We are all idiots: thoughts on democracy and representation

Since the lovely Anna Raccoon featured my ancient little piece praising idiots on her blog recently I feel inspired to a little update on the philosophy of idiocy – and its goodness. At least in part this is because a thought struck me – namely that representative democracy is looking a little old and tired these days. Or rather our Western European version of representative democracy has become rather like grandma’s stair carpet – fine at a glance but decidedly threadbare on closer examination.

In Europe (and for that matter in places like Canada, New Zealand and Australia) we choose representatives through the proxy of the party system. In most places political parties have sufficient brand equity to be able to prevent the system becoming too fragmented. And even where the nature of the electoral system encourages schism and division, the election of representatives is predicated on them being from a political party. Yet – and I really think this is very important – nearly everybody isn’t a member of a political party. Our representatives are – in effect – chosen by a tiny number of people who happen to have paid across £25 or so to their favoured party.

Which brings us to our good idiots – let me remind you:

So let’s look at our typical idiots. Round here they’re probably in their thirties or forties, employed at a middle management level in business and industry. They worry about how well their kids do at school, they concern themselves with making their family safe, they grumble a bit about paying taxes but have enough cash afterwards for it not to really matter. Such folk are ordinary, hard-working and inherently conservative. But they also see little or no link between the act of voting in a politician from one party or another and the significant things in their lives.

The final sentence here is central to the argument – the act of choosing a representative and the deeds of government are not connected. Our representatives – MPs, MEPs and Councillors – really aren’t in charge. And just to stress this point let’s remind ourselves how decisions are made:

The truth is that decisions in local government aren’t taken in the manner most ordinary people – including quite well-informed ordinary people – believe is the case. Us councillors no longer sit on various committees in numbers reflecting the political balance of the council. Eight or ten councillors make up a (usually) one-party executive – often pompously called the ‘cabinet’ – and it is here that the decisions are taken. But understand that any discussion takes places away from the scrying eyes of the public – in Bradford we had a thing called “CMT” consisting of Executive Members and the Council’s “Strategic Directors” where the real decisions were made. You must also understand that most of the decisions are made under “delegated authority” by one or other ‘strategic director’.

The particular flavour of Councillor you elect doesn’t really matter and, even if you are lucky enough to have a “cabinet” member as your representative, most of the everyday decisions that affect you aren’t made by Councillors and only get our attention when you’re upset enough to shout at us.

So what should we be doing? Can we fix representative democracy – by, for example, banning political parties – or is it all rather too late and has the sheer scale of Government got too much for any effective system of representative government to manage? Certainly, those anarcho-capitalist folk would argue that we should abolish such indulgences as elections in favour of that most efficient of choice-based systems – the free market. However, despite a degree of sympathy with this view, I am not convinced of its merit and am convinced of the need for there to be a guarantor of the rules – which you may choose to call ‘government’.

I am also convinced of the need for this guarantee of fairness (by which I mean the equal application of the rules) to be provided by citizens rather than by experts. Hence common law, juries, parish councils and elected officials (as opposed to elected representatives). And in this system there is no real need for members of a parliament who take up their role on a permanent basis – in times past we selected parliaments for a specific purpose and on a time limited basis (just as we did with judges) and can do so again.

Our current system is broken – when barely 50% of those who can vote did vote in the most tightly fought election for decades and where local by-elections are decided by less than 15% there is something wrong. And it isn’t ignorance, apathy or idleness – they’ve rumbled us. They’ve worked out that the system is ramped up to favour political apparatchiks, they’ve spotted that, however people vote, the same nannying, interfering decisions get taken and it’s dawned on them that democracy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And who are they? They are the good idiots the ones who, to quote George Bailey “…do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.”

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In which I try to explain how elections aren't fair...whatever system you use!

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Arrow’s Theorem seeks to explore – in the context of social welfare economics – the nature of voting systems. In essence the theorem and its proofs show that:

“…no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide ranking while also meeting a certain set of criteria with three or more discrete options to choose from.”

The criteria that Arrow said must be met for the voting to be ‘fair’ were:

Unrestricted domain: Everybody’s vote (and nothing else) counts
Non-dictatorship: no single individual has a preference that always prevails
Non-imposition: all the possible ranking options are available to the voter
Independence: adding further choices must not affect the preferences for existing choices
Monotonicity: no vote for a choice should make that choice less likely

So I guess you’re all asking what on earth this all means! It doesn’t mean that some voting systems aren’t “fairer” than others – although “fairness” isn’t very easy to either define or to measure. You can see that the different criteria are all relevant to our understanding of “fairness”:

1. We want our vote to be counted and to count
2. We don’t want the choice of one individual to always prevail as this is dictatorship not democracy
3. We want to be able to make a choice from the full list of options not just from a restricted selection of these choices
4. We would see it as being unfair for the addition of further choices to unequally benefit one existing option
5. We would object to a vote FOR something reducing the prospects of that something being the choice or the electorate

Under forced run-off systems like the alternative vote (AV), not only does not every vote count (or get counted) but there is the possibility of a vote for an option damaging that options chances of success. It is clear that the second choices of those opting for the leading candidate(s) are discounted – under AV voting Conservative first and UKIP second is likely to mean the second choice is not counted whereas those voting UKIP first and Conservative second will have all their votes counted.

