Democracy is for everybody, not just a majority, and definitely not just the majority.

Politics is the art of compromise.  Therefore, both in decision-making and in elections, both for the electorate and for their representatives, voting procedures should cater for those who wish to compromise. 

1. Single-preference procedures – like majority voting in decision-making, and first-past-the-post FPTP in elections – prevent voters and their elected representatives from expressing a sincere compromise viewpoint. 
2. Multi-option procedures – such as the alternative vote AV and PR-STV, the single transferable vote used in elections in Ireland, North and South – permit the voters to cast a compromise viewpoint.
3. The best procedures, this paper argues, promote the use of preferential voting: the Modified Borda Count MBC and the Quota Borda System QBS.  Briefly, the voter’s 1^st preference, always gets 1 point more than her 2^nd preference, and she never harms the chances of her favourite choice by casting lower preferences on the other options/candidates.  And yet, in so doing, she acknowledges the validity of her neighbours’ aspirations; she also implies a willingness to accept the outcome, and, if an elected representative, to help implement ‘the will of the people’ and ‘the parliament’.

This article, then, is a critique of majority voting.  Granted, the latter is ubiquitous, both in politics and in business.  But something has definitely gone wrong if that which was meant to give power to the people has actually given a huge monopoly to the likes of Donald Trump with his majority rule, and Elon Musk and his majority shareholding. 

I concentrate on the political.  And I start with the principle: democracy is indeed for all, and not just the majority of Unionists, Hutu, Jews, Sunni, Russians, Serbs, etc.. 

The text recalls some of the 20^th and 21^st century tragedies which have been caused, or at least exacerbated, by our majoritarianism.  Next, it proves, logically, that the practice of taking a series of majority votes is manipulable; (as is well known, some politicians are manipulative, and many decisions have been manipulated).  Then comes a discussion on pluralism, i.e., some of the non-binary voting procedures which have been advocated over the last 2,000 years.  And finally, there’s a description of egalitarian voting, the Borda methodologies, and a look at their potential.

1          BINARY TRAGEDIES

1.1       Northern Ireland NI

The Troubles, from 1969-94, were in large part caused by the ‘settlement’ of the 1920s and its majority rule.  In 1998, albeit in a majority vote referendum, the Peace Process replaced it by an opposite, power-sharing.

In the earlier referendum, the 1973 Border Poll, the Unionists voted in favour, by 98.9%, and the Nationalists abstained.

In 1985, when the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed, Ian Paisley shouted, “Ulster says ‘NO’!”  As if the question were binary.  So in ’86, the New Ireland Group’s NIG first Peoples’ Convention, a public meeting of some 200, from SF to the UDA, used ‘consensus voting’: everyone votes ‘yes’ for their favourite, or ‘yes’ in their order of preference for a number of options, but nobody votes ‘no’!  More anon.

1.2       The USSR

In 1903, like many another political party, the All-Russian Congress of Social Democrats was using majority voting.  When Vladimir Ilyich Lenin lost a majority vote, they were all still comrades.  But when he won, they were not: they split.  It was close: the tally was 19 to 17, with 3 abstentions.  The 19, therefore, was not a majority, just the largest minority; he nevertheless used the word majority, bolshinstvo (большинство), and called his group the Bolsheviks, while the 17 menshinstvo (меньшинство), minority, became the Mensheviks.

As it happened, in the 1917 elections, both were roundly beaten by the SRs, the Social Revolutionaries.  So Lenin organised a coup d’état, the Bolsheviks took control; a few more binary contests saw Stalin beat Trotsky, then Bukharin, and in all, “the accidental arithmetic of [that 1903] single ballot” (Deutscher 1982: 71) led to the deaths of up to 24 million in the gulags.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.  Inter alia, this meant the end of the Cold War; so NI was no longer of any strategic value to the UK… hence, later that year, the above-mentioned Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Gorbachev was brilliant news; he knew what to do; but in our unhumble western wisdom, he didn’t know how.  So lots of ‘monolingual experts’ (an oxymoron?) flew over to Moscow to talk of democracy, our ‘majoritarianism,’ (which, on translation, is ‘bolshevism, большевизм’).

