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A blog: " De Borda abroad."  From Belfast to Beijing and beyond... and back. Starting in Vienna with the TEDx talk, I go by bus and/or train for more debates in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Yerevan and Tehran, before flying - sorry about that - to Urumqi in Xīnjiāng, followed by more debates in Beijing, Tianjin, Hong Kong and Taiwan... but not in Pyongyang. Then back via Mongolia (where I was an election observer last year) and Moscow (where I worked in the '80s).

I have my little fold-up Brompton with me - surely the best way of exploring any new city! So I fly hardly at all; I go by train, boat or bus if possible, and then cycle wherever in each new venue; and all with just one plastic water bottle... or that was the intention!

The story is on:  https://debordaabroad.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/de-borda-abroad/

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DECISION-MAKER
Inclusive voting app 

https://debordavote.org

  JUST OUT  -  THE APP TO BEAT ALL APPS, APPSOLUTELY!

(Currently under re-construction.)

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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 de Borda Institute aims to promote the use of inclusive voting procedures 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, for members of a company board, for members of a co-operative, and so on.

 

 

 

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. 

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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; but with some electoral systems, as 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!

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Vienna TEDx Talk - October 2017

Here's the YouTube,  the PowerPoint, and the text of the speech (more or less).

Thursday
Jul252019

2019-24 The Latest

DateThursday, July 25, 2019

Majority Voting as a Catalyst of Populism is due out on 22nd September.

https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783030202187

The book is based on my overland journey from Belfast to Beijing and beyond, Sept. 2017 to Sept '18, and it talks of how majority voting and binary majority rule have been part of the problem, pretty well everywhere: in conflict zones like Belfast and the Balkans; in 'stable democracies' like the UK, as in Brexit; and even in communist countries like Russia and China - after all, the very word 'bolshevik' means 'member of the majority'.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Friday
Jul052019

2019-23 Participatory Budgeting

DateFriday, July 5, 2019

https://pbnetwork.org.uk/what-is-democracy-anyway-why-voting-systems-matter-in-participatory-budgeting/

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Tuesday
Jul022019

2019-22 The Economist; & now The Ecologist

DateTuesday, July 2, 2019

Change our decision-making systems, and you change the world. It's in The Ecologist

https://theecologist.org/2019/jul/02/preferential-voting-and-political-consensus

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Sunday
Jun162019

2019-21 The Economist: Open Future Festival

DateSunday, June 16, 2019

5.10.2019 in Manchester, and the de Borda Institute is on the panel. 

https://events.economist.com/events-conferences/emea/open-future-festival-manchester/

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Thursday
May092019

2019-20 Local elections still dodgy

DateThursday, May 9, 2019

The Irish News of 8th May. Our elections still fail to come up to international standards. Many...

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Tuesday
May072019

2019-15 Everything on the table? An MBC?

DateTuesday, May 7, 2019

Brexit: To devise a binary choice to satisfy (almost) everyone is probably impossible; drafting a multi-option referendum would be only difficult. Democratic decision-making should cater for (almost) all; therefore, in parliament or a referendum, the ballot should be multi-optional...

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Tuesday
Apr232019

2019-14 Imagine, an old Brexit solution.

DateTuesday, April 23, 2019

JEAN-CHARLES DE BORDA, “Capitaine et Savant,” 4.5.1733 – 19.2.1799, versus the world’s first ‘DEMOCRATIC DICTATOR’. Today, 4th May, 2019, is his birthday. Imagine, if the 2011 referendum on the UK’s electoral system had been a multi-option ‘preferendum’ on five options.....

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Saturday
Apr062019

2019-13 A Brexit Solution - a 'preferendum'

DateSaturday, April 6, 2019

At some future date, the UK should hold a multi-option ‘second’ referendum on perhaps the following five options: a) in the EU and the € zone; b) in the EU with the £; c) in a Common Market 2.0; d) in a Customs Union; e) under the WTO.

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Thursday
Apr042019

2019-12 Indicative Votes - Preferential

DateThursday, April 4, 2019

INDICATIVE VOTES, ROUND TWO – MONDAY 1ST APRIL The aim of this paper is to hazard a guess at how the indicative votes cast in the House of Commons on Monday 1st April might have produced a different outcome if the voting methodology had been different. As it was, the MPs used...

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Thursday
Mar282019

2019-11 The Commons & 'no' to compromise

DateThursday, March 28, 2019

HOUSE OF COMMONS THROWS OUT PERFECT COMPROMISE It got over 250 1st preferences, definitely. It got over 100 2nd preferences, maybe. and a few 3rd/4th preferences, perhaps… but it got thrown out. Binary voting is like a thermometer with only two readings, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. The warmth of the House towards this or that option cannot be measured by such a blunt instrument.

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
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