Electoral systems and the will of the people

Six months ago, regional elections in France forced not only all the French, but all Europe to freeze in intense expectation for a whole week, from the announcement of the “scandalous” results of the first round to the appearance of the “sedative” results of the second. Before these elections, France was shocked by a series of terrorist attacks, and this played into the hands of the extreme right -right party “National Front” (FN), which, according to the results of the first round, came out in the first place as much as six of the thirteen regions of the country, and in the remaining seven regions was confidently in second or third place. But in the second round, the French took up their minds and combinedly repulsed these “terrible and terrible fascists”, who ultimately did not gain the majority in any region. Just a little the French crumpled their government - not too much, they say, pamper with these who came up ...

In fact, everything is much more complicated. Not many Frenchmen “took up the mind” in front of the second round-only 8.5%, that is, about every 12th. Moreover, the results of the FN, although they decreased from the first round to the second percent of the voters, in absolute calculus (i.e., in percent of all registered voters), even increased: from 13.9%to 15.8%. There are more than six millions, who in the first round came to show the superiors of Kuzkin, in the second, almost 2%were promoted to help, almost 2%, and in the second. i.e. Another 860 thousand propagandized and angry or frightened Frenchmen.

Perhaps an even more interesting question is all kinds of agreements between voting units before the second round. In different regions, they took place differently, not all regional party members listened to the recommendations of their central Politburo. In the two regions where FN was especially close to victory, the “left”, who took third place there, decided to leave the game at all, urging their voters to vote for the “right” (“left” and “right” in France are, in general, rather levocentrists and right -centers, unlike the “extreme left” and “extremely right”). In other regions, the party and blocs made other “strategic” decisions, everywhere, however, referring to one common goal: the “National Front” should not go out in the first place and receive the post of president of the regional council.

(By the way, if in Germany, the Communists also entered into a coalition with the Social Democrats, well, at least at the very last moment, in the elections in November 1932, that Hitler would not become a Reichscanler, and perhaps there would be neither the Holocaust, nor the World War, nor tens of millions of killed-but Stalin decided to otherwise prohibited Ernst Telman to agree "These renegades" ...)

You can talk a lot about the political aspects of these French elections (or, for example, the presidential election in Austria in May 2016, or some other dramatic), but I would like to continue about something else: why there are various electoral systems, why some new ones come up with all the time; What requirements are trying to satisfy and what goals to achieve; And finally, is there any benefit from the electronic voting systems. This topic is very extensive, and my article will be stretched, therefore, to two numbers.

We will ask the question to start: why do you need elections at all? We tend to answer without hesitation - to express the will of the people . In this Russian formula, however, each member requires clarification. Start with what it is - "people"? Well, let's say, these are all citizens of this country who have reached a certain age, corresponding to a particular educational and/or property census (this last point, however, has been canceled almost everywhere); If the elections are regional or local, then the citizen must really live in this region or city ...

But all this is not about the “people” as a community, but about the totality of individuals who have the right to vote in these elections. Each of them has its own personal "will"; The people are only a collective name. Can we talk about the "will of the people"? The discussion of this topic would lead us far, so we will limit ourselves to the simplest considerations, not even bringing references to authoritative authors for lack of place.

So, the people are composed of citizens, each of which, generally speaking, has their own hierarchy (or system , or just a set ) of values , based on which (conscious or unconscious), a citizen formulates goals and requirements regarding possible decisions of certain social problems and based on these values, goals and requirements, chooses some of the decisions proposed to him; And if he is offered to choose not between decisions, but between candidates to represent it, then chooses the one or those from whom he expects decisions in accordance with the above values, goals and requirements, i.e., in accordance with his “will”.

How can the common “will” of the people arise from this multitude of individual will, this collective sovereign , according to the famous expression of Russo? Each time you can make a decision as a “will of the people”, which received a simple majority of votes; But this is a very bad method. Imagine a choice between five proposed solutions, of which the most “popular” gained, say, 25% of the vote, while others - 23%, 20% and less. Can only a quarter of voters be considered the will of all? Or is it still preferable to agree somehow?

The representative (parliamentary) model of democracy proceeds from the fact that it is necessary to discuss and negotiate, of course, but moves this issue to the meeting hall of the parliament chosen by the people: we elect them, and let them consult with each other and agree, trying to protect our interests (goals and values). On the contrary, direct democracy (in a simple version of referendums) does not deal with this question at all: the question is raised - let everyone answer it, choose the answer that gained the majority of the votes. And so that the simple majority is immediately absolute, the question is posed in binary form: either for or against the proposed decision, or two different solutions.

Each of these two models-both direct and representative-simplifies differently and coarsens the above the general problem of expressing the will of the people based on the totality of individual will; Each makes its restrictions and at the same time gives rise to their own problems.

One of the problems of representative democracy is the need to choose one representative (or party list) according to the program declared by each candidate relating to many different topics - while the voter, generally speaking, would like to vote for Vasya and thereby for his proposal on this topic, but on the topic B - not for Vasya and her proposal on the topic B (multidimensionality of choice). Still voting for Vasya, this voter reluctantly agrees that on the topic B of the decision will be made with the distortion of his will or even contrary to it-multidimensionality is replaced by one-dimensionality, a complex picture is unjustified.

