Recently, I was contacted out of the blue and asked for my opinion on voting. A man named Patrick Bet-David sent me an unprompted message I felt compelled to answer. He wrote, “I’m curious how you would improve our voting system we have in America?” Bet-David it turns out, has a very storied history.
According to his bio from the patrickbetdavid.com about page, “Patrick Bet-David is a man who inspires. He is a successful entrepreneur, emerging author and financial literacy crusader committed to helping people get more out of life. His intriguing perspective on opportunity is colored from his experience as a young immigrant escaping war-torn Iran in the late 80’s. He embodies a true rags-to-riches story that saw him first serving in the U.S. military before breaking into the financial services industry.
You can actually watch his story come to life in a short film called UNLEARN on YouTube. Before turning 30, Patrick started a financial services marketing organization, PHP Agency (short for People Helping People), one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S.
Take a look at the video at the end of this article for a look at Bet-David’s work. Below is my response to his question:
How would I improve the American voting system?
1. Absolutely essential, before any other improvement of any kind is possible, is verifiable vote-counting. That can be achieved by public ballot-imaging:
Ballots could be the usual cardboard or paper ballots, punched or pencil-marked for machine reading (as by “MarkSense”, etc.), or machine balloting, such as touchscreen, could be used. If machine balloting of any kind is used, then the machine must output a paper ballot, which the voter can examine, to make sure that it is as s/h wants, before s/he deposits it in the ballot-box. Of course the ballots are transported and stored securely, protected by locks, alarms, and cameras owned and operated by various political parties, across the political spectrum. I’ll refer to those parties as “the observer parties”.
“Public Imaging Day” is the day immediately after voting-day. On Public-Imaging Day, at each precinct, each ballot, one at a time, is laid face-up on a table. Above the table is a frame on which are mounted digital cameras owned and operated by the observer-parties, plus one that is owned and operated by the elections department.So, one at a time, each ballot is laid face up on that table. Then that ballot is stamped with a sequential order-number, and then that ballot is imaged by all the aforementioned digital cameras mounted on the frame above the table–cameras owned and operated by the observer-parties and the elections department.
Each of the observer parties owns its digital images of the ballot set. The term “ballot-set” will refer to that set of images. Each observer party can scan its ballot-set, in order to do a computer count of the election, no matter how simple or complicated the balloting and count are. For example, any rank-balloting voting-system could easily be counted in this way. Of course anyone could ask for and receive any observer-party’s copy of the ballot-set, or that of the elections department, and could thereby do their own computer count of the election.
If there’s a dispute about the ballot-set, then it’s a dispute about particular numbered ballots. The disputed ballots could be retrieved from storage and re-examined and re-imaged. Thereby, the count is entirely free of count-fraud, regardless of how simple or complicated the balloting or count-rule is. That’s true, for example, even if rank-balloting is used, with some complicated rule for determining the winner from the rankings.As I said, no improvement of any kind is possible until we have verifiable vote-counting.
Public Ballot-Imaging is a good and easy way to make the count verifiable, and therefore legitimate. I emphasize that a count that isn’t verifiable, isn’t legitimate. An election with an illegitimate count is an illegitimate election. The mere fact of unverifiable count makes an election illegitimate, without any count-fraud actually being proved. (How can count-fraud be proved when the counting is unverifiable?).
2. Aside from count-security, the problem addressed in #1 above, we need a better voting system.
Right now, under current conditions, the best voting system would be Approval: Each voter can mark any one or more candidates on the ballot. …as many or as few as s/he wants. The winner is the candidate who is marked on the most ballots. That’s called the Approval voting-system. It’s a minimal change from our current Plurality voting-system, because it amounts to nothing more than the addition of two words to the ballot: Where it now says, “Vote for One”, it would instead say, “Approve One or More”.
It’s a powerful change from out current Plurality voting-system, because it would mean that, for the first time, no one would ever have any reason to not fully support his/her favorite. For the first time, everyone would be free on any strategic incentive, reason, or need to not vote for his/her favorite. Everyone could and would fully support his/her favorite.
Actually, though, I don’t think that our present Democrat/Republican (Republocrat) government is ever going to allow any improved voting-system, including Approval. I believe that the only way we’ll ever get a better voting system, or a better _anything_, is by electing a better party to office.
How? Well first everyone must demand verifiable vote-counting, as described in #1, above. Then everyone must vote for what they actually want, instead of for some “lesser-evil” that the mass media tell them is the best they can get. When we keep voting for the same two (identical) parties, we shouldn’t be surprised when we keep getting the same thing. Someone said that insanity is the belief that one can get a different result by doing the same thing.
