Should everybody vote?

mzungu · 11-06-2016 4:44pm #1

Came across this interesting opinion piece in the NY Times by philosopher Gary Gutting. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/opinion/should-everybody-vote.html?_r=0

The article is concerned with the voting system and 'majority rule' fallacy. The example given is a recent study that showed policy changes backed by a significant majority of voters do not come to fruition as they clash with the needs of 'economic elites' and 'organized interests'. In this sense, whilst free elections prevent a dictatorship, usually these elites will take what they can and usually stop short of the mark where the voting public will draw the line.

One of the issues is that the voting public are not adequately equipped with the correct information to make an informed vote. This is not the fault of the voting public:

The idea is not that voters are too stupid or biased to access the needed information; it’s just that they don’t have the time and resources to do so. Ideally, we would provide everyone with the relevant knowledge, but that would be impractical, time-consuming and expensive.

The suggestion is to make the voting system similar to that or a jury in a court case. A selection of voters would be chosen to vote on behalf of the nation. Like a court jury, this selection of people would be given the full facts on all policies from all the different parties and the time to study all the material themselves.

The author recognises that this idea would not be acceptable to the majority of the public and instead suggests:

We could, however, get many of the jury system’s benefits without eliminating our current form of elections. We could have an unofficial jury — chosen, perhaps, by a consortium of major universities or of television news divisions — that would meet, discuss in depth and vote several weeks before the actual election. Coverage of its proceedings could substantially raise the quality of debate in the final weeks of the campaign. Candidates might hesitate to participate at first, but if so the project could begin with informed and articulate nonofficial supporters making their cases. Once the jury established itself as a significant factor in the national electoral debates, candidates would likely insist on taking part themselves. Even though the jurors would not decide the election, their vote would very likely come to exercise considerable influence on the result. Such a jury might well be the best practical way toward more informed and intelligent voting.

The suggestion of a jury only vote on elections is a nice idea, but totally unworkable IMO. It would suffer from the same flaws as the system that is in place now. Namely, a dyed in the wool Democrat or Republican will most likely not change their views even if selected for the jury. Where it may have merit is with the 'not sures' as they may gleam enough information to make an informed decision, as opposed to ticking a box on the day based on their perception of a candidate from their media appearances.

The unofficial jury idea has merit though. Since most televised debates are stale PR managed affairs, having tough questions put to candidates by a jury is a good idea. It may help to put some spark back into public sphere debate and make elections more about policies over personality.

Black Swan · 17-06-2016 1:05pm

mzungu wrote: »

The suggestion is to make the voting system similar to that or a jury in a court case. A selection of voters would be chosen to vote on behalf of the nation. Like a court jury, this selection of people would be given the full facts on all policies from all the different parties and the time to study all the material themselves.

Is this not the spirit and intent of the Dáil?

I would exercise great caution before adopting the jury system to replace voting. There have been researches that have suggested the jury system of decision-making may be flawed significantly. There are many examples of this, including the two below that concluded news media and race of jury members can bias decisions:

Exposure to pretrial publicity significantly affected guilty verdicts, sentence length, perceptions of defendant credibility, and misattributions of such publicity as having been presented as trial evidence, concluded Christine Ruva, Cathy McEvoy, and Judith Bryant (2007) in Effects of pre-trial publicity and jury deliberation on juror bias and source memory errors, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Volume 21, Issue 1, pages 45–67.

Race is still a critical factor in decision making, suggests Markus Kemmelmeier (2005) in The Effects of Race and Social Dominance Orientation in Simulated Juror Decision Making, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Volume 35, Issue 5, pages 1030–1045.

In fairness, it would seem that the voting system has been affected too in the current 2016 US presidential election by news media, race, and a host of other factors that may bias outcomes. It will be interesting to review empirical studies following the 8 November 2016 election to see if such things were significant.

mzungu · 20-06-2016 12:47am

Black Swan wrote: »

Is this not the spirit and intent of the Dáil?

I think the issue was not with the representatives themselves (to a degree it was), but rather why we choose them. So, the crux of the argument being if everybody voted in their overall long term best interests, the government would be completely different to what it is. Although Gutting is writing specifically about the US, I suppose you could apply it to here also.

