Beyond the Binary Ballot - The de Borda Institute

IRELAND and UNITED KINGDOM

Electoral systems vary from the simple binary ballot. There are also lots of decision-making systems, again from the simple binary ballot – “Option X, yes-or-no?” as in nearly every democracy, theocracy and autocracy – to the Borda and Condorcet rules.Binary voting has been (not the but) a cause of dysfunction in the USA, for example, and of mayhem in many pluralist societies: for instance, “all the wars in the former Yugoslavia started with a referendum,” (Oslobodjenje, 7.2.1999); in Rwanda, the 1994 genocide was initiated with the slogan “rubanda nyamwinshi” (‘we are the majority’); in Ukraine too, referendums have again been used as ‘false flags’. In contrast with majority voting, preferential decision-making, as per today’s modified Borda count MBC, can identify the option with the highest average preference; and an average, of course, involves every (voting) member of Congress/Parliament/society. Accordingly, if the MBC were the international norm, democracies could enjoy all-party power-sharing, and political decision-making could involve a process in which politicians had a vested interest in co-operation.

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Vote62: Safeguard Thai Elections with Citizen Engagement and Digital PVT – Opendream Co., Ltd.

THAILAND

Opendream is an award-winning technology social enterprise in Bangkok, Thailand, founded in 2007. Vote62 enables Thai citizens to directly contribute to the health of their democracy through action. It is the first citizen-sourced project for independent Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) and electoral evaluation in Thailand. Vote62 was originally created by Opendream Co., Ltd. and launched in partnership with Thai NGOs, media groups, social enterprises, and civic organizations prior to the 2019 General Election. Building on the success of Vote62 in the 2019 General Election, 2021 Local Elections, and 2022 Governor Elections, we want to invest more resources into expanding the scope and accuracy of our initiative, and upgrade our approach for the next General Election in 2023.

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e-Voting in Wartime: Protecting Citizens’ Participation - e-Democracy NGO

UKRAINE

Originally an initiative of IT professionals united during the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, which was later transformed into a formal non-profit organization e-Democracy NGO (“e-” stands for “electronic”). The mission of the organization is to protect and promote human and citizen rights through the practical implementation of world's best practices in e-democracy. The Russia-Ukraine war coincided with one of the biggest anti-corruption reforms of recent years: the reform of the national anti-corruption bureau. The main function of citizens' participation and control in this process is provided by the Public Council, which is created using electronic voting. Our organization created the first system for e-voting, which has been used since 2015. But in the new reality of war we had to rethink this task in order to ensure safe participation of citizens and to unblock the anti-corruption reform.

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Ma France 2022 - Make.org

FRANCE

Make.org is a neutral and independent European civic tech based in Paris, Berlin and Brussels, whose mission is to involve citizens and mobilise the whole of civil society to positively transform society.

Ma France 2022 is a massive and unprecedented citizen consultation conducted in the run-up to the French presidential election of 2022. This operation is supported by Make.org & France bleu, in partnership with France 3 Régions, and was launched in September 2021 around a large open question put to millions of French people: "Ma France 2022: what are the priorities for our country tomorrow? Throughout the campaign, Ma France 2022 initiated a conversation on the priorities of a million French citizens: the latter have placed subjects linked to democratic and institutional renewal at the top of their priorities.

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