donkey.vote

In elections that use ranked voting - like Australia - a donkey.vote is a very specific 'way' of voting - it isn't a protest vote, it is a valid vote and it gets counted, but is also a fuck-you to the whole electoral system.

Ranked Voting is a very good system of democracy. Ranking means the candidate with the broadest popularity in that electoral community should triumph over a fringe candidate with a strong base. So the winning candidate will better represent more of the community than the most 'popular' one. Which is the idea behind democracy.

Compulsory voting is a nice idea, but a stupid system because it means that a lot of people voting in any community* do not want to vote and wouldn't vote if they didn't have to. So they don't know, or care much, which candidates will best represent their interests or are able to choose the order they would vote for them.
* between 20% and 40% don't vote in countries where voting isn't mandatory

Combining these two systems as Australia does.. well, it doesn't make much sense. And this is how Australia created a special class of non-protest vote, it's a stupid-vote, or, because we're linguistically creative: a donkey vote

A donkey vote is a cast ballot where the voter ranks the candidates based on the order they appear on the ballot itself. The voter that votes in this manner is referred to as a donkey voter.

according to the Australian Parliament's OFFICIAL definition.

Since you cannot prevet this type of voting, it made me interested to know if the majority of the community - the active, engaged, interested civic participants felt represented on issues facing their council or parliament or congress. And if informed opinion could be captured regularly - a more frictionless democracy - alongside voting once every 4 or 5 years (with the same weight as the reluctant or ignorant donkey voters).

(In case you're wondering about actual protest votes - it is traditional in Australia to register your discontent by drawing a dick on your ballot paper. These can often be very elaborate and detailed. )

As democracy is currently a mass proxy vote (20k people let one person vote for them for 5 years) - it feels sensible for the one representative to get real time, accountable data on how their electorate would vote. And vice versa.

It should be easy for anyone to compare how elected representatives voted with how the communities they represent would have voted. It would also mean more context and data about issues rather than relying on the internet or Newscorp for context. i.e. transparency of information. [Newdemocracy.org run programs that allow community to expedite or augment political decision making on complex issues and have data on the efficacy and benefits of an informed electorate]

The internet has very simple tools for that sort of citizen-voting level - the How I Would Vote model - although who we trust to validate that data - as Mr Trump has demonstrated - is challenging. But it's not impossible, it's a challenge. Overcoming challenges are a sign of civilised society.

Results ought to use anonymised data but not unregistered or unaccountable since the state knows who we are already because we're on the electoral register, right? If not, we've already abstained.

To me, personally, the most interesting part is a) Did I Vote? b) How Informed Was I? and most importantly c) How Was My Proxy Vote Cast? (i.e. how did my MP or Senator vote? [We could also have global or non-valid votes and be able to filter that information by demographic or location - it would be nice to have a record of interest, a dissent, a 'voice' in US electoral issues for example].

Where it gets quite interesting is at STATE & LOCAL level.

In Australia we have Federal, State and Local elections - that's a lot of forced, ill-informed voting. I have found it hard to establish how or who represents (and how they vote) for me at the local level which frustrates me - especially as the information that emerges most readily seems, naturally, to be scandalous - about the routine corruption of local and state officers. So... there's that.

In the absence of C21 civic tools we do have tools of accountability that, although clumsier, are still hugely valuable in creating transparency. Thank you.

For this we mainly need to thank mysociety.com who have been facing this since 2004.

this page is at http://donkey.vote