DEMOCRACY FOR ALL
--------------
John Pazmino
NYSkies Astronomy Inc
nyskies@nyskies.org
www.nyskies.org
2018 September 6
Introduction
----------
Open-to-public activity at the United nations increased in
summer 2018. Of the several I knew of I went so far to one in August,
summarized separately, and this here one on September 4th, and probably
one on the 26th.
While the events are public, announcements aren't bannered on
Times Square billboards. Like so many other really wonderful events in
New York, notices of UN events are limited in scale and range. Like
for other kinds of activity, you have to engage in the themes of the
events for a sporting chance to learn about them.
So I got the announcement for an afternoon panel on 'Democracy for
all' for Tuesday 4 September 2018. The notice mentioned pre-show
refreshments and coffee, pushing me over the fence of indifference to
attend. At the utter worse, if the show turns out tasteless, I go home
with some grub in my belly.
Preparing for the show
--------------------
I could get my ticket by filling out an online form that asked for
minimal personalia. I did that. A day or two later, in last week of
August, I get an email of acceptance, with more instructions.
I may pick up my UN pass on Friday the 31st or early on the 4th,
before the event. Being that the 31st was a low-activity day at work
before the coming Labor Day weekend, I went then for my pass.
It was a nasty summer day, hot and humid. I was walking to 42nd St
when an uptown Madison Av bus happened along. I hopped on and savored
the cool air in the bus. I rode to 45th St, beyond Grand Central,
because that's the bus stop nearest to the UN ticket office.
The lobby desk sent me to an upstairs office where I showed my
email acceptance. The clerk said 'ummf' and gave me my pass.
It being young in the afternoon I went back to my office, both to
cool off and lay out work for after the holiday weekend.
Going to the UN
-------------
I left work at about 2:15PM EDST on September 4th and walked to
the 42nd St bus. This is a busy route with buses every couple minutes.
On this particular afternoon there were no buses in sight. I
waited for about ten minutes, realizing something was loused up with
the service.
A tour bus scudded into the bus stop, one of the on-&-off buses.
It exchanged riders while the driver barked reminders to show him the
bus ticket.
I got a flash of daring.
After letting other riders get on, I stepped in and asked if this
bus is going to the United Nations. It was. The driver asked for my
bus ticket.
I pleaded that I have to get to a meeting in the UN with time
running short. I was waiting for the 42nd St bus but none were coming.
I was already wearing my pass by putting it in a badge holder when
I set off from my office. To reduce the annoyance of digging into my
pocket to show the pass to a this or that UN agent, I carry it in an
over-neck holder for convention badges. I wore it cross-shoulder to
stabilize it from flopping and snagging.
I pointed to my UN pass.
The driver's eyes opened wide when he saw the design and wording
on the pass! He must have thought I was some official at the United
Nations!
He waved me into the bus.
I rode to the UN. The driver let me off, along with some other
rider, a block short of the UN because the bus there turns off of 42nd
St.
I thanked the driver, patted his shoulder, told him he did good
for the world today.
At the UN
-------
I entered thru the gate specified in the meeting instructions,
showed my pass and photo ID. My employment card was enough. The guard
pointed me to the security shed.
This time the pass thru security was clean and smooth. I had no
residual metal on me and the magnetic gate didn't gong me. At a couple
security checks else where I am gonged by surgical steel in my hip and
the agent did a pat-down.
I was then steered to the meeting halls, located on an other
floor. I saw stairs in the lobby and asked a UN agent if they went to
the meeting room. He said the stairs were closed but I can do the
elevator around a bend near the stairs.
The elevator brang me to the right floor, where I spotted the
alcove for refreshments. Yes, it was for the guests of this
conference. I took coffee and a danish. I have to note that
refreshments were offered specificly for this instant event, as stated
in the acceptance instructions. The more typical event has no
refreshments. Guests may be ushered to an internal cafeteria within
the campus or pointed to the public cafe'.
