Voting – what’s with all the secrecy?

// November 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010

When tens of thousands of citizens from the elderly to public sector workers march in protest against government policies that they had voted for, alongside colleagues who did not, is it time to reconsider the primacy of the secret ballot? We live in a society where all are made feel the consequences of choices made at election time but not all voters’ bear equal responsibility for those choices. When people can vote without any expectation of commiserate responsibility for their actions, why would we expect more from our politicians who are drawn from such an electorate?

Twice in a single generation, Irish governments have pursued policies, endorsed by the electorate, that have driven the country onto the economic rocks. While the policies of 1977 and those of 1997 through to 2007 might differ in substance the degree of denial amongst voters is markedly the same. Unlike other forms of public choice, in politics when a majority or large minority choose brand X we are all compelled to live with the consequences.

The government Ireland elected in 19977 proceeded to spend public money in manner likely to cause acute embarrassment to the most intoxicated of seafarers, leaving the bill to the entire adult population 1980s for those decisions. Those who judged it a good idea to reduce or abolish council rates and car tax with no visible means of replacing the lost revenue while increasing the numbers in state employment compelled others to bear the cost. Yet Ireland’s direction in the aftermath might have been changed if those who had supported those policies had to contribute even that bit more towards the clean-up bill.

Our practice, in Ireland, of the secret ballot owes much to events in the mid 1800s; the British Ballot Act of 1872, the advocacy role of the Chartists and events across the Empire such as the Eureka Stockade. Yet even now the secret ballot is not the sole means of making decisions in public life. The cabinet votes may be hidden from the public but not from one another, in the Oireachtas members vote on the public record but parliamentary parties vote in private and only occasionally by secret ballot.

As universal suffrage was extended throughout the world there was considerable legitimate concern that votes would be bought or that people coerced or intimidated into voting a particular way. The concerns that individuals might be coerced are considerably less even though the buying of the votes of sectional interests is now deemed to be perfectly reasonable. Entire groups are bought off with political promises at a cost to the wider population.

If we’re going to preserve the secret ballot as a core element of the political process then we need to ensure that it is not a single event to be forgotten once the count is completed but rather part of a process of longer term engagement and participation. Efforts such as theyworkforyou.co.uk serve as one example of what is possible in making available information about those who represent us and what they actually do. But does anyone have an incentive to access such information. Many people are familiar with the concept of ‘studying form’ when it comes to betting on horse racing but what studying of form do the public do when it comes to politics.

In Alastair Reynolds’ novel “Prefect” a system is devised whereby people’s voting strength is increased based on a collective review of the quality of the outcome of their votes. If one votes for a proposal that is viewed over time as a beneficial then they are credited with more influence at subsequent votes, if the impact was negative their influence is reduced. This provides for feedback into people’s decision making.

Encouragement to vote should come in the form of restructuring a portion of the current tax credits into a Voter’s Tax Credit. Don’t vote and if they can’t provide a very good reason why not they get hit in the pocket. We should also provide a “None of the Above” option on ballots to facilitate genuine abstentions. This should increase voter turnout substantially.

Then in parallel to the existing secret ballot, we allow members of the public to choose to publicly invest the value of their VTC in the specifics of manifesto promises of parties or individual candidates. At the next election, the citizenry are again asked to rate negatively or positively the manifesto promises whether they were implemented or not. The value of your VTC increases and decreases based on the collective opinion of the quality of your decisions.

If the decisions turn out to be poor you pay more tax if they viewed as being to the broader benefit you pay less. The associated impact could fade over the course of each successive election so that citizens are not scarred forever by their youthful choices. When faced so starkly with the prospect of their cold hard cash being on the line might the quality of public decision making improve? That’s my 2c worth. What will you wager?

ENDS

ED’s Note

This is a step by step time timeline of how such a system might possibly work.

Create a new Voters/Citizens Tax Credit reducing the PAYE tax credit by the same amount, so this is revenue neutral

1) Once a general election campaign has started publish all the various manifestos on-line.

2) The public rate the top 20 promises per party over the course of the campaign

3) 2/3 days before polling this top 20 list is published

4) On polling day a voter may cast up to 27 votes on-line for the 27 manifesto promises they most support across party lines

5) At the time of the next general election, the public again cast their votes on which of those 20 policies from each party they believe in retrospect were the best and worst.

