6 Comments
Sep 10Liked by Nick Coccoma, Dr. Paul Zeitz

Love this essay and concept! Count me part of the Thomas Paine and Jefferson camp that believes each new generation has a right to reset the institution of government for the needs of the day. It’s why my substack is The Common Sense Papers! (see CSP No. 46)

I’m a fan of citizens’ assemblies and deliberative democracy. I think these tools can be used to champion independent politics beyond the two-party system.

Thank you for your efforts! I would love to collaborate! Cheers!!

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I really love the concept.

I have 2 suggestions for the delegate process.

"participants pick one delegate from each proposal group by secret ranked-choice ballot, based on who was the brightest and best to work with. These choices are then narrowed down to 25 by lottery, combining peer selection with random chance."

1. I think it is key to differentiate between a delegate/agent, who is there on behalf of people as a specialist (i.e. in speaking/writing/lawcraft) to implement their will, vs a representative who is there as a proxy to make decisions on behalf of the people.

If we want decisions to be made by the people themselves, I think we should be clear that the decisions are made by randomly selected representative samples and not representative politicians. The delegates are only there to implement them by virtue of a special skill set.

2. Regarding ranked choice voting (RCV): Although I love multi-winner RCV (such as single transferrable vote (STV) and alternatives) and I think single winner RCV is likely better than our current pick-one system, IMHO single winner RCV is not the best single-winner method for choosing between multiple options due to vote splitting, non-monotonicity, lack of precinct summability, center squeeze, etc.

I think Condorcet (i.e. Ranked Robin), Approval, and STAR voting are all more reliable and fair.

This is a good explainer: https://youtu.be/JjYNGYb2uCc?si=5F2SMXrwnUW0Gos9

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Can you clarify this statement: "The democracy forces have risen twice: during the Civil War and Reconstruction, and again under the New Deal and Great Society." I think this makes it sound like you believe the Confederacy was pro-democratic.

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author

Thanks, Ian. Hopefully the tenor of our piece would indicate that we identify Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and the Republicans as the democratic forces during the Civil War—not the Confederacy. But we will amend to clarify!

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That is what I assumed, but I think clarifying would help. 🙂

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I think I spend too much time in circles where people openly speak positively about the Confederacy. Haha. Got to love Republican primaries.

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