It was just about time, 3PM, for the panel to begin. I came to
what seemed to be the correct room. I asked the reception clerk if it
it was for the 'Democracy' meeting. 'No', she said,' it wasn't'.
I left and started toward an other door.
Some one called omy name!
It was Myrna Coffino, also sitting this 'Democracy for all'
meeting. She came out of the very room I just left. The clerk was
mistaken, I was in the right room.
The meeting room
--------------The meeting hall was square, some 11-12 meter on a side
with a central donut table some 8-9 meter diameter. Around it were
padded luggable chairs, each facing an audio panel on the table. There
were no name signs.
Padded chairs fixed in place were against the perimeter walls.
Each was fitted with an audio panel on the under-frame. With no
obvious vacant seats at the table, I settled into one of the wall
chairs. It was roomy and comfortable.
I put on the ear piece, adjusted the volume. It felt more
comfortable to listen thru it than thru the room's audio. The
procedings were in English, leaving the language button inactive.
The hosts sat at one edge of the donut table, roughly opposite from
me. They spoke thru a mike for easy hearing thruout the room in a tone
a notch too soft for my ears. I continued listening thru the ear
piece. .
Later in the meeting one person sitting near me at the donut
table packed up and left the room. I moved to the newly vacant seat.
The table seats were roomy, comfortable. They were mobile by tugging
and lugging them. they had no sleds or wheels.
Video screens were clustered on the ceiling over the center of the
donut table, like score boards in an indoor arena. Each seat faced one
or an other of the screens. For detailed images the screens were a
little far, some five meters, for comfortable viewing.
Meeting sponsor
-------------
This meeting was convened by Varieties of Democracy Institute, V-
Dem for short. The company was engaged by the United Nations to
develop a scheme of tracking 'democracy' among its member countries.
V-Dem looked at about 180 of the UN's 193 members for having a
'democratic' government.
There is no formal definition of 'democracy' but there are many
democratic features that could be in force in a given country. The set
of features and how well they are managed builds a score for the
rankings.
V-Dem's findings are presented in its web, some of them shown at
this session. For this meeting V-Dem explained the 'election' and
'public space' features.
V-Dem emphasized that neither it nor the UN prescribe, organize,
operate elections or public space for any country. They advise,
supply, support, assist the country to run the election under its own
rules and procedures. The country's rank is a blend of these rules and
procedures and the country's adhaerence to them.
Elections
-------
Almost all the evaluated nations have 'elections', even those
under tyranny control. In these countries the elections are a
frivilous act to legitimize the dictator's reign. He can assert the
people want him to continue in office because they, quite 100%, voted
to keep him.
The other extreme is a country obeying known and verifiable
processes to let the people choose to keep the in party or give
control to one of the competing parties. The election results are
accepted by all parties and rule is transferred, usually with
ceremony, from the current to the new party.
V-Dem works mainly with national elections, where the candidates
are potential rulers for the entire country, like prime minister or
president. V-Dem will, on a country's request, work with regional,
provincial, state elections. It probably must get clearance from the
national government for these lower-level elections.
Valid election
------------
For an election to be a valid feature of democracy, it must be the
duly prescribed rules of changing the country's command from one term
of office to the next in a peaceful, orderly, mature manner. The rules
must be openly known and enacted with the advice and consent of the
people. This is usually done thru a parliament made of delegates
accountable to the people.
In a valid election all candidates are equally and fairly
displayed to the voters. The votes are fairly and equally counted,
tallied, and reported under review by all candidates. The winner is
accepted by the losers as the new office holder.
The winner is not always the one earning the most votes. The tally
process could apply some maths on the vote count, such as the
electoral college in the United States. In such cases the rules and
procedure must be open and visible to all candidates and the voters.
Electorate
--------
The portion of the whole population qualifying to vote is strongly
modulated by the social structure of the country. Most allow all males
over a reasonable age-of-majority and proved citizenship to vote. some
countries limit voting to people holding land or other capital. Others
require a certain level of education, like a secondary school diploma.
Some countries with loose citizenship regulation allow long-time
law-abiding residents to vote. Such people must somehow demonstrate
their good behavior and character to earn voter status.