1.3       China

Majority voting was first used in Greece of course, about 2,500 years ago, democratically; and some 400 years later in China, but only by the ministers in the Imperial Court.

Fast forward to 1197, and China held the world’s first multi-option vote.  It was on the question of war with Mongolia: see para 3 below.

In 1957, Máo Zédōng started his very binary anti-Rightist campaign and his ‘Great Leap Forward.’  Villages were collectivised.  And in countless village tribunals, trials took place of those deemed to be the enemy, the rich – those in possession of maybe just a quarter hectare of land – and majority voting was used as sentences of death.  The subsequent famine killed maybe 20 million or more. 

1.4       Rwanda

In the 1930s, the colonial authorities introduced ID cards; the process was binary: the tall were classed as Tutsi, the small as Hutu, and the tiny Twa tribe was just ignored.  For those of an average height, a second question was posed – “D’you have ten or more cows?” – ‘yes’ meant Tutsi.  So the colonial masters divided society into a Tutsi middle class, and the Hutu workers.  The first sectarian murder in Rwanda took place in 1969. 

In 1994, the Interahamwe launched its genocide with the slogan, ‘Rubanda Nyamwinshi,’ (We are the majority.)  But “Asking yes-or-no questions is very unAfrican,” to quote Senator Ephrem Kanyarukiga, speaking in Kigali in 2003.

1.5       Nagorno-Karabakh

Back to the USSR.  In the Caucasus, Armenian and Azeri peoples had intermingled over the centuries, and many villages ‘in’ Armenia were full of Azeris, and vice versa.  So Stalin’s cartographers concocted half-a-dozen enclaves; the biggest was Nagorno-Karabakh, of Armenians in Azerbaijan.  For as long as both countries were in the USSR, nothing changed.

Gorbachev’s democratisation, however, meant majority rule and, of course, the right of self-determination.  So “why should I be in the minority in your state, when you could be in the minority in mine?” – a question from the Balkans.  Sure enough, in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenians and the Azeris clashed.  The first was in 1988, with the headline in Moscow, “This is our Northern Ireland.”  (Вот наш Ольстер, Vot – nash Olster).

1.6       The Balkans

Gorbachev’s perestroika was exciting.  ‘I hope I do not live in exciting times,’ is an old Chinese proverb.  And the right of self-determination became a cause of war in Yugoslavia.  The first referendum and conflict was in Slovenia.  The second came in Croatia: the Croats voted ‘out’ but, one week earlier, the Serbs in three little enclaves, the Krajina, voted ‘in’.  The result was war. 

In 1991, Bosnia was going to be next.

A native of Sarajevo came to the NIG’s fourth cross-community conference in Belfast, where our key-note speaker was Michael D.  We used non-binary voting, of course, the ‘no-no’ system mentioned above, now computerised, and in a nutshell, we tried to say, Please, no binary referendums in Bosnia.

But Brussels “insisted” (Woodward 1995: 271) on a referendum and, on the day of the vote, the barricades went up in Sarajevo.  Elections in 1991 had shown that Bosnia was 40:30:20, Moslem:Orthodox:Catholic… so there was no majority!  But any two could gang up against the other one.  The Bosniaks joined the Bosnian Catholics and voted in favour; the Bosnian Serbs, like the SDLP in NI’s border poll, abstained; 99.7% of a 63.7% turnout voted for independence.  The other result was war.  Then came another war, between the 40 and the 20.  And in fact, “all the wars in the former Yugoslavia started with a referendum,” (Oslobodjenje, Sarajevo’s famous newspaper, 7.2.1999.) 

1.7       Ukraine

The same is true of another Slav country, Ukraine.  In 1991, in a referendum, every oblast or constituency voted in favour, by 80/90%... except one: Crimea, where the vote was won by a whisker, 54%.

