Vote Sizing Institute

Politicians, broadcasters, teachers and advertisers claim again and again that our voice matters, and we're getting there! ... yet we remain overrun with corruption and hell-bent on self-destruction.

What gives?

They're all just talking at us.

Everybody talking and nobody listening is more democrazy than democracy. So something needs to be done, but what? There are thousands of ideas - and billions of opinions - to choose from, true, but only vote sizing fixes this imbalance by giving *real political power* through a *weighted vote* to those who need it - the poor, working and middle class majority.

... but isn't that exactly what '1-person-1-vote' already does? Equality, and all that? Wouldn't it be better for us to focus our energy on simply educating these people, so they can vote better? ... No!

'1-person-1-vote = Democracy' is an outdated and false ideology. It deprives those who need power of it, feeds greed and insecurity, squeezes the middle-class ... and then is used to make us think it's all our fault for not voting properly!

The argument to 'focus-on-existing voters' has been used against us for millennia - in order to beat down the trend towards inclusion that democratic reforms like vote sizing present. The idea that what we really need to do is work on 'all-the-senators', 'all-the-propertied men', 'all-the-white men', or 'all-the-men' was wrong then, and it sure won't work now. Using our votes to appeal to the rich white men to save us shows how our 1-person-1-vote model of democracy is itself broken and counter-productive; and we can't get out of this problem without fixing it first. Yes, 1-person-1-vote worked well for a while, but rather than it being the way we are heard, it now permits big-money interests to continually shift and dilute our voices, and then replace them with inauthentic ones.

1. With '1-person-1-vote' we've grown:
     Too collectively weak to stop the forces of tyranny, brutality, patronage, and greed from wreaking havoc on every institution.
     Too personally rigid to overturn the feelings of defeat, shame, smugness, and dissatisfaction keeping us down and aligned against each other.

... ask yourself: Would a corrupt system really want us voting differently? Or, if we could all look at our votes like they haven't been corrupted - would we vote any differently?

What, specifically, is a weighted vote? 

A weighted vote is just like a regular vote, used in any kind of election, except that the actual size of each of our votes is calculated by a computer at the polling station - effectively giving everyone a different sized vote.

Vote sizing means that we can all get a fair combination of wealth and political power, and that no two people are any closer to the (0,0) inhuman point prevailing today.

How can the size be changed? Easily, everything we need is already in place. Simply 1) print bar-codes on paper ballots, which 2) when scanned reveals income tax numbers to 3) determine the actual 'size', or weight, of each vote before being counted. (We're already doing it on all our website polls!)

A paper ballot with a tear-off barcode section easily leaves a trail without compromising personal information.

Why change the size of our votes? Since there are a variety of ways we can use this to focus political power upon a group of people, there's a variety of proposals for what kind of formulas to use. The DEP believes that the fairest and most effective way to size votes is inversely to wealth, so that the less wealth you have, the more vote you get (and visa-versa).  Why differentiate along class lines? Because this is a good and fair way for wealthy people to keep what they cherish - their economic power - while handing over some of their political power to those who really need it - poor and middle-class people.

Forcing wealth and power together on voting day keeps them separated the rest of the year - resulting in smaller government, greener environments and more robust economies.

How can we get along if we don't listen to each other?

In a system where all votes supposedly count equally, all voices certainly do not.  Instead false ideologies (equal law, equal opportunity, equal reward, and equal representation) are used to pit us against each other ...so that big-money interests can have their way with policy.

The purpose of power is to be able to tell people what to do - while wealth's is for not having to listen all the time. They represent very different value systems, and must be kept apart in order to serve us. Corruption happens when both end up in the same few hands over and over. Vote sizing is able to turn the tables on corruption by accommodating both of these at-odds and impossible goals in the fairest possible way ... and only by embracing this complexity through vote sizing can we truly unite all people, excite reason, and strengthen society.