The most common excluded class against voting is females. An other
large exclusion is certain lesser favored national or ethnic groups.
. T here seems to be a mix of exclusion for law-breaking people in
jails. The exclusion may depend on the crimes and jail time.
To manage the electorate the country must have the skills and
ability to keep records, monitor compliance, enroll new voters, remove
expired ones. The electorate must have proof of status, like a voting
certificate to present at the voting station.
Female voters
-----------
Ideally the election is open to all persons affected by the
results. That is, if the elected official applies significant
influence on a person's life, that person should be part of the
electorate. According as the social regime of the country, females
are part of the elected officials's care and concern, even if at a
lower level than males.
V-Dem noted that over the years more nations allow females into
the electorate. Apparently this comes from a real rise in female
social status and increased female agitation.
In some cases the female role in elections is arbitrarily granted
or withdrawed by the in party. One may feel it proper for females to
vote while the next one is no need for female voters.
Where females may vote they may be inhibited against fully mature
participation. Females may have lower education than males, be left
out of reach from candidate campaigning, be denied time from work.,
lack access to news media. They may mobility constrained(by not
alloweed to drive motor vehicles or being required to have a male
escort.
The end result is that in a particular country 'women may 'vote'
but they have a minor influence on the election.
Disadvantaged groups
------------------
These are those restrained against voting by disability,
confinement in hospitals and old-age homes, access road/rail stoppage
from storms, work schedules, household duties, &c.
In a few instances the country or a outfit approved by it can
shepherd voters to the station. It may conduct the voting at the
voter's location. Some countries allow remote voting, by postal mail,
electronic mail, cellphone application.
In general it is the rule that a voter must personally show up at
the voting station on the day of election and put in his vote. To
promote attendance at the station, countries generally make election
say a national work-free day. This removes business and social
obligations from inhibiting voter turn out.
foreign voting
------------
Practice varies for letting citizens living out of the country to
vote. Countries tyupicly let their foreign residents vote in national
electrons but not in regional or local ones.
nngulla, for example, has a large residence in New Jersey,
reported to almost equal that in Anguilla itself. Candidates come to
New Jersey to campaign, like an American candidate, with public shows,
rallies, speeches.
How the voting is done varies among countries. They range from
putting up voting stations, like by Anguilla in New Jersey, to making
the voter request a ballot to be completed and mailed back in time for
the election. A common method is to let the voter exercise the vote
at the nearest consulate of the country.
Missing the vote
--------------
How a person is treated for missing the vote depends on the civil
structure of the country. Usually the votes actually filed determine
the election results, skipping people who did not vote. The election
can be decided by only a fraction of the electorate in instances of
severe weather, civil unrest, apathy, among other causes.
Other countries more or less require each eligible voter to go and
vote. If the voter misses the election he could be fined or summoned
to the election office. In a few countries a 'truant' team hunts down
the missing voter and makes him file a ballot, even if the election is
good and done. All voter should be an active part of the election
process.
Monitoring elections
------------------
In the more developed countries the election office recruits
monitors for the voting stations. They undergo instruction and are
paid a thank-you for their service. In addition, some local law
agents, like police, are on hand for quelling trouble.
Practice varies for using military units in the election patrol.
Where the local civil police is up to the task, it handles the
election and the army stays away from the voting stations. In some
cases the army is confined to its own bases, out of public sight. I
assume there is some way for the soldiers to file their ballots.
When the police is weak, unreliable, undisciplined, the country
deploys military units to oversee the stations. They are lightly
armed, handle voters, general monitoring, law enforcement. V-Dem
didn't make clear if violators under army-crewed elections are treated
by civil or military rules.
Access to stations
----------------
It seems that countries put up stations in any convenient available
structure, like public buildings, schools, rented halls. There is
little specific regard to access by voters with mobility challenges.
There probably may be the assumption these voters will come with
attendants to help them.
Transit can be a problem, If election day is a holiday. Transit,
nay be deeply curtailed or suspended.
