2025-28 Lectures in Russia and now Ukraine

PRESS RELEASE IMMEDIATE 5.11.2025 _______________ BINARY REFERENDUMS IN YUGOSLAVIA, UKRAINE AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Click to read more ...

2025-27 Netherlands

Fifteen parties in parliament.  Do they all still believe (a) in majority rule? and (b) in reducing every debate to a short list of just 2 options?  Why not aim for short-list of, say, 5 options, and then hold preferential votes?

In 2023, Wilders with 23% of the vote, then 'won' 31% of the cabinet.  With all-party power-sharing, he would have had but 23%, at the most!

But now, 2025.  So why not a matrix vote to elect an all-party power-sharing cabinet?  By the look of things, Wilders would lose badly!  Hoorah.  And government formation could be effected within a week!  Hoorah.

2025-26 Majority voting on non-dualities

MAJORITY VOTING MAY BE ACCURATE IF, AND ONLY IF, THE TWO OPTIONS ARE A DUALITY - THE BINARY BIND 1 The Chinese wouldn’t vote, “Yīn or Yáng?” The two are a unity, not a duality. 2

Click to read more ...

2025-24 UKRAINE

Today, 1st November, l arrive in Odesa; last here in 1987; next to Mykolaiv, where l was an OSCE long-term election observer in 2006); and then Kiev.

2025-23 The Moscow lecture

Here's the zoom:  

https://disk.360.yandex.ru/i/sU7Omrud9eXyQg

2025-22 MOSCOW and KIEV

In 2004, I suggested Ukraine should join the EU but not NATO. In 2009, I argued against binary voting procedures in the OSCE/ODIHR in Warsaw. And so my lecture in Moscow on 8.10.2025 in the HSE University critiqued (a) the binary referendums of 2014 and 2022, and (b) the binary nature of the Ukrainian two-round electoral system. In effect, the question asked in (a) was, "Are you Ukrainian or Russian?" But it is not a duality. The press release explains: MAJORITY VOTING MAY BE ACCURATE IF, BUT ONLY IF, THE TWO OPTIONS ARE A DUALITY.

Click to read more ...

2025-21 FRANCE

(Just like Britain when arguing about Brexit), France is now arguing about governance... and in both settings, it seems, there (was) is a majority against every proposal.  So why (did) do (the Brits and) especially the French use the 2,500-year-old binary voting, the most inaccurate voting measure of collective opinion ever invented? In other words, why do they ignore the work of their compatriots, M Jean-Charles de Borda et Le Marquis de Condorcet who in l'Académie des Sciences, just over 250 years ago, in 1770 and 1785, devised two brilliant preferential procedures: the Modified Borda Count MBC (as it is now called) or Borda preferendum, and the Condorcet rule, both of which are very accurate?  

2025-20 MOSCOW

On 8th Oct, I'll be giving a lecture in HSE University on the theme:

MAJORITY VOTING MAY BE OK IF, BUT ONLY IF, THE TWO OPTIONS ARE A DUALITY.   

More details on https://www.hse.ru/DeCAn/announcements/1089949980.html

2025-19 Dutch elections on Oct 29th

In 2023, the PVV got 23.5% of the vote.  Therefore, in theory, it should have had about 23.5% of the government.  Alas, (like nearly every other democracy), the Dutch parliament divides itself into two - a government versus an opposition (as if there were only two parties).  And Wilders' PVV party got 9 of the ministers, which is way over 23.5%.

An all-party power-sharing coalition would be more democratic.  Then, in decision-making, in each ballot, instead of getting a majority from a short list of only two options, parlaiment could identify the option with the highest average prefence on a short list of about six options.  It's called pluralism.

So Dutch democracy would work like this.  The electorate would elect a parliament, ideally by a preferential form of PR. About a week later, the parliament could elect an all-party cabinet, again by PR, using a Borda matrix vote.  And this administration could base its future decisions using the above preferential (and non-majoritarian) ballots.

2025-18 The Irish Times

Scientific research (done ecologically) into China's villages' systems of self-governance.  

(Sept 12th).  https://www.irishtimes.com/world/asia-pacific/2025/09/12/meet-the-82-year-old-belfast-man-cycling-across-china-to-understand-how-villages-vote/