Gore Vidal pointed out that we don’t have a 2-party system. We have one party with two right wings.
I therefore suggest that all progressive voters, everyone who want something genuinely different & better, should vote for the candidates of their favorite _progressive_ party. Then, at such time as those progressive votes add up to a majority (as they would if people voted for what they actually want), then, in the next election, the progressive voters, now a majority, all vote for the nominees of the progressive party that got the most votes in the previous election. That’s the best voting-strategy for progressives, now, under Plurality voting.
Now, if we succeed in electing a progressive party to office, what voting system will be the best one? With the more open and agenda-free media, and with a non-gullible electorate, we can benefit from different, fancier, voting-systems. At least 6 politics parties offer “Instant-Runoff” (IRV) as the voting-system, in their platforms.
The conditions described in the previous paragraph, I call “The Green Scenario”. IRV is good for the Green Scenario, because if a majority all prefer the candidates of set A to those of set B, then, if that majority vote sincerely, the winner must come from set A. That’s called the Mutual Majority Criterion. Additionally, IRV isn’t subject to the “chicken-dilemma”.
- Voters rank the candidates in order of preference. (Some versions allow more than one candidate at a rank-position,and some don’t)
- A candidate tops a ranking if that ranking doesn’t rank anyone over hir, but ranks hir over someone.
- Delete from all the rankings the candidate who tops fewest rankings.
- Repeat till only one candidate remains un-deleted. S/he wins.
There are other voting-systems even better than IRV, in the Green Scenario:
- “X beats Y” means that the number of voters ranking X over Y is greater than the number of voters ranking Y over X.
- Do IRV till there’s an un-deleted candidate who beats each of the other un-deleted candidates. S/he wins.
- The Smith set is the smallest set of candidates such that every candidate in the set beats every candidate outside the set. The initial Smith set is the Smith set before any candidates are deleted.
- Do IRV till only one member of the initial Smith set remains un-deleted. S/he wins.
I think you’ll agree that Benham’s definition is briefer than that of Woodall. Therefore Benham is a better proposal. I mention Woodall merely because, though Woodall and Benham both always choose from the Smith set, Woodall is more particular about which Smith set member it elects. That makes Woodall slightly better than Benham. But, Benham is more proposable, due to its briefer definition.This has been my answer to the question of how we can get a better voting-system. My past articles on this subject can be found at Democracy Chronicles at my column or at Election Method’s Central. Most relevant to this topic is my article “Voting Systems for the Green Scenario”. My most recent articles at Democracy Chronicles are “Four Kinds of Voting-Conditions” and “Voting-Systems for Ideal Majoritarian Conditions”.
Here is some contact information for Patrick Bet-David:
https://www.patrickbetdavid.com
Tweet https://www.twitter.com/patrickbetdavid
Patrick’s blog: https://patrickbetdavidblog.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickbetdavid
Also, here is the promised YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doEa9SxoQnU
and part two:
Patrick says
Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts and ideas on how to improve the voting system. I would be very curious to hear your thoughts on part 2 of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgwGkex2G_k
James says
I have yet to see an election that was not rigged in some way. To quote Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
To improve the system, there must be at least three independent voting systems in simultaneous operation.
1: The current system, but without the interference of the courts except when acting upon breaches of constitutional law in conjunction with a petition, not acting independently.
2: Political party based; Each party must publish a tabulation of all its member’s votes by an independent input from each person registered to that party. A voting system created and run by a coalition of all, not just the top two, political parties will collate all the votes to compare to the official and independent services that have input directly from the voter.
3: Independent services that will publish their totals independently and submit their totals to the coalition of political parties. The more services, the more likely they will render an honest count.
Actual counts must be compared and if there are any dependencies, the majority that do agree will prevail. Each will publish independently so that the public will be able to make up their own tally.
It will be more troublesome than a single system as every voter must update all of the services, but it will increase the level of expense and difficulty to pervert the tally. Of course, the people currently in power will object as they will loose the ability to easily control the results of an election.
Additional suggestions:
Remove the electoral college completely.
Those eligible to vote must register to vote within a year of becoming eligible to vote or permanently loose the privilege of being able to register to vote.
Those registered to vote must vote at least once a calendar year or loose their registered status. [If the multiple system is enacted, voting must be to all of the tabulators for each election.]
Standardized formats for email and postal delivery must be set up so that the same information is sent to every independent, party, and government (city, county, parish, state, federal) for each election so that recounts will be standardized for all services.
State of the art security must be used on all levels.
