Consider this installment three of my previous question which is the second installment. For Election Day, I was researching the history of voting which has taken many forms. At one time in history, people voted by dropping rocks in holes corresponding to their candidate, with the one with most rocks being the candidate who won. We’ve had many forms “of voting”, from rocks in a well to paper ballots to voting machines to whatever this anime concept with glowy lights is. Each method has had supporters and critics, for example critics of voting machines will say it can be rigged, critics of paper ballots will say papers can be mismanaged, and critics of counting yard flags as a method will say it’s too tedious to do it all.
Suppose we discovered dolphins could understand democracy. So here you are coming up with a way to “express a vote”. Underwater, paper shrivels, tech may short-circuit, it’s hard to dig a hole with classic equipment, etc. unless you have a way to make something work. How would you teach dolphins to manifest voting in a non-rigged yet massively usable way?
When it comes time for the dolphins to sleep, have the dolphins sleep in designated places in a certain position corresponding to the candidate they want. To sleep facing East means they want Candidate A to be their leader. To sleep facing West means they want Candidate B to be their leader. Then have trusted individuals count the sleepers. They will wake up to their new president.
If they can vote, they can also run as candidates, right? (Or swim, idk). I’m not sure how they would vote but I might consider voting them
Why should we meddle in the affairs of dolphins? By suggesting or mandating a particular style of democracy, are we not undermining their right to self governance?
If we were asked for advice on how best to do it (since it should be plain to see that we know what not to do), I’d maybe propose the AMS system we use here. There’s a stv system for one local representitive, then there is a list vote to fill up the rest of the seats in a proportional way.
Some version of single transferable vote , along with a parliamentary government system.
I believe it’s a good starting point for an intelligent species to build on and develop further.
As to how would voting physically work? I guess dolphins can put things in a box. Better not to complicate on the first iteration.
Dolphins are scary smart and would figure out how to game the system:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/03/research.science
Well since we have to teach them to count and they do appear to have some form of language, they could just split themselves into a line and count off.
They would need poll watchers of some kind though, to be sure the count was done fairly.
They also live in smaller communities than people do, so I wouldn’t imagine this would be a great solution for a whole nation of dolphins. But it would work for a large pod.
One that put in power people who would have reconsidered drafting the conclusion magnet Tua Tagovailoa. /s