6) The policies as rated by the voters as above average result in increases to your VTC with matching decreases for more poorly rated decisions

7) Adjustments are made in your Voters/Citizens Tax Credit accordingly

Repeat the process for the new political promises

I Wrote this for the Sunday Times a few years back – not sure if I have posted it here in this form already.

My take on the Lisbon Treaty – part 1

// September 30th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

In making any assessment on the merits of the Lisbon treaty we are encumbered rather than assisted by both the process leading up to the treaty signing and the process of the ratifying referendum itself. A referendum on an EU treaty marks the end of a long torturous process of trade-offs, horse trading, nuanced discussion, and negotiation. In suggesting as some have that we could renegotiate with Europe about aspects of the treaty we need to remember that it is a rather dull and messy compromise made by 27 elected governments.

Seeking to renegotiate aspects on which there is no settled national consensus goes beyond being merely complicated. The Socialist Party and Cóir, both of whom, like many others, seek to speak for those who voted No last time, would have an unbridgeable distance between them on say the issue of abortion, which isn’t even addressed in the treaty but which one of them believes is. For such groups the issues they and their forbearers raised first in the 70s have and will never go away you know. The arguments about a threat to Irish jobs was made by many on the left in the 1970s, others focused on neutrality or military non-engagement, an EU army, conscription, or abortion. All are issues that have been around since our accession debate. Despite repeating these claims in subsequent treaties, the day that our gay sons have been forced into EU armies for abortions while compelled to eat straight bananas has not come to pass.

The difficulty in addressing these concerns once they became the main focus of debate is that opposition groups, whether Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party and even Fine Gael and Labour amongst others, lost the battle to be directly involved in the detailed discussion about the treaty preparation when the general election of 2002 took place. Our democratic system requires that you win the elections leading up to the negotiations in order to for your people to be involved in the discussion. Part of the reason for this is that inherent to our system of representative democracy is the notion of putting your job on the line if you are wrong on the position you advocate.

Post the Nice Treaty debacle one of the core lessons the government should have learned was to never again come home from the EU fair with another Jack’s magic beans of a treaty. To facilitate this we need to look for a new more continuous form of public discourse and engagement that means fewer people are caught unawares of the process leading up to such treaties. And when it comes to the very detailed nuanced legal matters that form the basis of a treaty agreed by 27 participants we need to elect people to do a job of negotiating on our behalf and to trust them to do it. We pick those people via the electoral process and we should take considerably more care about it. That they turn out to be undeserving of our trust but are then re-elected is not their failing but ours.

It should be now evident that Ireland, and Europe more generally, is suffering from consultation fatigue. There is a strong argument to be made that the EU should have a moratorium on any more institutional changes for a decade or more. In his contribution to the Orange book, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats spoke of the need for the EU to enjoy a period of stability with an absence of significant institutional change. A reformed system of public engagement prior to treaty agreements which in turns obviates the requirement for detailed debate after agreement has being reached and a period of stability in the EU institutions, for at least a decade or more, should be considered as priority lessons from the Lisbon process.

NB – there is a certain irony that the Zemanta thingy threw up an image of the signing of the Nice treaty one of its top options. So I stuck with it.

Spoofer’s guide to Lisbon Mark 2

// August 17th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

That breaded man is back again, after bringing us the insightful yet hilarious Spoofer’s guide to the Lisbon Treaty he has returned (much like the treaty itself) with a new and improved guide to the Lisbon Treaty. It will make you laugh and cry and go “Oh! So that’s what that is for”

Read it, distribute it, mention it in polite conversation at dinner parties, write the links to the files down on the walls of public toilets.

If you’re making a choice then at least make an informed one, and if you want to be informed why not have a little fun doing it?

Sure it’s about politics, but meaningful world changing politics and not just who gets to be Mayor of Killarney this year.

PS. My reason for including the files themselves on my site is that they are a bit sizeable and it’s only reasonable that some of the rest of us share the download burden. All credit to Jason O’ Mahony, even if he was a PD at one time.