Good morning Fred, > ... My immediate concern is how candidates are evaluated. Do voters > decide based on candidates' stated positions or is there a mechanism > for examining candidates to establish their bona fides?
I guess there are two classes of evaluative mechanisms: a) Election results (internal to the system). b) Other mechanisms (external). (a). The elections are themselves an evaluative medium. The elections are continuous, and the results are reported at frequent intervals. Votes are expected to shift as new information is revealed to the voters. (b). But unless we take Marshall McLuhan at his word, a medium cannot be an ultimate source of information. The election results can only be meaningful if they are backed by external sources. (This is maybe the point of your Q.) External sources are: i) Dialogue and discourse in the public sphere. ii) Voting close to home, for somebody you know. iii) Voting for a norm, the text of which is visible. (i). The same communication channels that traffic in information about ordinary elections are also available for open elections. So voters have access to mailing lists and chat networks, blogs and broadcast media. They can use these media to share information and arguments about the candidates. (ii). The immediate recipient of the vote (voter's own delegate) can be evaluated by personal aquaintance. Because there are no formal candidates and no constraints on choice, a participant is free to vote for anyone. She can therefore cast her vote "close to home", supporting someone she knows and trusts. Her vote will then cascade through a series of delegates, and ultimately reach an end candidate. None of these other people will be known to her personally. Only her own delegate will be known to her. But whenever she has a question or a concern, she can direct it to the delegate. She can use the delegate as a kind of 2-way communication channel into the election. If she does not get a satisfactory answer, she can consider shifting her vote. In this way, voters can evaluate both the delegates and the candidates. (iii). In a norm election (law, plan, policy), the voter can inspect the actual text of the candidate norm - the particular variant draft that she is voting for. (I'm calling this an external mechanism because the drafts are not actually stored in the system. Only the votes are stored in the system. The drafts are "out there" in the public sphere.) Norm elections are not supported yet, not till the beta release. The point of my post is that we can actually do this today. It opens up an interesting question. In your own words: Would the voters be deciding on the 'who' and the 'what' in the form of candidates for the ballot, and norms for action? Or would they really (as McLuhan might suggest) be deciding on the whole electoral system? -- Michael Allan Toronto, 647-436-4521 http://zelea.com/ ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info