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

Apr302020

2020-07 RSA blog

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Beyond Binary Ballots: blog is now live!

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Wednesday

Mar252020

2020-06 Matrix Vote (Dail elects a cabinet?)

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

THE MATRIX VOTE 1 The procedure is as follows: i) Each

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday

Feb192020

2020-05 Majority Voting...Catalyst of Populism

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Majority Voting as a Catalyst of Populism, 2019, (Springer, Heidelberg)

Following on from 2019-31, we've had three more book launches:

ix) Taipei: on 8th Jan. in National Taiwan University;

x) Hong Kong: on 20th Feb. care of the Hong Kong Democratic Foundation in the Foreign Correspondents' Club;

xi) Kuala Lumpur, on 15th March at Gerakbudaya Bookshop.

xii) Dublin, on 2nd October; see 2020-09.

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Sunday

Jan192020

2020-04 Taiwan: everyone's electoral system?

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Comparing the accuracy of different decision-making systems – from binary voting to preferential – is relatively easy. Because of pr, however....

Click to read more ...

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Sunday

Jan192020

2020-03 Taiwan Election Observation Mission

Sunday, January 19, 2020

As others have also implied, when so many are aware of the dreadful environmental consequences of flying, a policy which disallows proxy voting and, instead, encourages citizens to fly across the planet in order to cast their votes, is only absolutely ridiculous. Most international observation missions do not comment on ‘the elephant in the room,’ the election system itself What’s more, many people, not least in Taiwan, tend to divide the world into those jurisdictions – like Taiwan – which are ‘democratic’, and those which are not – like China. This report suggests....

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Sunday

Jan122020

2020-2 Binary Politics can be Dangerous

Sunday, January 12, 2020

GEF journal:https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/binary-politics-can-be-dangerous/

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Monday

Jan062020

2020-1 Hong Kong

Monday, January 6, 2020

Hong Kong's main daily, the South China Morning Post, published this on 5th:

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3044496/how-hong-kongs-democracy-can-evolve-break-blue-versus-yellow

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Tuesday

Dec242019

2019-35 Indicative (sic) Votes

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

April Fools: the MPs' indicative votes indicated nothing. So Representation has just published: ttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00344893.2019.1696393

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Sunday

Dec082019