Consider this installment three of my previous question which is the second installment. For Election Day, I was researching the history of voting which has taken many forms. At one time in history, people voted by dropping rocks in holes corresponding to their candidate, with the one with most rocks being the candidate who won. We’ve had many forms “of voting”, from rocks in a well to paper ballots to voting machines to whatever this anime concept with glowy lights is. Each method has had supporters and critics, for example critics of voting machines will say it can be rigged, critics of paper ballots will say papers can be mismanaged, and critics of counting yard flags as a method will say it’s too tedious to do it all.
Suppose we discovered dolphins could understand democracy. So here you are coming up with a way to “express a vote”. Underwater, paper shrivels, tech may short-circuit, it’s hard to dig a hole with classic equipment, etc. unless you have a way to make something work. How would you teach dolphins to manifest voting in a non-rigged yet massively usable way?
Why should we meddle in the affairs of dolphins? By suggesting or mandating a particular style of democracy, are we not undermining their right to self governance?
If we were asked for advice on how best to do it (since it should be plain to see that we know what not to do), I’d maybe propose the AMS system we use here. There’s a stv system for one local representitive, then there is a list vote to fill up the rest of the seats in a proportional way.