James T says
It will never work. The drooling mouth breathers with the minds of gnats will never cooperate. Too much trouble to go through just to have an honest political system. If the average voter cared enough to protect their rights, they would still have rights. Most people do not even know the difference between a right and a privilege. Politicians and even the supreme court has been ignoring the constitution, yet nobody tried to recall the offending politicians or supreme court justices. I am unable to do it alone and I have not found anyone to help. The average voters seems to be happy enough in their ignorance, so they have no incentive to pay attention to the incremental changes that have been eroding this their life style, their money, their freedom, their rights, and their government.
Michael Ossipoff says
You’re 100% correct. I couldn’t have said it better. You spoke for me.
Michael Ossipoff
James says
Reply to Michael Ossipoff who was kind enough to send an email. I apologize for not checking my SPAM folder more often, but I did manage to catch his before the email expired.
I apologize for not catching a typographical error: Actual counts must be compared and if there are any dependencies [should be discrepancies], the majority that do agree will prevail.
I know you are in favor of ballot imaging, but who does the imaging and what happens to them after they are submitted may have as many flaws as punch-card ballots with the hanging chad problem. Using a ballot image may be used as an additional security measure if multiple collection sites receive it. The downside is that someone will need to enter the data represented by the image into a computer readable format.
It is a better idea to have a standard format ballot (I suggest a spreadsheet entry either as a column or row) and submit it as an attachment to an email that has TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption and addressed to every collection site for independent tabulation. Those without email may go to a polling site, government office, or a friend to register with all the polling sites and send copies of their ballot choices to them. The only downside I can see is; how do you make sure that the independent polling sites are not all run by the same person? I would suggest that it should be classified as treason for any two polling sites to be influenced or operated by one person or group.
What if those independent polling sites were the registrar of voters (or equivalent) for every county, parish, and DC (DC could handle all votes originating outside of any of the states so expats can vote). That would make the validation of every voter easier for everyone. One email sent to the county of main residence and would be confirmed by the county by an email reply to the voter and a courtesy copy to every other county (this would also make sure that the voter had the most up-to-date email list). There should be two reply forms. The person is or is not registered to vote. The format should be different enough that it will be instantly recognizable. Green background for registered and red background for not registered may be the simplest. Validating the voters is the weakest part of this system as the data is from a single source.
Once the system is out of beta testing, there will be hundreds of sites, each publishing their results independently. Anyone with a spreadsheet could input the data and test for differences. Each county would be responsible for all federal, state, county (or parish) and city (or local) elections. Anyone (individuals or organizations) can independently tabulate the data from all the sources and publish their results.
This should be coupled with standardized ballot formats and standardized election dates so that, no matter where in the world, the deadline will be the same for everyone. The st
Also, very important, all of the computer programs used must be open source so that anyone with programming experience can check for the accuracy of the computations that generate the results.
Michael Ossipoff says
My suggestion was that cameras owned and operated by a wide variety of groups be mounted above the place where the ballot is laid.
The windowless bunker where the ballots are stored would be protected by cameras, locks and alarms belonging to all of those groups.
But of course all of this is science-fiction. It will never happen.
James says
In reply to James T:
People have not changed much since their origin. With sufficient motivation, they will abandon all moral and ethical considerations. It is up to the others to monitor and take corrective action for the common good. When this is not done on a governmental level, governments eventually fall. With this in mind, compare the Roman Empire with the United States of America (USA). Consider also that even the Supreme Court, the main protector of the Constitution of the USA, has been guilty of violating the Constitution they have sworn to protect and defend. Yet, nobody that recognized these violations in those that governed them took any of the constitutionally correct actions to correct the problem.
I agree that the majority, still comfortable in their lifestyle, will not act until it is too late to do anything effective. Follow the money if you choose to investigate my assertions.
James says
A final note: Until all people choose to make wise decisions for the common good, nothing will change.
James says
Regarding part two:
One citizen, one vote. I do not see any reason to change it so that wealthy people have more votes than someone that has no income because that person is permanently disabled.
The point about the age of responsibility may be valid, why else would the minimum age for becoming president be set at thirty-five?
Citizenship should not be automatic, but should be granted only to individuals at or over the age of adulthood (currently eighteen) that pass the same tests as any immigrant and swears (or affirms [same thing]) the same oaths. Those that are convicted of breaking their oath of citizenship or oath of office should loose their citizenship.
Thomas G. Campagna says
I have developed a secure on line voting system that cannot be controlled from outside sources. A registration form will be filled in with questions that are only known to the applicant. The voting form will require answers varied in different states. The form will be filled out on line from anywhere in the world and automatically be counted. If in any case to application contain the same information the applicant will be called to verify with other questions on the registration. Have copies of forms suggested that i will be happy to send you. Their can be no successful interference with this system .