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Multiple Votes Per Person

So, after reading the OP, would you support multiple votes/person?

  • Yes, I think it's a good idea.

    Votes: 1 7.7%
  • No, I think it's a bad idea.

    Votes: 12 92.3%

  • Total voters
    13

Ontologuy

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So .. my girlfriend and I were talking the other day, and the conversation meandered to American democracy, the problems associated with it, that these unresolved problems could really damage America and have already begun to do so, and how these problems might be solved.

Rather than make this an analytical post about the problems (I'm sure we all know what these problems might be) I'm gonna skip ahead to the proposed solution bantered about: some people should have more votes than others.

To expand on this a bit ..

.. A criteria would be developed to determine a vote-number factor for each person.

Thus, for instance, a war vet, decorated above average, who went on to develop a new economic model benefiting all, management, workers, and consumers, and who had reached his 70th birthday ... he might be awarded a vote-number factor of 20 for all he's done and his age ..

.. And a young person in her early 20s who dropped out of high school and had a child out of wedlock and is on the government dole ... she might be awarded a vote-number factor of 2, 1 more than minimum just for raising a child but less than she would have received if she had been married and not on the public dole.

Of course, these are just off-the-top examples .. a lot more care would need to be put into determining the vote-number factor criteria, documented clearly in legal statutes so that all would know ahead of time.

So in a Presidential election, the former, his vote would be treated as 20 votes for his candidate, and the latter, her vote would be treated as two votes for her candidate.

This would reward ethical moral candidates who would do good for the country and the vast majority, and discourage special interest and "bread and circuses" coalition pandering as well as perhaps neutralize the unjustified advantage big cities have over the vast countryside ... .

It would support and encourage the development of good deed doers and reward morals and ethics as well as wisdom and experience, something sorely missing in today's America.

Sure, it would take a bit of smarts to come up with a good factor-assigning criteria, as accomplishments in all realms would need to be recognized, even those achieving in the fine and performing arts, along with charitable donations and the like they contribute .. as would those guardians of family, neighborhoods, and society who toil steadfast in anonymity raising kids and keeping neighborhoods safe and those young people working hard in high school and college to become good members of society, along with those who overcame poverty, etc.

Of course, if someone does something "negative" -- like get caught philandering or cheating on a college test or dealing/abusing drugs or the like -- it'll reduce their vote-number factor .. but never below a value of one (except for a felony conviction and similar).

It would be a task for sure to create and track .. but, think about it for a bit -- wouldn't it be well worth it?
 
And from thence came the saying -

"Vote early and vote often"
 
One of the few times in my life I am absolutely speechless. I have no idea what to say about that.
 
Absolutely would not support this.
 
How do you feel about selling votes? Each person gets a vote. Then, politicians basically bid for those votes. It would incentivize generosity and put cash into the economy. Or party members that were lpassionate could round up their friends votes in return for, whatever, dinner?

I was inspired by BEGGARS IN SPAIN and of course, your post.

In the year of America's tricentennial, all is placid. America has re-stratified itself into a three-tiered society. At the bottom are the "Livers," an under-educated but well-fed 80% of the population who enjoy a life of leisure. Above them (or below them) are the "donkeys," the genemod white-collar force who run the infrastructure and are elected into office by the Livers, earning votes via bread and circuses. Finally, the Sleepless are the source of just about all technological, genetic and scientific advances.
 
I can't agree to this. For one thing I think trying to track so much information about 200 million people, especially when much of the information would probably be contested sounds awfully expensive. I'm not really sure it would discourage special interests either.

For another I don't think the urban/rural divide is really unjustified. I don't see why rural Americans should count for more than urbanites.

It doesn't seem like a good idea to count some citizens more than others. They could easily vote for their own interests and leave the people who are less represented to live in a cycle of being less represented with no way to get out. It also doesn't really seem like a feasible idea, and some of the information you suggested using sounded really invasive toward people's privacy. I don't think I could ever support this.
 
This kind of crap is why I think that a lot of chest thumping pseudo-patriots don't really believe in much that America stands for. All people created equal, liberty and justice for all, all of it. They're really all about an aristocracy. About some classes of people having special rights and power over the rest. They want it for their race, their gender, their religion, their sexuality, all of it. It takes real guts to face the rest of the world as an equal, and the cowardly and selfish can't handle it.
 
How do you feel about selling votes? Each person gets a vote. Then, politicians basically bid for those votes. It would incentivize generosity and put cash into the economy. Or party members that were lpassionate could round up their friends votes in return for, whatever, dinner?

