[ga] Determining a "Valid Consensus"

["Patrick Corliss" <patrick@quad.net.au>]

On Tuesday, March 27, 2001 12:41 AM (AEST)
Bruce James <bmjames@swbell.net> wrote:


> A valid consensus can only be determined based on those that participate.
> Those who choose not to voice an opinion/vote do so at their own risk.
>
> American voting history shows that in a given public vote on a local issue a
> 5% to 10% turnout of voters happens. A sad fact of voter apathy. This group
> is no different.

Hi Bruce

In Australia it is well-known that there is compulsory voting in that there are
reasonably heavy penalties for anyone on the electoral roll who doesn't vote.
This seems like a generally "good idea" to most of the electorate.

In fact, it distorts the system in other ways.  There are unanticipated side
effects which I do not really need to go into right now.  However, I'll make a
couple of points.

One is the high rate of spoilt ballots papers.  Voters will often just write
offensive words or vote in unapproved ways (with ticks instead of crosses for
example).  A second is the difficulty that the Electoral Office has in
maintaining the register.  Many of the citizenry avoid getting their name on the
electoral roll in the first place as they can't be penalised if they are not on
the electoral roll.  You then end up with a real "silent majority" who cannot
even be targetted by the political groups.

But what I think is more important is that most voters will vote for their
preferred political party in the same way, year in year out.  As the country is
divided into constituencies political parties can easily recognise so-called
"safe seats".  These loyal seats get ignored by everybody.  All politicians
simply target the "marginals" especially those where a small swing is needed to
change the seat's status.

Where people have the choice of not participating, the political process is most
interesting.  First there is the challenge to target everybody (just to get them
to vote) then there is the need to persuade them which way to vote.

With mailing lists, some people do more work than others.  That's human nature.
As well some people will pick and choose the issues.  Some, for example, only
got involved with the ORG part of the discussion.  Others might take a "meta"
view and monitor the way the debate is going.  If the debate reflects their
views anyway, there is no need to get actively involved.  It doesn't mean they
are not interested.  That's why the "straw poll" is so necessary -- it gets a
good sense of the numbers.

Australia also has a system of "proportional representation" which allows
minority views to have an influence.  There really is no point in participating
in the process if you are always going to be outvoted.  That's what causes
minorities, like the Basque separatists in Spain, to take direct, often violent,
action.  In that case, at least it is certainly not because of voter apathy.

Some people, therefore, are more interested in making sure that the system
itself is functioning properly to reflect a "valid consensus".  The fact that
there are, what?, 291 people with a DNSO vote shows that there are much deeper
problems.  The push for an Individual Domain Name Owners constituency, for
example, reflects the need to get more people involved.

In fact, it is my view that modern politicians treat the population as composed
of so many "virtual" constituencies.  They target "women", "African-Americans",
"Hispanics", "the middle-class", "blue-collar workers", "students", "senior
citizens", etc as individual virtual constituencies.  Apathy on some issues is
then replaced by intense interest in relation to issues of direct personal
concern.

With electronic voting becoming common, I see more "straw polls" being
conducted.  Politicians are becoming more capable of satisfying the needs of
each virtual constituency in a way that starts to become truly democratic.  Then
you have cross-constituency membership.  A "woman" may be both a "student" and
"middle class" as well as being "African-American".  Any politician who can
satisfy all of her needs is truly taking a participative approach.  And I like
it.

That's why I'd like to see the present "physical" constituency structure of the
DNSO revised and made "virtual".  Of course, there must be constituencies but
these should be flexible.  Individuals, small businesses, major corporates,
registrars, countries, ISPs and other service providers, all need to be
represented.  Clearly some of these groups cross constituency boundaries.

I truly expect this particular debate to become the most challenging in the
modern world.  Perhaps it should start here in the DNSO General Assembly.

Regards
Patrick Corliss






















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