Where The People Are Without Strategy There Is Tyranny

In the 21st century, a sudden surge of very heavily financed campaigns have emerged to promote what may be termed "democracy reform". For now, the great majority of these "reforms" are based on arcane theory-based election methods, which are debated among election method theory analysts. Only recently have reforms, based upon practical methods, begun to be promoted by practical analysts who are overtly concerned for the welfare of the masses.

The famous investigative historian Eric Zuesse has this to say about the current U.S. tyranny:

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Strategic Culture Foundation -- Why Calling US a 'Democracy' Is Both False & Dangerous to Do -- by Eric Zuesse -- 3/15/19
Link

It's false because it is definitely untrue, and that's not merely because America has a higher percentage of its residents in prison than does any other nation on this planet, but also because the only scientific studies that have been done of the matter show -- they prove -- scientifically -- that the US is a dictatorship by its very wealthiest residents, against all the rest of the population. Traditionally, that's called an "aristocracy," not a democracy, but ever since Mussolini in the 1920s, it came to be called "fascism," which is the successor to "feudalism" and thus is merely the modernized form of feudalism. What used to be called by such terms as "monarchy" or "aristocracy" is thus now called "fascism" but the leopard is the same regardless of what it is labeled, and what it really is [is] a dictatorship. Mussolini sometimes instead called fascism "corporationism" and it certainly is today's United States Government, even if some people choose to call it 'democracy'. It's what the US Government has been scientifically proven to be: dictatorship, by the richest few (the controlling owners of the international corporations), against the entire public.
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The common people do of course know that voting, as it is done in the present day ("single-select" or "choose-one" voting), is generally useless, and about half of them do not bother. Even if it was useful, they would only do it because people have a powerful instinct to do things that are personally sacrificial but socially necessary. Voting as it is designed today is useless simply because of the two-party / few-party lock-in effect.

Of course some people in Western culture, due to learned mass assimilatism, will voluntarily flock toward predominant institutions. However, everybody knows that if a Republican, a Democrat, and a "Nader" are available, only the Republican or the Democrat will win, so it is pointless to vote for the "Nader", since their vote would then merely be sacrificed -- it would count for nothing due to the two-party lock-in effect which the single-select system ensures -- and they would thereby be deprived of the opportunity to vote for the lesser-evil candidate.

The only way that the voters can overcome two-party lock-in is by utilizing some system of "graded voting" that allows them to give a maximum number of votes to a "Nader", somewhat fewer votes -- or "hedge votes" -- to a "lesser evil" predominant party candidate, and no votes at all to a "greater evil" candidate. This is "hedge voting", and it is the only type of method that allows preference for the "Nader" while requiring only a small sacrifice of the ability to deprive opportunity for the "greater evil" candidate. Since election officials who design ballots and subsequently tabulate votes are never to be trusted too greatly, all aspects of election systems must be designed to operate as simply as possible.

The best system is the strategy-tolerant simple score method which allows voters to grant from (1) to (10) votes (the "score") to each candidate. The voter who grants (10) votes to a candidate knows that she or he is allotting a 100% portion of assertable support. (8) votes would grant an 80% portion, and so on. As an example of hedge voting, (8) or (9) votes might be granted to a lesser-evil candidate. Obviously, an abstentious "non-grant" of votes would allot (0) votes, and thus no support. This would result in only ten possible vote grants for each candidate. When the election is finished all of the votes are simply added up. This system is "pure-summative", and its entire tally procedure can be completed locally. The results represent a low quantity of data, which only needs to be passed to larger tabulations once. This would quickly disrupt the two-party lock-in, and thus enable voters to elect officials whom they truly prefer.

Since around the start of the 21st century the ruling Western securitary / corporate pirate complex has been propping up NGOs that tout an "RCV"/"IRV" method (or perhaps more accurately, methods). The "RCV"/"IRV" method is not voting in the ordinary sense because instead of being pure-summative, it is summative-eliminative. The ballot design requires voters to assign one candidate to one "place" -- from first to last in a sequence of places -- and this is called a "ranked ballot". It should be obvious that some places should be allowed to be "empty", with no assigned candidate. In the typically prescribed "RCV"/IRV" method the 1st place votes are summed, and if no one immediately has more than 50% of the total votes, then the candidate with the fewest votes is "eliminated". And then -- on each ballot -- the candidate (if any) in the place below the eliminated one is reallocated upward. Presumably, all candidates below the eliminated one are reallocated upward. This process is reiterated until some candidate "wins" over 50% of the votes. Of course if someone does have over 50% of the votes in the first "round" they win with an autochthonous majority -- but if elimination rounds are required, they only will "win" with an artificial "majority". The procedure just prescribed is not the one ordinarily utilized in practice; it usually must be modified or constrained in some severe fashion. It is completely unrealistic to suppose that any "RCV"/"IRV" method not drastically constrained will ever be reasonably amenable to hand-counted paper ballots in modern times.