I was inspired by BEGGARS IN SPAIN and of course, your post.
Nope -- you can't sell your votes, for one reason, because that would be unnatural, and for another, because you still only get one vote .. it just counts more or less than the vote of others.
 
I like the sentiment but totally impractical and it would make fraud almost imopssible to detect
 
I like the sentiment but totally impractical and it would make fraud almost imopssible to detect
Please .. tell me why you like the sentiment.
 
This kind of crap is why I think that a lot of chest thumping pseudo-patriots don't really believe in much that America stands for. All people created equal, liberty and justice for all, all of it. They're really all about an aristocracy. About some classes of people having special rights and power over the rest. They want it for their race, their gender, their religion, their sexuality, all of it. It takes real guts to face the rest of the world as an equal, and the cowardly and selfish can't handle it.

Clap.gif
 
This kind of crap is why I think that a lot of chest thumping pseudo-patriots don't really believe in much that America stands for. All people created equal, liberty and justice for all, all of it. They're really all about an aristocracy. About some classes of people having special rights and power over the rest. They want it for their race, their gender, their religion, their sexuality, all of it. It takes real guts to face the rest of the world as an equal, and the cowardly and selfish can't handle it.
Wow -- the OP has really spiked your ire!

Do you really think that our elected officials would create unethical/immoral criteria in creating the vote-number factor?

Or are you really afraid that the resulting hierarchy would make effecting socialism in America even more difficult?
 
Please .. tell me why you like the sentiment.

Because it is fun to poke sticks on booby trap threads without actually stepping on it
 
This kind of crap is why I think that a lot of chest thumping pseudo-patriots don't really believe in much that America stands for. All people created equal, liberty and justice for all, all of it. They're really all about an aristocracy. About some classes of people having special rights and power over the rest. They want it for their race, their gender, their religion, their sexuality, all of it. It takes real guts to face the rest of the world as an equal, and the cowardly and selfish can't handle it.

Sorry, but since when are socialists allowed to preach to anyone about what America stands for? You're not exactly the shining jewel of standing behind it's founding principles, you know.
 
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Because it is fun to poke sticks on booby trap threads without actually stepping on it
What booby trap?

My girlfriend and I were having a serious conversation about a vote-number factor.

Surely there are others who realize the value in it.

If you truly did agree with the sentiment of it, why wouldn't you want to elaborate as to why?

No one's gonna hang you for your opinion here .. are they?
 
Sorry, but since when are socialists allowed to preach to anyone about what America stands for?
Besides, we're just brain-stormin' here, trying to solve some real problems -- nothing's being cast in cement.

After all, socialism idealists would have to admit that "one person, one vote" isn't the historical or demographical norm, but merely an ideal itself, a rather recent one in its purest form, one that's now been tried .. with flaws identified.

Maybe, once again, we can find a way to improve on the matter, while still giving everyone an equal chance.
 
What booby trap?

My girlfriend and I were having a serious conversation about a vote-number factor.

Surely there are others who realize the value in it.

If you truly did agree with the sentiment of it, why wouldn't you want to elaborate as to why?

No one's gonna hang you for your opinion here .. are they?


It would allow society to set forth the criteria that society most values and encourage them by rewarding those who meet those criteria. Of course the poot storm that would follow would make it impossible to design the criteria and then impractical to implement. You for instanced cited having kids. That is fine with me because it gives an emotional vested interest in long term success of the nation beyond your life time, but then people will whine about it punishing gays and on and on. Despite the mythology of the founding fathers, the people who were given the right to vote were not just "rich" people, but people who most had a vested interest in the nation and the government--merchants, landowners, tax payers. Certainly imperfect system even for its time, but certainly not the sinister moustache-twirling plot that people paint it as having been.
 
Sorry, but since when are socialists allowed to preach to anyone about what America stands for? You're not exactly the shining jewel of standing behind it's founding principles, you know.

If you believed in any of those principles, you'd be a socialist too. Instead you enshrine selfishness. Well, in that regard, I suppose you do follow the principles of a group of wealthy slave-owners who didn't want to pay taxes and thought that only their race, gender, and social class should vote. But you don't follow any of the lofty things they wrote.
 
It would allow society to set forth the criteria that society most values and encourage them by rewarding those who meet those criteria. Of course the poot storm that would follow would make it impossible to design the criteria and then impractical to implement. You for instanced cited having kids. That is fine with me because it gives an emotional vested interest in long term success of the nation beyond your life time, but then people will whine about it punishing gays and on and on. Despite the mythology of the founding fathers, the people who were given the right to vote were not just "rich" people, but people who most had a vested interest in the nation and the government--merchants, landowners, tax payers. Certainly imperfect system even for its time, but certainly not the sinister moustache-twirling plot that people paint it as having been.
Well, yes, I didn't say determining the criteria would be a piece a' cake or that it would be "forever" or easily agreed upon by both wings of the political spectrum.