Another problem is the unconditionality of the representative office : so I chose Vasya, he is now my representative, say, in parliament, but I have no control for what extent he agrees in the process of parliamentary debates and votes to depart from the program he declared, nor even if he was trying to promote this program for him, for which I voted for him. This is a common problem with the chosen negotiators in any potentially conflict situation.

If the rules of representation are such that Vasya should not a step away from his election program for which we voted (this is called the “imperative mandate”), then there can be no discussions and compromises in parliament; But then why did we elect this Vasya and why do we need a parliament?

The less strong formulation of the imperative mandate is that Vasya, elected to the parliament from such and such a party, should not leave the corresponding party faction and obey its intra-party discipline during the entire term of the powers of this parliament. In this case, discussions in search of a (intra -party) compromise occur mainly in party factions, and so, in fact, work in parliament is organized. And again we have the same question: why do we need a specific Vasya? Why not vote just for a particular party, simply increasing its “weight” in parliament?

To solve these two problems (the natural multidimensionality of choosing the voter and the unconditional representation imposed on him), a model of the so-called fluid (Liquid) democracy was proposed relatively recently (it was also proposed to call it “cloudy” in Russian). It is practically possible to implement it only in the “electronic” (i.e., computer-software-net) form-otherwise it will be too bulky and laborious.

In this model, I have the opportunity on the topic and choose Vasya with my representative, and on the topic B - Masha. Each voice, given, for example, Vasya on the topic A, increases the weight of his own voice - but it is on this topic A, while on other topics he must receive votes separately. Moreover, I can share my voice - say, on the topic, to give 2/3 of the Vasya and 1/3 of Masha; And I can leave my whole voice or some kind of share to myself and vote directly. Thus, in its extreme expressions, the fluid democracy model includes both classic representative and classic direct model as particular cases.

An additional property of fluid democracy is the responsibility of representatives to voters: I can at any time get acquainted with the actions of Masha and Vasya, and if I see that, for example, Vasya “violates my promises”, I can withdraw my voice, thereby reducing the weight of Vasya's voice in the debate and votes.

The fluid (it is cloud) democracy does not relieve, however, from the third drawback of representative democracy: an ordinary participant in the process gives his vote for a person, and not for the idea. However, as it is said, “Plato is a friend, but the truth is more expensive” (the prototype of this phrase is at Plato himself, and it says about Socrates; Aristotle repeats the same Maxim, but speaks simply about friends and ideas).

In the practical implementations of cloud democracy, the phenomenon of “inflating the reputation” of one of the participants is often observed at the expense of the votes of his friends, little concerned about how further actions of their “representative” correspond to their own preferences. In today's representative democracy, this corresponds to an even more regret phenomenon: when voters are given to the candidate in accordance with his media picture - for example, a popular film artist.

Finally, in the absence of political freedoms, the choice of a particular representative may be the result of violence; For example, the director of the enterprise can organize a controlled vote, threatening with some material restrictions-exactly as in the realization of a representative model known to us all.

The direct democracy of referenda, for its part, is fraught with even more serious dangers, especially in countries, to referendum not used to it (and only Switzerland seems to be used to date). The fact is that the act of secret voting of an individual “ordinary citizen” is often quite irresponsible: it is largely subject to, on the one hand, the influence of propaganda through mass media, on the other hand, emotional reactions at the moment and to this very propaganda.

Authoritarian rulers are able to use this by organizing referendums on key issues in an emotionally warmed up: recall the Nazi “plebiscites” about the exit from the League of Nations, the entry of troops into the Rhine region and Austria Anshulus. The post -war constitution of Germany contains a complete ban on referendums at the federal level - so to speak, for insurance, so that it does not happen to repeat ...

The regional elections in France, which were mentioned above, are a vivid example of irresponsible voting of a significant part of society. Voting for the film actor is also an example of irresponsible voting. But when elections to the representative body, the danger of irresponsible voting is still lower than on a referendum running by the authorities, since the “irresponsibly selected” deputies are still living people with a sense of responsibility, and they will not necessarily support a populist anti-monetization proposal, which would be easier at a popular, direct referendum. So, at least, opponents of referenda are considered; However, a more serious discussion of this topic would require a separate article.

The main contrast is the discussion of alternatives through representatives (in parliament) or a choice of alternatives presented by someone without discussion (in a referendum). This contrast is removed in the model of direct deliberative democracy that I developed, in some ways, which is the development of ancient Athenian democracy and its transfer to a numerically different level using specialized computer-net tools; But this is also impossible to tell briefly in this article.

So, representative democracy, with all its imperfections, continues to be the main type of state system in Western countries, and Russia formally joined these countries for some time. It was not by chance that I specified here - “formally joined”, because in many respects the current Russian management system can only be called “representative”, the state administrative apparatus plays too much role in it. In the second part of this article, I will try to substantiate both this critical statement and my optimism regarding the future - preparing for which we will discuss and compare various electoral systems and various voting methods, which is by no means a purely academic issue.

The end , see the TRV-hunger No. 12 (206).