2026-15 Ireland's TASC publishes:

DEMOCRACY IS FOR EVERYBODY,

NOT JUST A MAJORITY,

AND DEFINITELY NOT JUST THE MAJORITY

...of Unionists, Russians, Hutus, Jews, Sunni/Shi’a etc..

It’s on:https://www.tasc.ie/blog/2026/07/24/democracy-is-for-everybody-not-just-a-majority-and-definitely-not-just-the-majority/

2026-14

THE DE BORDA RULE 

 A MAJORITY VOTE MAY BE FAIR IF,

AND ONLY IF,

ITS DICHOTOMY IS A DUALITY.

2026-13 Artificial Incompetence (another) AI

Brexit is now 10 years old.  The following letter has just been published.

Many have recalled the 2016 referendum; some have suggested a few minds have now changed; but (as far as I know) none have critiqued its basis: trying to resolve a multi-option problem in a binary vote on just one of those options  -  a classic case of artificial incompetence, the other AI.

In June 2016, there were four options ‘on the table’ - in the EU, EEA, CU or WTO - my press release of February 2016 spoke of multi-option referendums, like New Zealand's five-option vote in 1992.  But Brexit was binary, and a (small) majority didn’t like ‘remain’.  Maybe even bigger majorities didn’t like the other options.  As in Theresa May’s indicative vote on eight options, maybe there was a majority against everything.  And maybe, losing by just 52%, ‘in the EU’ was the least unpopular, and therefore the most popular.  Maybe ‘remain’ was the winner.

There were lots of things wrong with that referendum, not least the lies used during the campaigning.  But another huge error was to think that reducing four options ‘on the table’ to just one option on the ballot could be fair.

2026-12 The Press is Free... to ignore!

On 3rd June, the Community Relations Council published: https://www.community-relations.org.uk/news-centre/free-press

Binary voting, some 2,500 years old, is primitive, divisive and often hopelessly inaccurate.  Everything else these days is modern, but not our decision-making.  Pluralism is possible, however, and instead of reducing debates to short lists of only two options, decisions in our multi-party chambers should best be taken in multi-option, preferential ballots on (short) lists of up to six options.

2026-11 A Sarajevo podcast

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0WHGF6QP8TwPloSFrSgJ7H?si=E0sorW26T6imBS9VLdgnSQ

2026-10 Unlock Democracy

Unlock Democracy has just published our 'de Borda' 2026-08 paper:  

https://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/blog1/2026/4/15/rethinking-how-decisions-are-made

2026-09 Decision-making, Belfast, CRC

The CRC (Community Relations Council) has just published https://www.community-relations.org.uk/news-centre/decision-making-story-so-far-de-borda-institute

2026-08 Unlock Democracy: egalitarian...

EGALITARIAN DECISION-MAKING Alas, the world still uses the 2,500-year-old majority vote! On 29th March, yet another international conference ended without an agreement:

Click to read more ...

2026-07 Dichotomies and dualities

On 13th April, INCORE held a 'de Borda' talk, on-line, on the theme:

Majority voting may be fair if, and only if, its dichotomy is a duality.

Many politicians like the win-or-lose majority rule; the system where they can win only everything, even if only on just 50% + 1 of the vote.  And if they lose, they wait for the next election and hope for another vote.

It's worse in the COP talks: many countries want either to win everything or to lose nothing, to win a majority vote or to veto a loss.  They do not want a voting procedure which facilitates a compromise, which is egalitarian.

Business also has too many vested interests, with leaders on majority shareholdings, and so on. 

So here's a video, which proves that, in any multi-option debate, majority voting is manipulable.  And we all know, it is often manipulated.

 

2026-06 Ukraine, 4th year; press release

THE LESSONS OF WAR! 1 In 1991, Ukraine

Click to read more ...