The more advanced countries are working to place voting stations
in locations with handicap features and services. Thee include tamps
and wide doors, edge delineation of curbs and steps, ample lighting
over desks and tables, waiting-room chairs, acclimatized air, vision
and hearing assistance. These features may be already built into the
station's host or rigged up temporarily.
Electronic voting
---------------
Shifting from classical paper ballots to electronic voting has
been a hit-or-miss success, even in the United State. In New York
City, as an instance, reports of machine breakdown, misregistering of
votes, power cuts, lack of paper backup ballots, and so on are routine.
Electronic voting machines demand constant attention by skilled
exercised crew to keep them running properly. V-Deem described out
that in sophisticated countries like Ireland and Germany, electronic
voting was a mess. I think in ireland the election was for national
offices; Germany, certain state offices.
These countries, as at the UN meeting, went back to paper ballots.
The naive plan was to let the machines collect the votes and then
send the tallies electronicly to the central election office. If
everything works, the electronic voting can be seedy, smooth, easy.
In both cases the machines misbehaved with no competent crew on
hand to rescue them. Both elections reverted to backup paper ballots.
It really takes very little to louse up an electronic machine,
specially when it's handled by innocent voters. A wrong sequence of
button presses or screen taps can snarl the machine and stop accepting
votes. A badly labelled keypad or screen can cause the voter to lose
all of his votes, not just a particular one. Many electronic systems
lock out after a few seconds of no-action or refuse a do-over.
V-Dem can arrange for the purchase and initial set up of machines
but the country thenafter must maintain them. With no such logistics,
the machines could be used once and then mothballed. After a few
election rounds with no further use, the machines are scrapped.
On the other hand countries like Japan and India have strong
electronic industries and large numbers of skilled technicians. V-Dem
can work with them to keep the machines in good running condition.
Electronic voting implies a telcomms grid to gather the machine
tallies, encrypt them against interception, transmit them to the
central election office. In some cases the data was sent over public
telephone lines, at slow bit rate and full of static. The data were
severely compromised or worthless. The overall conclusion was that
electronic voting can work, sort of, in countries with a highly
developed electronic civil works and industry, but not in places with
weak ones.
Election fraud
/ ----------
V-Dem probably sees every conceivable variation of election fraud
in every kind of election procedure. Electronic elections are liable
to manipulation as much -- actually more so! -- as paper voting. The
paper voting has physical humans from at least the major contending
parties on site at each voting station. They look over he goings on in
addition to the staff provided by the election office.
The party teams inspect the ballots, keep eye out for 'mistakes'
in handling ballots, oversee the ballot counts, and so on. There is
real material visible action to observe.
In electronic voting the paper ballots are put thru scanners and
then fall into a lockbox, out of reach of the monitoring teams. Or
there is simply no paper movement at all, the vote collected by a key
or screen tap. The vote is automagicly collected, again out of reach
of any human inspector.
There can be downstream manipulation of the votes. Paper ballots
can be withholded from the central office until too late to be
accepted, unfavorable ballots can be diverted to the waste shredder,
premarked ballots can be added in. These, and other dirty deeds, occur
away from the voting station, out of reach of the partisan teams.
The electronic machines can be rigged to undercount unfavorable
votes, overcount favorable ones, register additional votes without
voter interaction. Transmitted election data can be 'lost' or
'damaged'.
Humans are utterly unable to casually catch such manipulations.
This UN meeting agreed there likely can never be a totally fair
election as long as the in-party runs it. It inexorably will be
tempted to tilt the election to keep itself in power.
/ No one at the meeting suggested an external agency, such as a UN
'election-keeper' force, to take over the elections of troubled
countries -- which could include the United States.
Public space
----------
V-Dem explained that 'Public space'is the ambient society's duty
to present candidates to the electorate in a fair even-handed process.
It also refers to the underlying social structure to build a wisely
electorate thru education, news media, electronic comms, dialog,
debates, rallies. It must promote and provide access to candidate
history and activity, It must enforce simple and secure eligibility
for voting.