Drastic measures? A huge risk? Sure. But one worth taking because only vote sizing combines the personal and social in such an immediate way ... so that collectively we can fix what's broken and have more peace and prosperity.

The history of empowerment all started with the fight and struggle for Black Emancipation, then followed Female Emancipation and after much fight with no significant success, came the preaching of Youth Emancipation. How do you distinguish between empowering a wealthy white and a poor white, a wealthy black and a poor black, a wealthy female and a poor female, a wealthy youth and a poor youth? The fundamental and ideal solution lies in Vote Sizing, i.e. the emancipation of the majority - the poor - without any distinction of race, sex, or age.
~ Julius Awafong, Yaounde Cameroon

As it takes time for many people to let the vote sizing logic sink in, we shouldn't be too surprised to hear that it's had a hard time getting picked up by the mainstream media and academia. The logic of sacrifice is just not something that advertisers want to explore, and yet if we can all make these tiny sacrifices together in a fair and ordered manner (at the polling station).

Vote sizing is the way for us to accept and learn to live with everyone, whether they are poorer or richer than ourselves. Trust underlies every aspect of vote sizing logic - trusting that co-operation trumps coercion; there's plenty to share, money isn't everything, and good government is the only solution - and only when it can be experienced at personal level. A fair choice between income and votes reveals a way for each of us to master sacrificing and sharing, while trouncing the impetus of corruption; personal corruption. Vote sizing ensures that regardless of the size of our bank accounts, we all get equal voice in determining our collective fate. Healthy ethical institutions precede high moral standards.

Think about how different the world would be if all our voices mattered - now within our grasp thanks to vote sizing!
Read about in pages from our upcoming book >>

It's important to stress, however, that vote sizing can only sustain itself if have-not's refrain from simply taking whatever want.  In fact, if people use their votes to line their own pockets, then vote sizing will grind everything to a halt ... in a hurry. But we don't think that will happen, because vote sizing is political (not a one-shot deal); it becomes an effective process whereby people get to discover for themselves how much power and how much wealth makes them happy. It is the way we can reconcile our own desires by turning each election into a gentle revolution. By very gradually separating wealthy people from political machinery (while still encouraging them to keep their economic marketplace intact) vote sizing allows everyone to empower themselves without worrying about what others do all the time. Who's to judge whether wealth lovers are any better than power lovers? Each of us, that's who, but only for ourselves.

Vote sizing offers benefits to the wealth minded/marketplace people as well as the poorer people.  For example, with poorer people better able to manage themselves through an efficient government, they could break free of dependency and stagnation - which ought to lower taxes for everyone.  With poorer people able to speak out for their own needs and create a government to meet those needs, they could take charge of their own destinies - which ought to reduce the number of crimes committed out of desperation and frustration.  The result could be an economy and a society that is stronger - at all levels.

Is it even possible?

Is it even possible?

Absolutely! The technology we have right now makes sizing votes a relatively easy means of system reform. While vote sizing embraces technology, it is not electronic voting.  One way to practically implement a system of income-weighted votes is to use paper ballots with a scannable barcode that reveals the voter's wealth.  The fact that people record their votes on a paper ballot eliminates potential problems with computer malfunctions, and the use of a barcode to reveal the person's wealth (necessary to appropriately size that person's vote) maintains voters' privacy.  To read more about the logistical issues involved with implementing and maintain a weighted-vote system, visit the brainiacs pages.

Deductions from Existential Values As we'll see in our next page, when looked at from outside their value systems, neither money nor votes have much, if any, tangible use; except for the paper or metal or electrical signal that they might be found on. Their true worth comes only from the value we give them. This results in two crucial considerations we should make about our responsibilities in changing the world: Contrary to what most of us believe, we do have the ability to reform democracy and capitalism so that they work best. (As evidence, historically these systems have never been static for very long.) We need to accept that both these systems have very well established and necessary roles in our lives; so we can't just remove either one of them at the stroke of a pen (as communism, socialism, fascism or anarchism would try to do.)