Vincente Nvarro gives a good example in his blog:

Why are African American and women’s organizations not supporting the socialist candidate?

Before answering this question, we have to understand the other candidate, Hillary Clinton, who has the support of the Democratic Party establishment, including the leadership of major political leaders in the African American community. The same is occurring, incidentally, with the majority of the biggest feminist organizations (like the National Organization for Women) who support Hillary Clinton, hoping to see, for the first time in history, a woman as president of the US. The support of these two groups (African Americans and older women) could play the determining role in the election primaries, making it possible for Hillary Clinton to win over Bernie Sanders.

African American support for Hillary Clinton is due, in part, to sympathy and support for the Clintons, which is surprising, since President Clinton was the major force behind approval of the welfare (means tested) reforms that diminished federal support for poor people, a move which affected the most vulnerable of the African American population. Professor Kathryn J. Edin of Hopkins University and H. Luke Shaefer of the University of Michigan, in $2.00 a Day, showed how the 1996 welfare reform legislation signed by President Clinton reduced federal support for the poor with a devastating impact among the very poor, imposing lifetime limits in cash assistance and increasing the supply of unskilled labor that benefited employers. Hillary Clinton supported these reforms when they were implemented, and has not criticized them since. Needless to say, her candidacy in the primaries is significantly different and more progressive than any Republican candidacy, all of them profoundly reactionary. But the point is that, without a doubt, the program of Bernie Sanders would benefit the African American community far more than the program of any other candidate, including Hillary Clinton. The evidence is overwhelming.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/65943/1/blogs.lse.ac.uk-Emphasizing%20class-based%20policies%20can%20help%20civil%20society%20to%20mobilize%20women%20the%20elderly%20and%20ethnic%20and%20%5B1%5D.pdf

Nicely highlights what Gutting is getting at, a lot of people vote against their own interests.

I do think it would be next to impossible to arrange successfully though, and might very well be a nightmare to police any potential corruption that might occur. The idea is interesting though.

I would exercise great caution before adopting the jury system to replace voting. There have been researches that have suggested the jury system of decision-making may be flawed significantly. There are many examples of this, including the two below that concluded news media and race of jury members can bias decisions:

Exposure to pretrial publicity significantly affected guilty verdicts, sentence length, perceptions of defendant credibility, and misattributions of such publicity as having been presented as trial evidence, concluded Christine Ruva, Cathy McEvoy, and Judith Bryant (2007) in Effects of pre-trial publicity and jury deliberation on juror bias and source memory errors, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Volume 21, Issue 1, pages 45–67.

Race is still a critical factor in decision making, suggests Markus Kemmelmeier (2005) in The Effects of Race and Social Dominance Orientation in Simulated Juror Decision Making, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Volume 35, Issue 5, pages 1030–1045.

I guess with no system being perfect, an argument could be made that in the case of a specially picked jury (Guttings idea) of maybe 2000 people that includes various races/different socio economic backgrounds, on averages would be same prejudices be apparent that appeared to confirm social dominance theory in the two papers quoted there?

In fairness, it would seem that the voting system has been affected too in the current 2016 US presidential election by news media, race, and a host of other factors that may bias outcomes. It will be interesting to review empirical studies following the 8 November 2016 election to see if such things were significant.

Indeed, tried to see if anything was available from the primaries but no dice. I imagine this time next year will be a much different story though!

Black Swan · 20-06-2016 3:17am

mzungu wrote: »

I guess with no system being perfect, an argument could be made that in the case of a specially picked jury (Guttings idea) of maybe 2000 people that includes various races/different socio economic backgrounds, on averages would be same prejudices be apparent that appeared to confirm social dominance theory in the two papers quoted there?

Unfortunately in practice, and no matter how well intended a plan for change may be, social dominance theory suggests that there will be group-based dominance hierarchies, in which one social group (e.g., economic elite, or ethnic, or religious, or national, or racial group, or a combination of these) will dominate the others, and act according to their own best interests; or what they perceive to be in their own best interests, which may or may not be a flawed perception. See Felicia Pratto and Andrew Stewart (2011), Social Dominance Theory, in The Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, Daniel Christie, ed.

Should everybody vote?

Comments