Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by exalted

Will probably make for more radical politics, don't really need to concern yourself with the very elderly, a lot of people who vote mostly because it just ain't that hard to vote for the party you've always voted for and your dad voted for just won't do it if it requires any ordeal.

It's certainly true that people who don't particularly care are disincentivized to vote. Which means more elections are more often decided by just a few votes, so there is a lot more incentive to challenge them. You are going to need multiple people watching all the voters for the ordeal period to be sure they don't cheat and can't be challenged to be disqualified for cheating by the other parties.... And they (and all those poll watchers) will need to take more than a day off so they can all be monitored at wherever fasting locations are. This is going to get logistically complicated

The idea made me wonder if you could have a few other variants on democracy like not for american democracy but for multiple party democracy.
Variant 1 - You can only vote for a party if you can name three of their candidates for office and a few of their key policies.

Might work as long as the parties themselves get to decide what the "key policies" are. In which case you might equally well dump the policies test and just require everyone to recite the party designated password, which they'd need to learn from the party reps in advance.

One problematic case is what happens when somebody supports the party because they are insanely committed to one minor issue somewhere buried in the platform, don't care about anything else, and whoever is administering the quiz hasn't read page that one sentence on page 164.

Variant 2 - You don't get to vote instead you take a list of questions and your vote falls to the party which you agree most with.

Again this runs into the problem of who decides the questions and which parties are where. And you're going to get parties that claim their position is exactly the same as some other party on all of them - which sometimes will even be true. Who gets that vote? Of course if you go with approval voting that can still work, but then you're going to have to decide where the cutoff is for how much you can disagree before it doesn't count as approving. It'd be simpler just to list the parties and their positions on each of the questions you are asking and let the voter pick.

[Apollonian]

You purchase a vote by donating blood; for every pint donated, you get one vote to spend on any election you please. Yes, you can save up votes. The blood probably has to be your own, unless you can find a corrupt blood bank/polling station. ("Shocking" twist: The government is secretly run by vampires.)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

You purchase a vote by donating blood; for every pint donated, you get one vote to spend on any election you please. Yes, you can save up votes. The blood probably has to be your own, unless you can find a corrupt blood bank/polling station. ("Shocking" twist: The government is secretly run by vampires.)

Leaving aside the vampires this is actually a specific case of a very common proposal where you gain a vote, or additional votes, for doing something "virtuous" or socially useful - paying an amount of taxes, serving in the military, completing an education level, having a baby....

These seem workable enough, though there are gaming the system problems in how you change the virtues with time (obviously there are times it's more useful to society than others for people to sign up for the army or have extra babies) and an issue of capacity (big healthy people can donate more blood than sickly midgets, do you actually want them to have more votes?).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by malloyd

These seem workable enough, though there are gaming the system problems in how you change the virtues with time (obviously there are times it's more useful to society than others for people to sign up for the army or have extra babies) and an issue of capacity (big healthy people can donate more blood than sickly midgets, do you actually want them to have more votes?).

I think these systems are likely to work better if the thing that is done is qualitative rather than quantitative. A system that grants votes based on how many babies you've made rewards people who go for unsustainable r-type reproduction, while a system that grants a vote for having any children, and then rewards more votes if you have any grandchildren (and perhaps even more for great-grandchildren) rewards people who go for more-sustainable K-type reproduction. A system that grants votes based on how long you've served in the military (or similar) rewards "sick-bay commandoes" and the like, while a system that grants a vote for honorable service, and more votes for distinguished service, rewards those who go above and beyond the call of duty.

Granted, the qualitative options aren't without problems. If you think your parents are bad about nagging you for grandchildren, just imagine them if they got more political power from you having kids. And, of course, you can end up with promising soldiers getting themselves killed trying for a "distinguished service" commendation.

[Michael Cule]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

You purchase a vote by donating blood; for every pint donated, you get one vote to spend on any election you please. Yes, you can save up votes. The blood probably has to be your own, unless you can find a corrupt blood bank/polling station. ("Shocking" twist: The government is secretly run by vampires.)

I was going to object that there are a lot of medical conditions (not just the ones you're thinking about, no) that disqualify you from giving blood. But I suppose the vampires are unlikely to care about that....

Can still see a good rallying cry for a revolution though. And a source of further corruption if you can then sell on the vote you earned through bleeding.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

I was going to object that there are a lot of medical conditions (not just the ones you're thinking about, no) that disqualify you from giving blood. But I suppose the vampires are unlikely to care about that....

Conditions that prevent you from donating (like anemia), or conditions that just mean that your donation can't be used (like a history of hepatitis)?

In addition to the problems mentioned above, there is the problem you get with any "only worthy people get to vote" schemes is that this means that whoever controls the organization that decides what does and doesn't count as worthy gets a lot of political power.

(But this thread explicitly allows weird systems that will have long term problems.)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

In addition to the problems mentioned above, there is the problem you get with any "only worthy people get to vote" schemes is that this means that whoever controls the organization that decides what does and doesn't count as worthy gets a lot of political power.

No more than any other organization that decides on the rules for voting, which is why you want it to be either fixed in your constitution or controlled by your legislature and relatively difficult to do if possible, not something your executive or somebody "independent" does if you can help it.

[ajardoor]

In the new Horror Magic Styles books, there is a secret spell Invest. Casting it is a long ritual and gives the subject a level of radically unstable Magery. And you gain a Character Point everytime the subject rolls a critical failure on a casting roll from then on.

I was wondering if you could make a hierarchy/Ponzi scheme out of this spell; you "recruit" new "wizards" so you may harvest a slow drip of power from them. At the top of the org chart is an Unaging archmage who has been Investing for who knows how long.

[Michael Cule]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

Conditions that prevent you from donating (like anemia), or conditions that just mean that your donation can't be used (like a history of hepatitis)?

Both.

Either of them causes problems with maintaining the story that it's a fair method of assigning the franchise.

If you take the blood that can't be used anyway then some curious person is going to look into what happens to it. If you refuse to take the blood (and as you say there are people who shouldn't donate for their own health) you get protests about the unfairness of it all and the same if you just require those people to turn up but not donate there are going to be more protests.

No, I think the way vampires should go is rule from behind the scenes of a nominally democratic society and offer the chance to earn a tax discount if you donate blood. Then skim the good quality stuff off the take.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Leaving aside the vampires this is actually a specific case of a very common proposal where you gain a vote, or additional votes, for doing something "virtuous" or socially useful - paying an amount of taxes, serving in the military, completing an education level, having a baby....

One of the more practical instances of this is described Shute's In the Wet:

1. Basic vote (presumably age limited)
2. Education (university degree, doctor, solicitor, commissioned officer, etc.)
3. Earning your living outside the country for two years (including war service)
4. Raise two children to the age of 14 without getting a divorce
5. Earned (non-investment?) income over a certain threshold
6. Official of a (Christian, of course) church
7. Monarch's personal gift

but you can only have one vote in each category, so being a doctor and a solicitor doesn't get you more.