Then, in the 2004 two-round system TRS presidential election, Viktor Yushchenko beat the other Viktor, Yanukovich, by a whisker, 52.8%.  Six years later, the latter won in another close shave, by 49.6%.  Hence Maidan, violence, and then Brussels changed its mind: democracy, apparently, was not now majority rule but (as in NI, an opposite) power-sharing.  In February 2014, a delegation rushed over to Kiev but… too late… earlier that day, Yanukovich ran into exile.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t like losing.  Hence, a second referendum in Crimea, in 2014, with little green men and other abuses… but few complained of the biggest abuse: the ballot’s binary nature.  Like Belfast’s SDLP again, the Crimean Tatars abstained.

Similar referendums followed in Luhansk and Donetsk… and, 2014 was also the year of Scotland’s referendum, the word ‘Shotlandiya’ (Шотландия) was used by Russian separatists in Luhansk to ‘justify’ the unjustifiable. 

In 2022, Putin changed his mind.  So Donetsk, now supposedly independent (of Ukraine), followed the Tsar and, in yet another referendum changed its mind too: they now voted to be dependent (on Russia).  It was all part of ‘matryoshka nationalism,’ named after those famous Russian dolls: inside the big doll, Russia, was Ukraine; inside Ukraine, Donetsk; and then Dobropillya tried to opt out of opting out by opting back in again.  It was all so similar to the UK… Ireland… Northern Ireland… and Derry?

1.8       The Caucasus

Fearing a break-up of the Russian Federation, the Kremlin had initially disliked these referendums; it didn’t want Kosova to opt out of Serbia, either.  But then, in 2006, albeit with a bit of bribery and so on, South Ossetia voted to opt out of Georgia and into Russia.  So Putin changed his mind, again.

The result was yet another war, now between Russia and Georgia.  But it started when Putin was in Beijing, watching the Olympics.  So not only Putin was to blame: so too was Mikheil Saakashvili, the then President in Tbilisi, whom many Georgians think ordered the 2005 murder of his Prime Minister, Zurab Zhvania, who would have opposed the war.

Majority voting, then, is ubiquitous and often iniquitous.  It is even in article 97 of the constitution of North Korea… (not that it’s used very often; its article 92 says that the Pyongyang parliament shall meet just once a year).  Other instances include the war in South Sudan where the two factions would probably not be fighting if the ultimate prize was power-sharing.  And secondly, the current war in the Middle East has been fuelled by the majority coalition in Israel’s Knesset: the country – 20% Arab, the parliament only 10%, the government 0% – calls itself democratic. 

2          MANIPULATION

I live in North Belfast.  Imagine a hypothetical community group on the Ballysillan, a committee of a dozen, and we’ve just installed a new door.  So, what colour shall it be?  The decision shall be democratic, and chaired, impartially of course, by a wise old soul… like me. 

So, any suggestions? I ask.  5 want it to be red; 4 prefer white, and 2 say blue.  Oh dear; with singleton majority votes – “Option X, yes or no?” – there are majorities of 6, 7 and 9 against red, white and blue, respectively, a majority against everything.  (As in Theresa May’s first ‘indicative vote’ on Brexit, when 8 options were ‘on the table’.)  Ri’ht oh, I suggest, let’s try pairings – “Option X or option Y?” – in which case, what are your preferences?

The      5          have 1^st-2^nd-3^rd preferences of            red, white and blue     R-W-B

            4                                  ”                                         white, blue and red     W-B-R

and      2                                  ”                                        blue, red and white     B-R-W.

So, with majority voting, it’s:

            “R or W?”       and R is more popular than W, which we write as     R > W             by        7:4

or         “W or B?”                                           ”                                                      W > B             ”         9:2

or         “B or R?”                                            ”                                                      B > R              ”         6:5.

And this means that

R > W > B > R > …

which goes round and round for ever!  The paradox of binary voting.

Needless to say, every committee member believes in majority voting.  And in any debate on three options, with four possible outcomes – R, W, B or the status quo – a decision will require three majority votes.  This procedure was devised over 2,000 years ago by our Greek and Roman ancestors, and it’s still in use today.  

In any multi-option debate:

+          first, choose the favoured amendment;

+          secondly, adopt or reject this to get the substantive, as it’s called;

+          and finally, make the decision: the substantive or the status quo.