But it would allow natural society to assert itself and create a kind of collective unconscious direction for the country.

Right now our country really has no direction, but merely vaccilates like a pendulum sometimes wildly back and forth .. getting nowhere, progress wise as problems continue unresolved and worsening .. while threatening to keep the fringe groups in power over the vast majority, and detrimentally.

The multiple-vote factor might help restore balance and direction to the country, and naturally so.

And, it would test whether the American dream is truly possible for all, that justice as well as liberty, that the two dynamic complements can truly co-exist in dynamic balance together for a length of time.
 
So .. my girlfriend and I were talking the other day, and the conversation meandered to American democracy, the problems associated with it, that these unresolved problems could really damage America and have already begun to do so, and how these problems might be solved.

Rather than make this an analytical post about the problems (I'm sure we all know what these problems might be) I'm gonna skip ahead to the proposed solution bantered about: some people should have more votes than others.

To expand on this a bit ..

.. A criteria would be developed to determine a vote-number factor for each person.

Thus, for instance, a war vet, decorated above average, who went on to develop a new economic model benefiting all, management, workers, and consumers, and who had reached his 70th birthday ... he might be awarded a vote-number factor of 20 for all he's done and his age ..

.. And a young person in her early 20s who dropped out of high school and had a child out of wedlock and is on the government dole ... she might be awarded a vote-number factor of 2, 1 more than minimum just for raising a child but less than she would have received if she had been married and not on the public dole.
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It would be a task for sure to create and track .. but, think about it for a bit -- wouldn't it be well worth it?

It's tempting to like the idea of assigning more voting power to those that one deems to have proven more worthy of it, but honestly, I cannot think of any way to implement such a system that would have any realistic chance of avoiding being horrendously corrupted.

It certainly stands to reason that any government which controls the means by which this variable voting power is assigned would be strongly biased toward those who support that government in its status quo. I can see the criteria being manipulated to favor those who agree with certain positions taken by the government, and against those who disagree with certain positions, so that those who hold the contrary positions are rendered less powerful.

Just to look at the two example you provided. On the face, they seem like good examples of someone whose vote ought to count a great deal, and of someone else whose vote ought not count nearly so much.

I think it should be obvious that the former example is much more likely to be a conservative, while the latter is much more likely to be a liberal; so by applying your principle in any obvious way to those examples, you're tipping the system in favor of conservative points of view, and against liberal points of view. As a conservative, I certainly want my side to prevail, but not that way; not by cheating in the manner that you propose.

I can see this principle being openly abused to suppress those on sides I would support. Suppose that whatever power is in charge of setting these criteria decides that owning a gun or supporting the right to do so is harmful to society, and that those who do so ought to have less voting power. This gives those who would like to eliminate the right to own a gun more power toward the purpose of doing so, since their votes now count more than those who support this right.
 
If you believed in any of those principles, you'd be a socialist too.

None of the principles that they held to would lead to socialism.

Instead you enshrine selfishness.

In what way do I enshrine selfishness? Perhaps it's just because I value property and I stand against aggression towards it that you believe I'm selfish.

Well, in that regard, I suppose you do follow the principles of a group of wealthy slave-owners who didn't want to pay taxes and thought that only their race, gender, and social class should vote. But you don't follow any of the lofty things they wrote.

What lofty things did they write that I do not follow?
 
It's tempting to like the idea of assigning more voting power to those that one deems to have proven more worthy of it, but honestly, I cannot think of any way to implement such a system that would have any realistic chance of avoiding being horrendously corrupted.

It certainly stands to reason that any government which controls the means by which this variable voting power is assigned would be strongly biased toward those who support that government in its status quo. I can see the criteria being manipulated to favor those who agree with certain positions taken by the government, and against those who disagree with certain positions, so that those who hold the contrary positions are rendered less powerful.

Just to look at the two example you provided. On the face, they seem like good examples of someone whose vote ought to count a great deal, and of someone else whose vote ought not count nearly so much.

I think it should be obvious that the former example is much more likely to be a conservative, while the latter is much more likely to be a liberal; so by applying your principle in any obvious way to those examples, you're tipping the system in favor of conservative points of view, and against liberal points of view. As a conservative, I certainly want my side to prevail, but not that way; not by cheating in the manner that you propose.

