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The Institute is named after Jean-Charles de Borda, and hence the well-known voting procedure, the Borda Count BC; but Jean-Charles actually invented what is now called the Modified Borda Count, MBC - the difference is subtle:
In a vote on n options, the voter may cast m preferences; and, of course, m < n.
In a BC, points are awarded to (1st, 2nd ... last) preferences cast according to the rule (n, n-1 ... 1) {or (n-1, n-2 ... 0)} whereas,
in an MBC, points are awarded to (1st, 2nd ... last) preferences cast according to the rule (m, m-1 ... 1).
The difference can be huge, especially when the topic is controversial: the BC benefits those who cast only a 1st preference; the MBC encourages the consensual, those who submit not only a 1st preference but also their 2nd (and subsequent) compromise option(s). And if (nearly) every voter states their compromise option(s), an MBC can identify the collective compromise.
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DECISION-MAKER
Inclusive voting app
https://debordavote.com
THE APP TO BEAT ALL APPS, APPSOLUTELY!
(The latest in a long-line of electronic voting for decision-making; our first was in 1991.)
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FINANCES
The Institute was estabished in 1997 with a cash grant of £3,000 from the Joseph Rowntree Charitabe Trust, and has received the occasional sum from Northern Ireland's Community Relations Council and others. Today it relies on voluntary donations and the voluntary work of its board, while most running expenses are paid by the director.
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A BLOG
"De Borda abroad." From Belfast to Beijing and beyond... and back. Starting in Vienna with the Sept 2017 TEDx talk, I give lectures in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Tehran, Beijing, Tianjin, Xuzhou, Hong Kong and Taiwan... but not in Pyongyang. Then back via Mongolia (where I had been an election observer in June 2017) and Moscow (where I'd worked in the '80s).
I have my little fold-up Brompton with me - surely the best way of exploring any new city! So I prefer to go by train, boat or bus, and then cycle wherever in each new venue; and all with just one plastic water bottle... or that was the intention!
In Sept 2019, I set off again, to promote the book of the journey. After the ninth book launch in Taipei University, I went to stay with friends in a little village in Gansu for the Chinese New Year. The rat. Then came the virus, lockdown... and I was stuck.
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The Hospital for Incurable Protestants The Mémoire of a Collapsed Catholic This is the story of a pacifist in a conflict zone, in Northern Ireland and the Balkans. Only in e-format, but only £5.15. Available from Amazon. |
The director alongside the statue of Jean-Charles de Borda, capitaine et savant, in l’École Navale in Brest, 24.9.2010. Photo by Gwenaelle Bichelot.
Here's the YouTube, the PowerPoint, and the text of the speech (more or less).
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 Donald Trump is the denoument of binary politics.
On the very day that US politics, the most binary polity on the planet, sacked its Speaker and became (yet again) dysfunctional, Global Journals published this paper on (not binary but) quantum politics; I'm on page 8.
https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume23/E-Journal_GJHSS_(F)_Vol_23_Issue_4.pdf
Thursday, September 7, 2023 France, in the 18th Century, was soon to change. Binary voting had been used – and abused – in the 140 member Assemblée des notabless, where in 1788, Louis XVI’s Finance Minister, M Calonne
Monday, September 4, 2023 In 1990, just after Moscow News published my article on consensus, Mikhail Gorbachev used this word, консенсус, for the first time. And now another president is following my lead: Emmanuel Macron has just started to use the word préférendum. I hope it will be an MBC. https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2023/08/29/qu-est-ce-que-le-preferendum-nouvel-outil-democratique-envisage-par-le-gouvernement_6186971_823448.html The following is now being translated into French... A REFERENDUM…. OR A PREFERENDUM
Friday, July 7, 2023 Dutch coalition collapses... and our "Reviewing Dutch Democracy" has just been published in Munich Social Science Review Vol 6/2023. It's on https://www.ccr-munich.de/MSSR.htm
Thursday, June 8, 2023 DECISION-MAKING 2,500 years ago, when the Greeks of old devised...
Monday, May 22, 2023 Unfree, maybe; unfair, definitely! NI elections
Monday, May 22, 2023 On 6th June, Lord Desai invited and Jessica Metheringham (of Unlock Democracy) chaired presentations in the House of Lords by Prof. Don Saari, University of California, and I on "Preferential decision-making."
1 Politics is the art of compromise; preferential voting is its science.
2 As in the COP talks, cooperation is best achieved, not with majority voting. A better way would be inclusive preference points voting - the Modified Borda Count MBC.
3 AI could be used/abused by domestic and/or foreign operators to influence the democratic process; we need therefore more sophisticated (and accurate) voting procedures - in elections, PR-STV (or QBS); in decision-making, both in referendums and parliamentary votes, the MBC.
See also 2023-18, the presentation; the power-point is also available.
Thursday, May 4, 2023 NI elections - local, Assembly and Westminster - do not comply with international standards. In most OSCE-related elections (and I've observed over 20 of them, from Bosnia in 1996 to Mongolia in 2017), on polling day party agents/observers are not allowed:
+ to campaign; or
+ to get any access to the marked register.
Here in NI, however, in some instances, the voter first has to get through a gauntlet of activists at the entrance. Next, inside the polling station, the voter may first meet a party agent. Even if it's only for a 'whad-about-yer?' this is unacceptable. The voter's ID number on the electoral register is then announced to all and sundry, which is horrible, but it's legal... here. Nowhere else. Not even in Russia. Later, the party agent sometimes passes data on who has not yet voted to the activists outside, who then drive off to round up any 'stragglers'. This is only dreadful, and unique to NI. Passing this data outisde is actually illegal, even here, but it was happening in 2003, when the OSCE complained about it. And in 2022, it was still happening! Horrible: the voters are told how to vote; furthermore, if (SF) need be, the sick and the elderly are dragged to the polling station... ballot fodder. In all, the conduct of our elections is quite inappropriate for a former conflict zone, for any democracy... See also 2023-9 and 2023-17.
Monday, May 1, 2023 The COPs don't like majority voting. So what about preferential consensus voting:
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=124325