"RCV"/"IRV" methods are not strategy-tolerant in any positive sense; but they are in strategy-tolerant for various negative purposes. The previously mentioned "score" method has often been criticized for violating the "later-no-harm" principle -- that is, it is possible for a lesser-evil candidate to win due to voters granting her or him any votes, even if less votes are granted to them than to other most-preferred candidates. But this is really not a significant concern. Also, "bullet voting", where a voter grants only one vote to only one candidate is an an extremely poor strategy for the score method -- hedge voting is the actual very good strategy. However, bullet voting is a very good strategy for "RCV"/"IRV" voting. This is because "RCV"/"IRV" always violates the "sooner-no-harm" principle. With that method, any candidate granted 1st place automatically diminishes the chance to win for all candidates granted lower places in the sequence of "ranks" -- even though those candidates may be virtually as much preferred as the 1st placed one (these are sometimes called "clone" candidates). This is an invitation to chaos since a great number of "clone" candidates can mutually eliminate each other, and then some almost universally unfavored candidate can win, due to the "bullet" votes of some very small minority. "RCV"/"IRV" voting is truly full of unexpectable quagmires.

Ranked voting ballots are by no means exclusively applicable to only the "RCV"/"IRV" vote tallying method. The very same ballot design could be utilized for "simple ranked voting". Simple ranked voting is very simple. Voters cast votes on a ranked place ballot in accordance with their intentions: =/ 1st > 2nd > 3rd > 4th… /=. Only one candidate (or no candidate at all) may be chosen for each place. The 1st place candidate is granted 10 votes, 2nd place gets 9 votes, 3rd place gets 8 votes, and so on. The 10th place candidate is granted 1 vote, and any further places are granted no votes. All of the votes are simply added up, and the candidate who was granted the most votes is the winner. Absolutely nothing is done to interfere with the voters' use of the hedge strategy, so this tallying method would be very disruptive of two-party lock-in, even though it would be less responsive than the simple score system.

All that the voters need is the ability to cast one vote to determine whether the "RCV"/"IRV" vs, the "simple ranked" tallying method will be utilized. Of course they will eventually decide to avoid the many pitfalls of the former method.

There exists an "approval" voting method whereby voters may choose to "approve" or refrain from "approving" any number of candidates, and all of the "approve" votes are simply summed up. However, this method does not enable use of the hedge strategy, so it will not ensure abolition of two party lock-in.

It is entirely possible to transform any pure-summative election method into a multi-winner proportional representation election method. That is, there is a method for implementing a proportional representation (multiple winner) election (e.g. for a legislature) without the involvement of parties using any such method:

“Tranches” correspond to seats in a legislature, but also, approximately, to non-majority groups or interests. Here are the fundamental parameters and variables (through utilization of the concept of "tranches -- which provide a kind of "curved score"):

S = The total number of seats to be filled, which will equal the number of "tranches" or "layers".

N = A tranche Number (these tranche numbers run from 0 to (S - 1) The “strongest winner” is in the topmost tranche, and the tranches form “layers,” with tranche #0 occupied by the strongest winner, tranche #1 below tranche #0, tranche #2 below tranche #1, and so on down to #(S - 1).

W = The strongest Winner’s total number of votes.

C = The “tranche ceiling”, or end point at the top of each tranche (to be determined for each given N (tranche number), by the equation below).

C = W*(1 - (N/S)^2)

Example:

Strongest winner’s total = 310

Total number of tranches = 8 (For a total number of seats = 8. And the bottomost tranche = 7)

For each tranche number (N) there is a calculated ceiling number (C):

C = 310 * (1 - (N/8)^2)

(C must be rounded off -- banker's rounding is recommended.)

As described above, this proportional method would lead to serious problems due to effectively random outcomes. However, these problems effectively vanish if a "paladin preservation" technique is employed. With this, any incumbent candidate who receives enough votes to whichever tranche they already occupy (presumably this would be a "paladin" with an well-liked established track record) will win that tranche once again, even if some other candidates would otherwise win it. This might appear to "fly in the face" of the common notion of "toss the rascals out", but improved election methods would remove the "rascals" automatically in any case.

Election method theory analysts have observed that this proportional method violates all sorts of (seemingly) important principles; but practical analysts will observe that it will nonetheless "just work", and will assure proportional representation strong enough to obviate the need for redistricting in many cases.

In the end, the true Silver Bullet that will abolish faulty election methods will be the ability of voters to vote for the method that is to be employed in the following election. Even the old "select one" method would likely be sufficient for this.