DEMOCRACY IS FOR
EVERYBODY, NOT
JUST FOR A (OR
THE) MAJORITY.
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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!
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. |
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.
Here's the YouTube, the PowerPoint, and the text of the speech (more or less).
Friday, November 21, 2025 Majority rule - one lot wins everything, while the other lot loses everything - came to dominate politics, long after the Greeks devised majority voting, some 2,500 years ago. There were no political parties in those old days, so anyone - (men only, I’m afraid) - could vote with a neighbour today, and against him tomorrow, without
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 18th November, in the National University, “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,’ Kiev, everyone was on-line, and so was the vote! The report starts: In any post-war parliament, a consensus may be
Friday, November 14, 2025 On 5th Nov in Mykolaiv Univeristy, some 20 students did a role-play on decision-making, with a prefential vote of course. PETRO MOHYLA
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 PRESS RELEASE IMMEDIATE 5.11.2025 _______________ BINARY REFERENDUMS IN YUGOSLAVIA, UKRAINE AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Sunday, November 2, 2025 Fifteen parties in parliament. Do they all still believe (a) in majority rule? and (b) in reducing every debate to a short list of just 2 options? Why not aim for short-list of, say, 5 options, and then hold preferential votes?
In 2023, Wilders with 23% of the vote, then 'won' 31% of the cabinet. With all-party power-sharing, he would have had but 23%, at the most!
But now, 2025. So why not a matrix vote to elect an all-party power-sharing cabinet? By the look of things, Wilders would lose badly! Hoorah. And government formation could be effected within a week! Hoorah.
Sunday, November 2, 2025 MAJORITY VOTING MAY BE ACCURATE IF, AND ONLY IF, THE TWO OPTIONS ARE A DUALITY - THE BINARY BIND 1 The Chinese wouldn’t vote, “Yīn or Yáng?” The two are a unity, not a duality. 2
Friday, October 31, 2025 Today, 1st November, l arrive in Odesa; last here in 1987; next to Mykolaiv, where l was an OSCE long-term election observer in 2006); and then Kiev.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 Here's the zoom:
https://disk.360.yandex.ru/i/sU7Omrud9eXyQg
Friday, October 10, 2025 In 2004, I suggested Ukraine should join the EU but not NATO. In 2009, I argued against binary voting procedures in the OSCE/ODIHR in Warsaw. And so my lecture in Moscow on 8.10.2025 in the HSE University critiqued (a) the binary referendums of 2014 and 2022, and (b) the binary nature of the Ukrainian two-round electoral system. In effect, the question asked in (a) was, "Are you Ukrainian or Russian?" But it is not a duality. The press release explains: MAJORITY VOTING MAY BE ACCURATE IF, BUT ONLY IF, THE TWO OPTIONS ARE A DUALITY.
Wednesday, October 8, 2025 (Just like Britain when arguing about Brexit), France is now arguing about governance... and in both settings, it seems, there (was) is a majority against every proposal. So why (did) do (the Brits and) especially the French use the 2,500-year-old binary voting, the most inaccurate voting measure of collective opinion ever invented? In other words, why do they ignore the work of their compatriots, M Jean-Charles de Borda et Le Marquis de Condorcet who in l'Académie des Sciences, just over 250 years ago, in 1770 and 1785, devised two brilliant preferential procedures: the Modified Borda Count MBC (as it is now called) or Borda preferendum, and the Condorcet rule, both of which are very accurate?