So, if R is the motion and W and B are the two possible amendments, we first debate W v B, and to get the substantive, the winner of that pairing will face R:

(W v B) v R.

There again, if W is the motion, it could be

(B v R) v W

or again

(R v W) v B.

But this means the substantive depends upon the order of voting.  After all,

(W v B) v R    =          W v R              =          R

while

(B v R) v W     =          B v W              =          W

and

(R v W) v B     =          R v B               =          B.

In other words, I, the totally unscrupulous chair, can get whatever I want.  Now in fact, I don’t want R, W or B, I want Green, G.  So I could have said, OK everybody, what about a compromise, what about green?  Umm – on the Ballysillan? – green is not very popular.  And when I ask for their preferences,

            5          have 1^st-2^nd-3^rd-4^th preferences of       red, white, blue and green      R-W-B-G

            4                                  ”                                         white, blue, green and red      W-B-G-R

and      2                                  ”                                         blue, green, red and white      B-G-R-W.

Oh dear: all 11 prefer B to G. 

But I’m the chair.  And I choose the order of voting.  So I suggest:

{(W v B) v R} v G

because that gives

{W v R} v G

which leads to

R v G

so the answer, the democratic will of all 11, is

G.

Ha!  I’ve won.  But, as we saw earlier, all 11 prefer B to G, the answer is wrong.

In summary, if I the chair can dictate the order of voting, and if no one option has majority support, I can get whatever I want.  Furthermore, if something which I don’t like does have majority support, I can suggest other alternative colours, split the majority, adjust the voting order, and still get whatever I want.

3          PLURALISM

Majority voting was fine in Greece.  Admittedly – no women or slaves – it was only for men, but there were no parties in those days, so I could vote with you today, and against tomorrow, without either of us falling into groups of permanent mutual antagonism.  It was also pretty good in China where history relates that the Emperor usually went along with whatever his ministers had voted for.

In a murder trial in Rome in 105, however, with 3 options on the jury’s table – A abstention, B banishment and C capital punishment – opinions were divided.  If the question was binary – like “Innocent, yes-or-no?”  “Execute, yes-or-no?” – there was, again, a majority against everything.  So Pliny the Younger suggested plurality voting (like FPTP in elections): you vote ‘x’ for what you want, and that which gets the most, the majority or maybe only the largest minority, is the winner.

Europe then went into the Dark Ages, and the first country to use this methodology was China, in 1197.  On the possibility of war with Mongolia, the 84 members of the government voted: 5 for war; 33 for an alternating policy; and 46 for peace.  So peace it was.  (Alas, only for nine years: in 1206, the Mongolian elders’ assembly or Khuriltai elected a new leader, one Chinggis Khan… and you know the rest.)

3.1       Multi-option and Preferential Voting

So, we return to Europe.  In 1268, Venice used approval voting: no preferences, voters just tick as many options as they like, and the winner is the option with the most.  In 1299, Ramón Llull spoke of preferential voting, and the first methodology came in 1433: Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa’s points system.  In a ballot of five options, a 1^st preference gets 5 points, a 2^nd gets 4, and so on.  It came to be called a Borda Count BC, but in 1770 Jean-Charles de Borda devised a modified version, the MBC: if you vote for only, say, 2 options, your 1^st preference gets only 2 points, and your 2^nd gets 1.  (See para 4.1.)

His contemporary in l’Académie des Sciences, Le Marquis de Condorcet – who first spotted the paradox we mentioned – suggested another preferential system; its analysis looks at all the pairings – is A > B? > C? > D? is B > C? > D? etc. – to see which option wins the most.  In those days, with no computers, the count was quite complicated, so France also produced TRS, as in Ukraine’s presidential electoral system: a plurality vote followed, if nothing gets a majority, by a majority vote between the two leading options.

Another knock-out system, AV or the single transferable vote STV (the States call it ranked choice voting RCV) was a British invention in 1821, a series of plurality votes and transfers, until one option gets a majority; Ireland uses STV and PR-STV, but only in our presidential and council/parliamentary elections respectively. 

A third knock-out system, serial voting, is used in the Swedish Parliament; various amendments are arranged in order, cheap to expensive or whatever, and then, like musical chairs, majority votes are held between the two extreme options and losers are eliminated, until only one is left.

