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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. 

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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 - 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!

deborda.gif

Vienna TEDx Talk - October 2017

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

Tuesday
Jan232024

2024-02 Canada

DateTuesday, January 23, 2024

When using the Borda Count, BC, intransigent voters may be tempted to truncate their ballots... and if everyone casts only a 1st preference, the voting procedure morphs into a plurality vote (which is not what Jean-Charles de Borda wanted).  In J-C's procedure - today's Modified Borda Count MBC - the rules of the count encourage all voters to submit a full list of preferences.

Majority voting?  Well, as the saying goes, turkeys don't vote for Christmas.  With the MBC, however, the more each voter participates, the better his/her result... and this applies to everyone in society, not just the majority. See what Canada is now saying:   https://electowiki.org/wiki/Borda_count

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Saturday
Jan132024

2024-01 New Zealand

DateSaturday, January 13, 2024

Published in the NZ Herald: V.M. Ferguson, (letters, 6 January) mentions....

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Saturday
Dec162023

2023-29 The Hague Peace Project

DateSaturday, December 16, 2023

An article

https://thehaguepeace.org/site/decision-making/

and then a chat with Jakob De Jonge of The Hague Peace Project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIDnaevpbMY
AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Wednesday
Dec132023

2023-28 Munich CCR

DateWednesday, December 13, 2023

“The Borda Count voting system; but Jean-Charles is gyrating in his grave.”  If however democracy were based on his original formula - today’s Modified Borda Count MBC - democratic societies could be more peaceful, and J-C could at last rest in peace.  
 https://vimeo.com/890361226/71e6685601)

An Adam Smith lecture in Munich’s Centre for Conflict Resolution on 27th Nov.

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Saturday
Dec092023

2023-27 The Guardian

DateSaturday, December 9, 2023

“The modified Borda count," he writes, "developed by the de Borda Institute looks especially useful.” 

 

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Tuesday
Nov282023

2023-26 The Irish News: Platform 28th Nov

DateTuesday, November 28, 2023

A MULTI-OPTION, PREFERENTIAL BORDER POLL? If two people...

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Saturday
Oct212023

2023-25 Decision-making: The Border Poll

DateSaturday, October 21, 2023

DECISION-MAKING

.
CONSENSUS VOTING  一  AND THE SURVIVAL OF OUR SPECIES
(Not the but) a cause of the current horrible violence in the Middle East is Tel-Aviv's extreme right-wing coalition.  Apparently, you can go to bed with the devil, as long as you're 50% + 1, it's still 'democratic'.
.
In theory, majority rule is fine.  Majority voting is not.  If and when a controversy is multi-optional 一 and in a plural democracy, that is, or should be, just about always 一 disputes cannot be resolved justly from a choice of only two options.
At an open public meeting in Queen's University in Sept. 2023, the debate was on the border poll.  The participants registered to vote on their (very) smart phones on the www.debordavote.com website; next, in debate, they chose seven options, so the CC consensus coefficients were: CCMAX 1.00; CCMIN 0.14; CCMEAN 0.57; then on their mobiles they cast their preferences on (one, some or) all of these options, and the results on  https://www.debordavote.com/advanced-analysis/138  are as follows:
          OPTION                        CC

A 2-part federal Ireland

0.76

A 4-part federal Ireland

0.71

Anglo-Celtic Federation

0.67

A united Ireland

0.62

An independent NI

0.52

The status quo

0.29

A united British Isles

0.10

 

 

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Thursday
Oct192023

2023-24/21 La Méthode Borda, en français

DateThursday, October 19, 2023

Au 18e siècle, la France était à la veille d´un grand bouleversement. Le vote binaire

Click to read more ...

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Tuesday
Oct102023

2023-23 Israel

DateTuesday, October 10, 2023

The long-term solution must involve power-sharing, Arab and Jew, in Tel-Aviv.  (Proportionally, the Arabs at 7.2% of the MPs in 2021 should have at least one member in any cabinet of 14 or more ministers.)  Therefore, our own elected chambers should all be practicing all-party power-sharing, now!  

Covid and Climate Change demand the same.  See also 2024-05.

 

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
Wednesday
Oct042023

2023-22 The USA, binary and divided.

DateWednesday, October 4, 2023

Donald Trump is the denoument of binary politics.

On the very day that US politics, the most binary polity on the planet, sacked its Speaker and became (yet again) dysfunctional, Global Journals published this paper on (not binary but) quantum politics; I'm on page 8.

https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume23/E-Journal_GJHSS_(F)_Vol_23_Issue_4.pdf

AuthorDeborda | Comments Off |
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