Public space includes candidates's shows, speeches, rallies, These
are typiclyt presented in public venues, like parks, fields, state
colleges and auditoria. These venues must not be unreasonably
withholded from out-party candidates.
In many counties the public space severely pulled down their
democracy rating. Where the news and comms are operated or modulated
by the government it can be an overwhelming temptation to slant
diffusion of election information toward the in-party. In extreme
cases competing candidates are blocked from using information
distributors that favor the in-party.
In a major revelation at the conference, the United States
suffered a steep drop in its democracy rank due to a degradation of
its 'public space'. V-Dem monitors public space by sampling the
country's election news thru its print media, broadcast media, social
media, election-related activity and events, candidate reports, and
more. It found that in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential elections
the greater bulk of American public space was favorable to Clinton and
unfavorable, even hostile, against Trump. This trend continued into
2017 and 2018, when pro-Clinton items were changed over to almost all
anti-Trump activity. The V-Dem meeting occurred well before the 2018
mid term elections, whose public space could not be evaluated.
IV-Dem apparently does not consider official abuse against
competing candidates. Tactics include arresting candidates on phony
charges, harassing and intimidating hem out of the election, applying
spy action on them. In the US, for example, the Meuller matter
apparently was not part of V-Dem's survey.
Education and participation
-------------------------
A high-ranking democracy requires a public well educated in the
workings of the government. Else the public has little reason to take
elections seriously. Else election fraud becomes more easily and
safely accomplished. The in-party candidate is no longer a delegate
under the electorate's supervision, but one accountable to the in-
party.
In the US the trend in public education neglects civics and
history as not needed in today's society. The public must go along
with what the in-party tells it to handle the instant social
situation.
Older litterature such as library books, teaching props, lesson
plans, textbooks are scrapped in favor of select Internet sources.
These can be chosen and modified to favor the in-party or deprecate
the out-party.
Turn-out for US elections is dismally low, even for major offices.
This can happen when the electorate loses faith in the government,
feeling their vote is not wanted or the elections are faked. In the US
this seems to happen in areas under longtime dominance by one party,
The others excluded by sheer numbers of votes or by manipulation of
the elections.
In 2017 the election for New York City mayor attracted some 25%,
maybe lower, participation. Of this small number, some 60% were for
reelecting incumbent deBlasio. The remaining 75% of abstaining voters
had no effective voice in the election. using the estimated figures
here, deBlasio won with just 15% of the eligible voters in the City.
Q&A
-
The 'Democracy for all' meeting was attended by delegates from
several UN members, V-Dem officials, and the public. I was surprised
to learn that the concerns and considerations for a fair and honest
elections were more or less the same across all the countries present.
As far as I could tell, all were already strong democracies with
valid elections. Any wrongdoing or mishaps seemed to be isolated or
localized.
One delegate, from the world's largest democracy of all, carried
much of the dialog in answer to various questions. This fellow
represented India, whose quite half a billion voters enjoy as
reasonably good scheme of elections. He spoke a vernacular English,
fooling some guests to think he was a native American! The Q&A lasted
about 20 minutes, with a wireless mike circulated thru the audience.
As far as I could tell none of the public guests, surely not Mynra
and I, were directly involved with running elections in the US. A few,
from their questions, seemed to be voter advocates for a this or
that class of Americans.
Conclusion
--------
This was a really solid United Nations event, showing one of the
positive aspects of UN work. it was wonderful to sit near, or later
next to, foreign delegates managing electorates in their countries.
Takeaways were sample pages from V-Dem's web, schedule of the
meeting, and a hefty full-length report on democracy in Latin America.
This last was not part of the meeting, but I later looked thru it for
interesting data about countries with their volatile forays into an
American-style democracy.
Murna and I left with most of the audience at around 4:45PM. We,
waited for the 42nd St bus, which came within a minute or two.
Myrna laughed at my story of the trip to the UN on the tour bus!
She got off at Grand Central for her uptown train. I stayed on
until Times Sq for my downtown train.