Coming shortly........

The next book - Majority Voting as a Catalyst of Populism - is due to be published by Springer later this year.  It is based on my overland journey from Belfast to Beijing and back, 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; in communist countries like Russia - the very word 'bolshevik' means 'member of the majority'; and even in China where Máo Zédōng was also a majoritarian: “we must win over the majority, oppose and smash the minority…”

2019-20 Local elections still dodgy

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

Click to read more ...

2019-15 Everything on the table? An MBC?

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 ...

2019-14 Imagine, an old Brexit solution.

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 ...

2019-13 A Brexit Solution - a 'preferendum'

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 ...

2019-12 Indicative Votes - Preferential

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 ...

2019-11 The Commons & 'no' to compromise

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 ...

2019-10 Binary Votes are Orwellian

PRESS RELEASE IMMEDIATE 26.03.2019 (INDICATIVE) BINARY VOTES ARE ORWELLIAN In 2003, the late Robin Cook tried to persuade the House to adopt preference voting, in vain, for “this would have required the technological development of a pencil and a piece of paper,” he said, “far too big a step for our parliament and its medieval procedures.”

Click to read more ...

2019-8 Indicative voting in the Irish Times

Our article on the indicative vote is published today in the Irish Times. The House of Commons can learn from the experience of the Citizens’ Assembly

Peter Emerson, Phil Kearney

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/indicative-voting-an-irish-solution-to-the-brexit-problem-1.3840063

2019-7 Binary Voting is Orwellian

(Indicative) Binary Votes Are Orwellian In 2003, the late Robin Cook tried to persuade the House to adopt preference voting, in vain, for “this would have required the technological development of a pencil and a piece of paper,” he said, “far too big a step for our parliament and its medieval procedures.” His efforts were prompted by a series of majority votes (on Lords reform) – which Lord Desai had warned would be “daft,” (Hansard, 22.1.2003). They were indeed inconclusive.

Click to read more ...