What constitutional changes would you advocate for and why?

[nyabinary]

Question

If you had the opportunity to amend the constitution, what specific changes would you propose, and why do you believe these changes are necessary?

Candidates I'd like to get an answer from

No response

Reminder of the Q&A rules

Please adhere to the Q&A guidelines and rules

[cafkafk]

I'd prohibit community members from serving on the board and steering committee at the same time, as I think it concentrates too much power on that individual, and counteracts the checks and balances built into the constitution.

[Gabriella439]

I would change the voting process for the Steering Committee to use approval voting instead of using CIVS. Specifically, given N open slots on the steering committee in any given election, voters would be allowed to vote for as many candidates as they liked (maximum 1 vote per eligible candidate) and the top N vote getters would be appointed. Simple!

The main reasons I would propose this are:

• Approval voting is (much) easier to reason about

  Approval voting's simplicity makes it not only easier to implement, but (more importantly) it is also easier for voters to reason about. In particular, the easier it is to explain a voting methodology then the easier it is for voters to reason about both past outcomes (increasing their trust that the best candidates were selected) and future outcomes (understanding how their potential vote would affect the outcome).

• Approval voting yields Condorcet winners in practice

  In fact, the above article mentions that Approval voting is perhaps more likely to elect Condorcet winners than Condorcet voting methods.

  Indeed – counterintuitively – it might actually be that Approval Voting is more likely to elect the Condorcet Winner in practice, than Condorcet methods! (Indeed, experiments indicate that happens.)

  Why? Because in approval voting it is quite rare that strategically voting dishonestly, is wise. (And when it is wise, it is even rarer that people will actually realize it and do it.) In other words, with Approval, people will tend to honestly order the candidates, and the only strategic decision they'll make is where to locate their approval "threshold."

• Approval voting satisfies the monotonicity criterion

  A voting methodology satisfies the monotonicity criterion if voting for a candidate always increases their chances of winning. Approval voting satisfies the monotonicity criterion and Condorcet voting does not! Yes, you read that right: voting for or ranking a candidate higher in Condorcet voting can sometimes harm their chances of winning! This is what happens when you use an overengineered voting methodology.

• Approval voting consistently scores highly on voter satisfaction simulations

  Approval voting is typically only outperformed by voting methodologies that are based on score/range voting (not ranked voting, which is different and performs worse than approval voting). This is why approval voting is widely regarded as the voting methodology that provides the highest "bang for the buck", meaning that it produces a very high voter satisfaction while being remarkably simple.