Conall’s description of our Normalising Climate Action Participatory Budget (PB) sums it up!
The PB gives the ZWNW team a framework for sharing and discussing ideas and also a voting system for deciding on which ideas to take forward, kind of like Dragons Den with a voting system similar to the one used in the Eurovision.
Ideally we would have had a series of Citizens Assembly information sessions and discussions about different voting systems, followed by a democratic vote on which system to use, but for this PB I am offering the Modified Borda Count (MBC) – because I once went to a workshop on MBC in St Columb’s Park House and ever since have been trying to convince people to let me try it out.
I am looking forward to heated discussions on voting systems afterwards:)
I like structure, just enough agreed structure so that communication and decision making is transparent and inclusive.
MBC provides a voting structure which opens up thinking and engagement with an incentive to give at least some consideration to all options. The result reflects the choices of everyone involved and is less likely to lead to a binary winners/losers outcome.
Here is an example:
There are 3 options red green orange and five voters. Each voter is encouraged to rank the options 1-3 with 1 being their first preference.
Ballot Paper
| green | orange | red | |
| Voter one | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Voter two | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Voter three | 1 | 2 | |
| Voter four | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Voter five | 1 |
Voters three and five ignored the encouragement..
The part I like best is the tally. When a voter ranks all 3 options, their first preference gets 3 points, 2nd preference gets 2 points and 3rd preference gets 1 point. (I haven’t watched the Eurovision for a long time but I always hear this in French – un point). Voter Three only ranked two options so their first preference gets 2 points and their second preference gets 1 point. Voter Five’s first preference only gets 1 point. They didn’t listen.
Tally
| Green | Orange | Red | |
| Voter one | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Voter two | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Voter three | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Voter four | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Voter five | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 6 | 7 | 9 |
The attached article gives an example of the MBC system used in Ireland in 2017.
And there is more information on the website of the De Borda Institute which is coordinated by Peter Emerson from his home in Belfast – when he isn’t travelling around the world on his folding bike advising on voting systems.
