something.\u201d\u00a0 Six months later, we asked Queen\u2019s to host a cross-community public meeting with multi-option voting, but they said it would be too dangerous.\u00a0 So we used the Students\u2019 Union instead.\u00a0 Sinn Fein, the UUP, the UDA and even Ulster Clubs were there, and pretty well everything else in between, over 200 of them; thus we put preferential voting to the test; and it worked.<\/p>\n

Four years later in another consensus conference, we did it again with electronic voting; ten political parties from Ireland, North and South; and a guest from Sarajevo.\u00a0 Thus we implied, please don\u2019t hold a two-option plebiscite in Bosnia, where there was no majority anyway: it was 20:30:40 Catholic:Orthodox:Moslem, so any two groups could form a majority against the other one. \u00a0The EU, however, the Badinter Commission, insisted on a ballot.\u00a0 It started the war.\u00a0 Indeed, to quote Sarajevo\u2019s famous newspaper, \u201cAll the wars in the former Yugoslavia started with a referendum,\u201d (Oslobodjenje<\/em>, 7.2.1999).<\/p>\n

In the years since, the de Borda Institute has campaigned against many binary ballots, especially those in sensitive regions like South Sudan in 2009 and Ukraine in 2014.<\/p>\n

So if the voters are to be allowed to cast their preferences, which of many multi-option decision-making voting systems should be used.\u00a0 Plurality voting, like FPTP, allows the voter to choose one of three or more options.\u00a0 The two-round system, (TRS), is a plurality vote followed by a majority vote between the two leading contenders.\u00a0 AV(or STV)[3]<\/a> is a series of plurality votes and eliminations until one option gets 50%+. \u00a0And a Borda count, (BC), is a points system: in a four-option poll, a 1st<\/sup> preference gets 4 points, a 2nd<\/sup> gets 3, and so on; and the option with the most points is the winner.<\/p>\n

So consider 14 persons voting on four options, A, B, C <\/em><\/strong>and D<\/em><\/strong>, with the following preferences.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
 <\/p>\n

Preferences<\/td>\n

The voters<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1st<\/sup><\/td>\nA<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nB<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nC<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nD<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2nd<\/sup><\/td>\nD<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nD<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nD<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nC<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3rd<\/sup><\/td>\nC<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nC<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nB<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nB<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4th<\/sup><\/td>\nB<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nA<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nA<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nA<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the face of it, it would seem option D<\/em><\/strong> best represents the will of the 14; after all, while it is the 1st<\/sup> preference of only two voters, it is the 2nd<\/sup> of everybody else.\u00a0 But what happens in practice?<\/p>\n

In a plurality vote, the winner is A<\/em><\/strong> with a score of 5.\u00a0 In TRS, A<\/em><\/strong> and B<\/em><\/strong> go into the second round which, if the voters\u2019 preferences stay the same, B<\/em><\/strong> wins with a score of 9.\u00a0 In AV, stage I\u00a0\u00a0D<\/em><\/strong> is out and its votes go to C<\/em><\/strong>, so that\u2019s A<\/em><\/strong> 5, B<\/em><\/strong> 4 and C 5; so in stage II, B<\/em><\/strong> is eliminated and its votes go (not to the absent D<\/em><\/strong> but) to C<\/em><\/strong>; so, stage III), C<\/em><\/strong> wins with a score of 9.\u00a0 Finally, in a BC, A<\/em><\/strong> gets 5 x 4 + 9 x 1 = 29 points.\u00a0 B<\/em><\/strong> gets 4 x 4 + 5 x 2 + 5 x 1 = 31.\u00a0 C<\/em><\/strong> gets 3 x 4 + 2 x 3 + 9 x 2 = 36.\u00a0 And D<\/em><\/strong> gets 2 x 4 + 12 x 3 = 44.\u00a0 So the winner is D<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In some voters\u2019 profiles, then, plurality voting can be hopelessly inaccurate; as can any system based on plurality voting, like TRS and AV; but the BC is more robust and precise.<\/p>\n

In summary, some systems are good, a few are mediocre, and others are bad.\u00a0 Along with the Condorcet rule, the Modified Borda Count, (MBC), (to give it its full name),[4]<\/a> is the most accurate and therefore the most democratic.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 But, as mentioned earlier, hardly anybody bothers with these more accurate systems.\u00a0 Why not?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I know why politicians like majority voting: it means they can choose the question and control the debate, so no wonder certain individuals like Napoleon, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Khomeini and Saddam Hussein have also used majority voting.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 But why the media and academia do not critique majority voting and its biggest consequence, majority rule \u2013 not the<\/em> but a <\/em>cause of violence in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Rwanda, Ukraine and throughout the Middle East \u2013 I honestly don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Preferential voting was first invented over 800 years ago, by Ram\u00f3n Llull, a Catalan\/Spaniard; next by a German, Nicholas Cusanus, in 1345; in 1784 in France by M. de Borda, and hence the name, MBC; a century later by Charles Dodgson in England who should have written a book about it but he wrote Alice in Wonderland<\/em> instead, his alias, Lewis Carroll; and in 1986 in Ireland by the current author.<\/p>\n

None of these individuals knew of the previous inventors.\u00a0 There is then something archetypal about the MBC; it will happen one day, in referendums and in parliaments, not least because it is ideally suited to the computer age.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PR-STV was invented in Britain and then imposed upon the Irish, North and South, as part of the 1920 settlement.<\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The alternative vote (AV) is STV without PR and is used therefore in single-seat constituencies; multi-member proportional (MMP), the German two-round system, is half FPTP and half PR-list; and the additional member system, AMS, which is a one-round version of MMP.<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Known in the States as instant run-off voting, IRV.<\/h6>\n
[4]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The MBC was invented by Jean-Charles de Borda in 1784 but unfortunately it was then corrupted into a BC.<\/h6>\n
[5]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Borda and Condorcet rules can be compared to a sports tournament: every team plays every other team, and (every option is compared with every other option).\u00a0 (In a BC), the winner is the one with the most goals (points); with Condorcet, it is the team which wins the most matches (or the option which wins the most comparisons).\u00a0 The winner of the league (Condorcet) usually has a good goal difference (Borda): (indeed, the MBC and Condorcet are two very good systems, and the winner under either is usually the same).<\/h6>\n
[6]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Interestingly, the first person to \u2018dictate properly\u2019 was an Irishman, Bernardo O\u2019Higgins, who in 1818 became El Supremo<\/em> in Chile with 100%!<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

The\u00a0featured image<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>has\u00a0been used courtesy of a\u00a0<\/em>Creative Commons license.\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of Queen’s University Belfast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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