Reply #56: My Present Take on All of This

[autorank]

The Republic of Venice represents one of the longest periods of prosperity and tolerance in the history of civilization. From a few homes built on pylons to avoid the invading hordes, The Most Serene Republic grew to dominate a market that covered Europe and the near East. While they lacked the popular suffrage, the leader was selected by a consensus vote of their leadership council.

The election was ratified in a way that explains a great deal of their success. The Venetian ruling council had each leader or Doge, as he was called, sign a comprehensive contract that anticipated every type of corruption and fraud imaginable at that time and for the individual leader. Every relative, friend, and associate was inscribed in the contract as someone barred from any state business selected by the Doge, directly or indirectly. This was just the start.

The Venetians had trust in human nature, trust that humans are inherently corruptible, subject to temptation, and willing conspirators in their own folly and calumny. This stance worked well for them. Since the leader was a mere human, his limits were clearly stated. Any temptation outlined was barred before he ever took office.

Why would anyone become the leader? Because this was Venice of course.

I would dearly love to have confidence that our leaders, public servants, and government contractors had our best interests at heart and didn’t need intense scrutiny. That scrutiny is not in place. Rather, we avoid it and comfort ourselves by chastising those who are suspicious..........who scrutinize. Some, occasionally many, of the elected and those who serve through appointments fall victim to major corruptions, petty violations, and, significantly, neglect of the job at hand.

We presently have no mechanisms to guide performance that anticipates the various corruptions and neglectful performance that are always around us. In fact, to suggest even trying would require a boldness of spirit not typically rewarded or even found in modern politics, civil service or among those who contract with the government.

I wrote an article using official figures about the disparity between turnout and votes cast in three congressional races. Hence the flames directed my way shortly thereafter were quite a surprise. The official figures I used have not changed so if I were in an obstreperous mood or bothered to a greater degree by the spectacle of defamation directed against me, I might just say, change the figures. They stand.

But seeing the collective and cooperative work of everyone on this thread was impressive enough to convince me think that the intellectually honest response is this: we simply don’t know precisely how the voting turned out. There are real reasons to question and scrutinize the official voting figures. The substitute version of the vote teased out here gets high marks in my opinion. It was open and without much rancor. This leads to a high degree of confidence in our members and the DU ER

I don’t know what the final outcome will be in this instance or the other places that have unique customs that require a secret code to know that what’s posted is really not intended for serious consumption and a decoder ring to determine what is.

I do think that a process like this one would add greatly to resolving controversy. It is unfortunate that this has to be an ad hoc process; one that in is preceded by all sorts of wasted effort and emotion.

Reading the discussion which took place following BeFree’s original post, I was literally shocked because what followed was clearly a collaborative process that demonstrated how well talented people can work together.

We need a custom here of real research threads that are self policed to assure that the task is carried out and the goal of free and fair elections is actually paramount. It’s the type of thing that can only happen here at the DU Elections Forum due to a degree of tolerance for the topic by the host site and a collection of talent able to take good advantage of that tolerance. It’s a fragile thing, ultimately, but worth pursuing as an ongoing process. I have many questions and I’m sure others do as well that would be answered in the natural process of this type of inquiry. Thanks for a big step in clearing up this issue and the questions around it.

Michael Collins / autorank