3.2       From Confrontation to Cooperation

So there are quite a few voting procedures for making decisions.  In majority voting, it’s a singleton – X, yes or no? – or a pairing – X or Y? – and there are only two ways of voting.  It’s win-or-lose.  So politicians compete.  And everything is divided into two: parliaments have a government and an opposition; political parties often have two wings but seldom a fuselage, (no wonder some are in a flap). 

But pluralism is possible, as seen in China in 1197, as in the five-option referendum on electoral systems in New Zealand in 1992, as in Sweden’s serial voting we mentioned, and as in the Danish Folketing, which often has three-option plurality votes.  Britain had a multi-option vote, once, in 1948, but only when the voters, residents in Newfoundland, protested at the inadequate choice offered by Westminster; so a third option was added… and it won!  Ireland, I’m afraid, has yet to even try, although in 2018, the Citizens’ Assembly did call for multi-option referendums: https://citizensassembly.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Final-Report-on-Manner-in-which-Referenda-are-Held-Fixed-Term-Parliaments.pdf (para R.7 on page 10).

But what happens with pluralism? Well, with three options in a preferential ballot, there are six ways of submitting a full list: A-B-C, A-C-B, B-A-C, B-C-A, C-A-B and C-B-A.  With four options, 24 nuances/opinions may be expressed; and with 5, we may relish in the diversity of our species. 

Furthermore, a vote of 1^st-2^nd-3^rd-4^th-5^th preferences for, let’s say, D-B-E-A-C is not very different from a ballot of B-D-E-C-A, so instead of voting (as in majority voting) ‘for’ or ‘against’ each other, we may actually vote ‘with’ each other.  And politics may no longer be a battle of opposing opinions.  Nuances may be expressed, and cooperation could replace much of today’s confrontation in an altogether different milieu, with MLAs and TDs casting nearly full ballots, if not for every option, at least for everything except perhaps SF’s, (Reform’s, AfD’s, whatever). 

4          EGALITARIAN VOTING PROCEDURES

Of the voting procedures already mentioned, most are majoritarian; this means a majority can dominate a plurality vote, TRS, AV, Condorcet and so on.  Of the preferential systems discussed, two in particular – approval voting and the BC – allow the intransigent to remain so, and this has often been seen in NI elections where both the DUP and SF voters tend not to vote across the party divide let alone the sectarian chasm: for them, democracy is win-or-lose.  The MBC, however – the option with the highest average preference – is not majoritarian, it’s inclusive, literally; it is win-win.

4.1       The Accuracy of the Vote

In effect, the Borda methodologies actually encourage the voters – the electorate or their TDs – to submit a full ballot.  In let’s say a 5-option ballot, she who casts only one preference gets 1 point for her favourite; she who casts two gets 2 points for her favourite and 1 for her 2^nd choice; and so on; accordingly, she who submits a full ballot gets her favourite 5 points, her 2^nd choice 4, her 3^rd 3, etc..  Uniquely, the MBC is egalitarian.  And if our human race is to survive, we must learn to cooperate at all levels of governance, from the COP conferences on the environment, to the UN Security Council, to the Dáil and the NI Assembly, and local councils.

When a preferential vote is tallied, many a majority vote winner will be the same as the MBC winner.  But on some occasions, the option with very few 1^st preferences but a large number of 2^nds might well come out on top.  The MBC is robust.  Politics, we said, is the art of compromise; the best compromise is the option with the highest average preference; the MBC is politics’ precision instrument.

4.2       Power-sharing

If majority voting were to be replaced by the MBC, there would be no further justification for majority rule.  Instead, that which has been recommended for conflict zones like NI, Bosnia and Ukraine – all-party power-sharing – could become the norm.  Even, or especially today, in 2026, in the Knesset.