Also – as is shown here – there are also risks of non-monotonic results under forced run-off systems. Shifts in votes from less popular options can affect vote distribution meaning that a candidate can increase their first preferences and then lose. The likelihood of this occurring has been set at 1/4000 – a sufficiently common frequency for us to see it as a concern.

Single transferable vote (STV) systems have fewer distortions – although, as with AV, not every vote is fully counted and there is a very small probability of non-monotonicity. Depending on the system used to set quota (the point at which a choice is selected) STV will give a closer outcome to the actual rankings chosen by voters. If STV is used to make a single choice it is no different in outcome from forced run-off systems.

Under Arrow’s Theorem first-past-the-post is not less fair than these alternative systems – there is a strong suggestion that not every vote counts (although a strict interpretation would deny this argument) and, more significantly, the system restricts the options available to the voter – you can only vote for one option, once. This problem applies to list systems since they constrain choice to a given list of parties or similar. And all these systems are affected by the number of places to be filled – fewer places means votes for minority parties have less weight.

The point of all this isn’t to say which system is right and which wrong – most of the serious psephological anoraks seem to favour either the system we have now or else STV. What does matter is for us to ask which sub-optimal outcome we prefer – bleating on about “fairness” is lazy argument! Saying you want a more proportional outcome is fine – this can be achieved in various different ways not all of which mean handing control over to party whips.

All choice systems based on voting – other than one between A and B – are subject to distortions and we will need (if we plan to debate change) to consider where we place the greatest value. Do we want strict (ceteris paribus) proportionality, representativeness or clarity of decision? Or do we require a combination of these factors? These are real and definable outcomes that can be designed into a system. What’s Arrow’s Theorem tell us is that choice systems – elections if you must – can never satisfy all the criteria that would make them “fair”.

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Why replace one "unfair" electoral system with another equally "unfair" electoral system?

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The supporters of changing Britain’s system of electing Members of Parliament have long used the phrase “fair votes” to describe the motivation for their campaign. Put simply they argue that the first past the post system gives an unbalanced result and that the value of each individual vote is not equal as voters in “marginal” constituencies have a chance to alter the Government whereas opposition voters in “safe” constituencies do not.

Taking this fairness argument as the basis for the campaign to change the system – and I can see no other honourable reason for making such as change – it seems to me that replacing the current unfair system with a system that is merely differently unfair destroys the argument. So why do the labour Party – and some Liberal Democrats - support the “Alternative Vote” (AV) system which manifestly gives a greater weight to some votes over other votes?

Under the first past the post system the voters in marginal seats (and supporters of the leading party in safe seats) carry greater than average weight. Under the AV system voting advantage goes to a different set of voters – the supporters of minority parties in seats where the leading party receives less than 50% of the votes. Under such circumstances only the second choices of these minority party supporters are considered. The second choices of the leading two parties – and in many cases leading three parties – are discounted (are wasted votes). Clearly this is “unfair” since those voters are disenfranchised from exercising their second choice.

At the same time, the votes of minority voters in seats where the leading party receives greater than 50% carry precisely the same disadvantage as is the case in the current system. Just as is the case for first past the post, these votes are “wasted” since they have no more impact on the overall outcome of the election.

To appreciate the manifest unfairness of AV (on the basis of the initial argument of equalising unfair votes), just look at Yorkshire and Humberside. Here in 2005, 24 of the 54 seats were won with more than 50% (22 Labour, 1 LD and 1 Conservative) with a further 16 where the number of votes for minority parties exceeded the gap between the leading party and 50%. In not one single seat would the second preferences of Conservative voters have been taken into account and in just one seat (Sheffield Hallam) would this have been the case for Labour. It is clear that an AV system would have secured further seats for Labour (in Shipley, for example) but would not have resulted in any further gains for the Conservatives.

However we look at the system, there is no way in which AV is fairer or is more likely to produce a better distribution. Depending on the nature of minority parties it could, in fact, produce a greater distortion of the “preferred” result indicated by the popular vote. So I can only assume that the reason for proposing the system is for it to either be: 1) to the direct electoral advantage of the Labour party; or 2) to the direct electoral disadvantage of the Conservative Party.

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