I can see this principle being openly abused to suppress those on sides I would support. Suppose that whatever power is in charge of setting these criteria decides that owning a gun or supporting the right to do so is harmful to society, and that those who do so ought to have less voting power. This gives those who would like to eliminate the right to own a gun more power toward the purpose of doing so, since their votes now count more than those who support this right.
All valid points, thoughtfully presented.

It would indeed take quite the giant and wise minds to set the dynamic criteria, forever subject to change as the national collective consciousness and unconsciousness collaboratively determine in the natural course of time and events.

But I contend that what liberals and conservatives want, as they wingishly are now, is not good for America, is not good for the great majority of Americans, or for America, not at all. So to me, whether conservatives or liberals are happy or upset with the criteria, is not only immaterial, but irrelevant, pardon my candor.

And, I contend that unless we do establish a more natural and merit-based power structure in the voting populous, our wingers in power can at best only manipulate the masses in an ideological direction, compelled like lemmings, and the masses will never exhibit or demonstrate their collective preferences, as those preferences will simply not be reflected in the candidates, which is currently the case, our present direction, and a foreboding one, an affront to our founders' dreams.

We need to solve the problem of giving merited vote power to the great masses so that the leaders will follow their philosophical direction .. or we will be doomed to a short life, shorter than we desire as a country, especially a country with the dream of truly empowering the people, all our citizens.

The American people must find a way to set the laudable goals for our people, or we will have nothing which to aspire, no direction, no vision into which to throw our heart and follow it with mind, body and soul .. and without that we simply invite our Nero to ascend.

We can do better than the last great step we accomplished.

It's time to boldly take the next step.

I think this might be it.
 
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Well, yes, I didn't say determining the criteria would be a piece a' cake or that it would be "forever" or easily agreed upon by both wings of the political spectrum.

But it would allow natural society to assert itself and create a kind of collective unconscious direction for the country.

Right now our country really has no direction, but merely vaccilates like a pendulum sometimes wildly back and forth .. getting nowhere, progress wise as problems continue unresolved and worsening .. while threatening to keep the fringe groups in power over the vast majority, and detrimentally.

The multiple-vote factor might help restore balance and direction to the country, and naturally so.

And, it would test whether the American dream is truly possible for all, that justice as well as liberty, that the two dynamic complements can truly co-exist in dynamic balance together for a length of time.

Then the more logical and less impractical system would be to move to a parliamentary system where people would have multiple votes. People could stack their votes for a single group or allocate them among the various groups that they most want to win. So if everybody had 6 votes instead of one, they could cast them all for an environmental party candidate if that is their issue or they could spread them around to some combination of up to six issue-oriented candidates and that would give the country direction as to its priorities. It is a variation on what some cities do with their council elections. Basically people get one vote per vacancy and the vacancies are filled by vote total regardless of how many candidates are in the field as opposed to using the ward system in which seats are allocated to subsets of the city and only those who live in the ward can run for the seat or vote for that seat.
 
It would indeed take quite the giant and wise minds to set the dynamic criteria, forever subject to change as the national collective consciousness and unconsciousness collaboratively determine in the natural course of time and events.

If we truly had some “giant and wise minds” to which we could assign the task of setting these criteria, and could trust to do so in the best interests of society as a whole, then really, it would be better just to let these “giant and wise minds” rule over us in a more direct manner. In theory, an absolute dictatorship has the potential to be the very best possible form of government, but it requires a dictator with great wisdom, intelligence, and moral character; who will truly rule in a manner that is in the best interest of the people over which he is to rule.

Such people are extremely rare, if they ever exist at all; and even if a dictator started out with such qualifications, there is a great tendency for such power to corrupt even the best of men.
 
Then the more logical and less impractical system would be to move to a parliamentary system where people would have multiple votes. People could stack their votes for a single group or allocate them among the various groups that they most want to win. So if everybody had 6 votes instead of one, they could cast them all for an environmental party candidate if that is their issue or they could spread them around to some combination of up to six issue-oriented candidates and that would give the country direction as to its priorities. It is a variation on what some cities do with their council elections. Basically people get one vote per vacancy and the vacancies are filled by vote total regardless of how many candidates are in the field as opposed to using the ward system in which seats are allocated to subsets of the city and only those who live in the ward can run for the seat or vote for that seat.
Yes, we have already begun experimenting with this, the next step, in my opinion, of democracy.

I'm suggesting that we take the full step, and make the vote-number factor itself a societally determined merit-based value, and for the reasons I've stated in other recent posts in this thread.

It does seem to be the direction we're wanting to take.
 
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