There are problems, of course.  Even undivided countries often have difficulty in forming a post-election government.  Former conflict zones might find it even more problematic.  Accordingly, in many peace-settlements, formulas are used, and NI has devised a form of cherry picking.  A more democratic methodology could involve a PR matrix vote, a NI invention first used in NIG’s experiment in 1986.  Basically, every MLA/TD may choose, in order of preference, whomsoever they want to be in cabinet, in whatsoever post.  The ballot paper is a matrix: candidates on the y-axis, ministerial posts on the x-.  The count is a little complex (so best done electronically, as in The Irish Times meeting in Ballymun in 2016).  https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/mock-dail-produces-a-government-of-national-unity-and-it-only-took-90-minutes-1.2622796  

And, as I say, it’s PR.  So a party with say 30% of the seats in the Assembly/Dáil may expect to get about 30% of the seats in cabinet.  At the same time, the Borda element of the vote prompts the MLA/TD to submit a full ballot, i.e., to cross the party divide; an essential feature, I would argue, of power sharing.  And, as in Ballymun, the outcome is almost bound to be an all-party, power-sharing executive in which, firstly, every party is represented proportionally, and secondly, every minister is well suited to their appointed ministry.

4.3       Elections

The same principle of inclusivity applies to the voters in general or local elections.  The methodology, QBS – an MBC with the addition of a quota – was devised by the late Professor Sir Michael Dummett in 1984, and first tested by the de Borda Institute in 2006 when facilitating an industrial mediation for NI’s B&B sector.   

Like PR-STV, a QBS vote is held in multi-member constituencies, so let’s imagine a six-seater in pre-war Bosnia, with a 30:30:30 population.  Each religious grouping could expect to get 2 members elected.  Now with binary voting, each group tends to have two main parties, as in NI with the DUP and UUP, opposite the SDLP and SF.  So in Bosnia, each would probably nominate say 4 candidates and, at the same time, others like the non-sectarian socialists might also participate.  Again, as in the matrix vote, the voter would be encouraged to submit a full ballot.  The combined effect encourages the voter to cross the party divide, an important part, surely, of any peace process.

5          CONCLUSIONS

Majority voting is divisive.  As in his 1796 farewell address, George Washington warned that binary-party politics could lead to “a frightful despotism.”  And now, in the USA in 2024, it has.

The binary nature of humankind – we have two eyes, two arms, and so on – along with the binary nature of the world – night and day, land and sea, positive and negative electricity – has tended to suggest that problems too are binary.  Do we do ‘this’, yes or no?  Or do we do ‘this’ or ‘that’?   But not all pairs are opposites: male and female are complements, best suited to be (pro)creative when they complement/compliment and, ideally, love each other. 

Now some problems are indeed binary: “shall we drive on the left or on the right?”  But, in a pluralist democracy, in most controversies, there will usually be more than two options ‘on the table’.  In such instances, there should be a (short) list of, say, six options on any ballot paper.  So, when a multi-party parliament is debating the budget or whatever, let each party (which so wishes) propose its own policy option.  Then, when all is said but nothing yet done, let the TDs – unwhipped, of course – cast their preferences on the various options. 

5.1       The Door

To see how an MBC might work in practice, let us return to our earlier example, where

            5          had 1^st-2^nd-3^rd-4^th preferences of         red, white, blue and green      R-W-B-G

            4                                  ”                                          white, blue, green and red      W-B-G-R

and      2                                  ”                                          blue, green, red and white      B-G-R-W,

where we can see that, in a

Unfortunately, many think that, as it were by definition, any decision resulting from a vote is, ergo, democratic.  And all of the above systems are regarded as democratic.  But with majority voting, as we saw, the outcome is sometimes determined by the chair’s choice of voting order; and with multi-option voting, the result may well depend upon the chosen procedure.  As Jozef Stalin used to say, “It’s not the people who vote that count; it’s the people who count the votes.”

Of the above, only two methodologies – the MBC and Condorcet – take all the preferences cast by all the voters into account, always.  They are the most accurate.  In many instances, the analysis of a voters’ profile will show that the social choice from both an MBC and a Condorcet Rule are the same, and even on some occasions, the social rankings.  Of the two, while Condorcet is still majoritarian, I prefer the MBC because it is more nuanced, but mainly because it is egalitarian.  And if the human race is to survive, our future will be egalitarian.

