deborda.org

The de Borda Institute, after Jean-Charles de Borda, 1733-99

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About us

I'm on my way to China again. And here's the blog: https://deborda.substack.com/p/debordaabroad2

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The de Borda Institute

aims to promote the use of inclusive, multi-optional and preferential voting procedures, both in parliaments/congresses and in referendums, on all contentious questions of social choice.

This applies specifically to decision-making, be it for the electorate in regional/national polls, for their elected representatives in councils and parliaments, for members of a local community group, a company board, a co-operative, and so on. But we also cover elections.

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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!

The story is here.

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.

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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.

Annual Reports

Decision-Maker APP

Won by One

MBC

QBS

The Matrix Vote

Practical Examples

WELCOME

Welcome to the home page of the de Borda Institute, a Northern Ireland-based international organisation (an NGO) which aims to promote the use of inclusive voting procedures on all contentious questions of social choice. For more information use the menu options above or feel free to contact the organisation's headquarters. If you want to check the meaning of any of the terms used, then by all means have a look at this glossary.

As shown in these attachments, there are many voting procedures for use in decision-making and even more electoral systems. This is because, in decision-making, there is usually only one outcome - a singe decision or a shopping ist, a prioritisation; but with some electoral systems, and definitely in any proportional ones, there can be several winners. Sometimes, for any one voters' profile - that is, the set of all their preferences - the outcome of any count may well depend on the voting procedure used. In this very simple example of a few voters voting on just four options, and in these two hypothetical examples on five, (word document) or (Power-point) in which a few cast their preferences on five options, the profiles are analysed according to different methodologies, and the winner could be any one of all the options. Yet all of these methodologies are called democratic! Extraordinary!

Thursday

Jun262025

2025-11 CHINA - the grand tour (part II)

Thursday, June 26, 2025

From 2025-03.

Next is Guǎngxī, the Zhuàng Autonomous Region; the Zhuàng are a minority - just 14 million of them; some villages are mixed, Hàn and Zhuàng, others are one or the other. Then comes Húnán, Jiāngsū and Shāndōng, before a visit to Tiānjīn and lecrures in Nánkāi and Tiānjīn Universities with my old friends 杨龙 Yáng Lóng and 徐警忆 Xú Jīngyì. My visa lasts for only 90 days, so I then go to Mongolia to renew the paperwork, and two more lectures in the National University of Mongolia before...

Ah, the kindness of strangers. We met on the train from Huhhot (Hūhéhàotè 呼和浩特）to Ulaanbaatar, and she, Zora, organises my tour of Inner Mongolia - she's trilingual: hence my visit to the vast expanse near Sonid ..... where another new friend, Nominhas (and yet another linguist) is my guide; so off we go to the outback; brilliant.

After seeing the old Buddhist hill-side monastery near Dàtōng, I go to Xīnjiāng, near Tekes 特克斯, the city of YīnYáng, in the foothills of the Tiān Shān mountains - where one of the villages had seven minorities and no majority at all, (so they use a form of PR) - and then my young old friend Bo in Zhāngyè in Gānsù.

Next stop: Tibet, 西藏， xīzàng, བོད.

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Monday

Jun022025

2025-09 INNATE: So what IS democracy?

Monday, June 2, 2025

There was rightful reason yesterday – majoritarianism was certainly better than many a minority diktat – but today, there is little or no justification for the use of binary voting and its consequence, majority rule.

Click to read more ...

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Sunday

May182025

2025-08 Mongolia: deliberative democracy

Sunday, May 18, 2025

13/15th May, the National University of Mongolia debated traffic pollution in Ulaanbaatar, with an MBC analysis. Here's the report. TWO MODIFIED BORDA COUNTs, MBCs, on the question of: “pollution in Ulaanbaatar.”

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Friday

Apr252025

2025-07 CHINA Deliberative decision-making

Friday, April 25, 2025

In a role-play in Tiānjīn University, participants (debated and) voted on the optimal size of Tiānjīn's population, and here's the report: A MODIFIED BORDA COUNT MBC on the question: “What should be the size of Tiānjīn’s optimal population?”

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Tuesday

Apr222025

2025-06 NÁNKĀI (the speech)

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

BINARY VOTING: MAYBE WE ALL GOT IT WRONG “Yin and Yang, a cosmic duality of opposing but complimentary… forces… lie at the centre of Chinese mystical thought.” 2 I arrived in Yúnnán....

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Tuesday

Apr222025

2025-05 TIĀNJĪN, NÁNKĀI UNIVERSITY

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Our patron, Professor Yáng Lóng introduced a talk on 'Majority Voting - Maybe we all got it Wrong' on 22nd April. For the talk, see 2025-06.

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Friday

Mar072025

2025-04 The Ecologist 7.3 2025

Friday, March 7, 2025

Good COPs and bad COPs. For an Asian perspective on decision-making, see the latest in https://theecologist.org/2025/mar/07/voting-consensus

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Tuesday

Jan282025

2025-03 CHINA - the grand tour (part I)

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

My journey starts on 30th Jan from 香格里拉 Shangri-La, visiting villages and talking about their way of life, on my way to Dàlǐ, where I meet an ethnic minority, and another village or two.

Next is a traditional Tibetan wedding in a village in the mountains of Sìchuān. Then it's back to the bicycle, now in Guǎngdōng, where I base my countryside tour on the town of Chunwan, from where I go to some of the villages nearby, one of which is celebrating a granny's 70th birthday! (Great logistics; I leave all my luggage in the hotel, and cycle off for the day, out to the sticks.)

While here, I spend a few days in Hong Kong to renew my visa, and then I'm off to Húnán.

Later on, I hope to go Nánkāi University in Tiānjīn, before then heading to Beijing for the Fourth 'International Forum on Democracy,' run by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 中国社会科学院 (tbc). {Continued on 2025-11.}

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Tuesday

Jan282025

2025-02 India

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

The Pahlé India Foundation hosted a demonstration of decision-making, with all present using the de Borda software: www.debordavote.com Here's the report: PAHLÉ INDIA FOUNDATION: A PREFERENTIAL VOTE ROLE-PLAY ON REFORMING INDIA’S PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORAL SYSTEM 16th January, Delhi. www.debordavote.com “the nonduality of right and wrong [is] the state of a buddha.” Longchenpa, a Buddhist monk of the Nyingma tradition. BACKGROUND It seems the human being is naturally binary, with two eyes,

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Thursday

Jan162025