5.2       THIRD WORLD WISDOMS

In years gone by, decision-makers in many societies sat in circles: the pow-wows of the Americas, the barazas of Swahiliphone Africa, the 圆坐 yuán zuò of China, and the round table of England’s King Arthur.  Oh, the ‘ifs’ of history: if only the architects who designed England’s House of Commons had not built such a binary building.  But one side confronted the other.  It didn’t take long: one side shouted at the other, “You tories!” – slang for ‘Irish papist bandit.’  To which came the equally loud, rude and sectarian reply, “You whigs,” ‘money-grabbing Scots Presbyterian.’  Thus was born the party system, of which George Washington warned us all.

Others have also expressed fears of any binary bias.  The 14^th Century Tibetan monk Longchenpa spoke of “the non-duality of right and wrong,” and a combination of Asian sense and European science has prompted that which today is called:

THE DE BORDA RULE

Majority voting may be fair if,

and only if,

its dichotomy is a duality.

“Shall we have red or white wine for dinner?” is fine; it’s a duality.

“Yīn or Yáng?” would be a nonsense, for the two are more like a unity.

To ask “Are you Russian or Ukrainian?” in Crimea in 2014, was a dangerous nonsense, and no wonder the Tatars abstained.  In like manner, the fact that the Good Friday Agreement stipulates a stark ‘this’ or ‘that’ referendum – a peace agreement without even the prospect of a compromise – could also be dangerous; it would also tend to disenfranchise any (like myself), the adult child of a mixed relationship: mum was an English Catholic in Cheshire, dad an Irish Protestant in Cork.  What’s more, a multi-option border poll might include a compromise or two, like a W-I-S-E option, a Wales-Ireland-Scotland-England federation.

Another instance related to Brexit – “The UK in the EU?”   That, too, was not a duality; the debate was known to be a plurality – “in the EU, EEA, CU or WTO?”  It was a classic case of artificial incompetence: trying to ‘resolve’ a multi-option dilemma with a binary question on only one of those options

In today’s modern world, precision – that is, non-binary – instruments are used in nearly every field of human activity.  Speedometers are not marked ‘fast’ or ‘slow’; altimeters not ‘high’ or ‘low’; but politicians still ask, ‘yes’ or ‘no’?  It’s time for opinions to be calibrated in preferences, where each decision shall be, at best, the opinion with the highest average preference.  For an average involves every voter.  We end as we began: democracy is for everybody.  And our voting procedures should definitely not prevent, should at least permit, and ideally promote preferential decision-making.  Our collective future, if it is to exist at all, will be egalitarian.

References

Deutscher, I                (1982) Stalin, Pelican, Middlesex.

Woodward, S              (1995) Balkan Tragedy, The Brookings Institute, Washington.

Peter Emerson

The child of a mixed marriage, Peter Emerson was conceived in Northern Ireland (as far as he remembers) and born in England in 1943.  His first job was in submarines, where he rose - or sank - to the rank of first lieutenant.  But he gave it up to do voluntary work in what was called the third world, in Kenya.  Three years later, he cycled across Central Africa, and hence his first book, Inflation? Try a bicycle; “Dervla out-Murphied,” wrote The Irish Times.  He came to Belfast (from Africa) in 1975, initially just for a year, and was soon involved in the peace movement, both locally and in CND.  So in 1983, he started to learn Russian, cycled across the Iron Curtain in ’86, started work in Moscow two years later, cycled to the Urals in ’89, and wrote on consensus voting in Moscow News.  In 1990, his contract at an end, he went on his bike to Tirana, across Yugoslavia, which was imploding.  In Dec. ’92, he went to Sarajevo, to then cycle across Bosnia, twice, in winter and in war, in order to say on his return to Belfast, that majority voting doesn’t work well there either.

He now realised that his ’nobody-votes-no’ voting system had been invented already, in France, in 1770.  Hence, in 1997, the de Borda Institute, which today works internationally, from the Balkans to Russia and China, trying to wean people away from attempting to resolve contentious, multi-option questions (like Brexit, or NI, or Crimea, or Tibet) with simplistic binary votes.