A Federation Election?

[Lokhtar]

2) You're essentially arguing in favor of the Federation equivalent of an electoral college. Why, exactly, couldn't a Federation election be determined on the basis of popular election -- counting each individual instead of only counting the Member State? It's 300-400 years into the future. They have computers untold hundreds of times more advanced than ours. They have sensor systems capable of locating a single needle on a planet's surface, ships capable of travelling faster than light, replicators capable of creating matter from energy, transporters capable of teleporting people across vast distances, and computer systems capable of reaching self-awareness. You gonna tell me they can't put together a computer system capable of counting?[/quote\

I'm not saying that couldn't - I'm saying they wouldn't. It would be completely unfair.

You could have an insect species that has a population of 100 trillion on their home world, and if they have ten worlds, they might very well dwarf the votes from a whole bunch of other worlds. It would be quite unfair,

Why would that be unfair? One person, one vote. No one runs around saying that it's "unfair" that there happen to be more whites in the United States than other races -- just that whites ought not to discriminate or oppress those other races. As long as no one's rights are being violated, why shouldn't each individual member of an insect species get exactly the same vote as anyone else? Why should their votes be given less weight than a Human's or a Vulcan's?

Not all members of a species are homogenous, but there has to be a way to protect the rights of a minority and to give them a say. If you had a population of hundred trillion admitted into a structure, it would be dominated by the interests of that hundred trillion. It wouldn't work. It's nowhere near like the race issues. Imagine if everyone in the US were one race, and three people were a different. In essence, any different opinions or needs of the three people would be ignored. 'Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' is good in theory, but it can't be practical to ignore the wishes of the vast majority of the species in a democratic society.

That's like saying that people today should vote by skin color. It makes no sense. It's the United Federation of Planets, not the United Federation of Species.

Species is different from skin color. Whatever differences you'd get within a species, it's nowhere near the different perspectives you'd get between different species of a separate evolutionary tree.

What if the citizens of Mars have a very, very different political culture from the citizens of Earth? Why should they have to have representation on the basis of biology (something they can't control) when they may feel no real sense of connection with Earth? You might as well argue that Washington State and Texas should both be represented by the same person -- "the Senator of White People" -- even though Washingtonians and Texans have vastly different politics and agendas.

No, what you'd be doing is letting New York have 500 votes, and letting Oklahoma have .01 of a vote. A type of senate system would be ideal (2 per member world). You want as many different agendas and issues represented.

 

[Sci]

Not all members of a species are homogenous, but there has to be a way to protect the rights of a minority and to give them a say. If you had a population of hundred trillion admitted into a structure, it would be dominated by the interests of that hundred trillion. It wouldn't work.

Sure, you have to protect minority rights. No one's arguing that. But what you're suggesting is that the fundamental principle of democracy -- one person, one vote -- be thrown out. Your system would make some people's votes matter more than others.

Besides -- there's no evidence that any Federation Member States have populations nearly that large. Hell, the assimilated Earth in Star Trek: First Contact, which by all rights out to have a larger population than your standard Class-M planets (since it's not like Borg drones need a lot of personal space), only had a population of 9 billion. I'd infer from that, and from the fact that many problems relating today to overcrowding don't seem to be an issue in the UFP, that the most popualted Class-M planets in the Federation have a maximum population of 6 billion -- if that. More probably the populations are closer to 3 billion or less.

It's nowhere near like the race issues. Imagine if everyone in the US were one race, and three people were a different. In essence, any different opinions or needs of the three people would be ignored. 'Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' is good in theory, but it can't be practical to ignore the wishes of the vast majority of the species in a democratic society.

Neither can making one species' vote more valuable than another's. And I reject your contention that the needs of those three individuals would automatically be ignored -- especially in a society like the UFP that prizes personal rights and equality.

That's like saying that people today should vote by skin color. It makes no sense. It's the United Federation of Planets, not the United Federation of Species.

Species is different from skin color. Whatever differences you'd get within a species, it's nowhere near the different perspectives you'd get between different species of a separate evolutionary tree.

Maybe. Maybe not. The species in Trek don't seem to have wildly divergent psychologies, in part stemming from the common ancestry of most humanoids; mostly the aliens just have some aspect of humanity in a predominant form.

What if the citizens of Mars have a very, very different political culture from the citizens of Earth? Why should they have to have representation on the basis of biology (something they can't control) when they may feel no real sense of connection with Earth? You might as well argue that Washington State and Texas should both be represented by the same person -- "the Senator of White People" -- even though Washingtonians and Texans have vastly different politics and agendas.

No, what you'd be doing is letting New York have 500 votes, and letting Oklahoma have .01 of a vote.

No, that's the consequence of what you're describing -- species with smaller populations would have individual votes worth far more than species with larger populations.

What I'm saying is, when it comes to voting for the Federation President, everyone's vote ought to be equal. Period.

You get to have a situation where the votes of smaller communities are more valuable than those of larger species in the form of the Federation Council. If you have one Counciller per Member State, then naturally the voters from low-population Member States will have more valuable votes, because a smaller number of them will control who gets appointed to a position with the same amount of power as that of a councillor from a large-population Member State. But even from those Member States, that Councillor ought to be elected on the basis of the popular vote, with each citizen of that Member State receiving one vote that is of equal weight as every other citizen of that Member State.

 

[Timo]

What I'm saying is, when it comes to voting for the Federation President, everyone's vote ought to be equal. Period.

I rather doubt this particular vote would be meaningful enough to absolutely require one sort of approach or the other. How long a term does a Federation President serve? The inertia of the UFP organization would be considerable in comparison with current or past Earth nations: people voting for a President for a term as short as, say, a decade, would not really be voting for a policy. They would be merely voting for a leader who would be largely unable to implement a policy before a successor waltzed in.

A vote to truly serve the interests of the people would be a vote directly on policy or on legislation. I wonder if direct democracy could be applied on such a vote, if it already is logistically possible for the presidential election...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MarianLH]

No, what you'd be doing is letting New York have 500 votes, and letting Oklahoma have .01 of a vote.

No, that's the consequence of what you're describing

You get that consequence either way. If it's one person, one vote then groups that have more people are stronger than groups that have less. If it's not, then some individuals have more power than others. This is a fundamental problem with democracy, one that's been debated since classical Athens at least. It's the rationale behind the Electoral College in the US.

No matter what you do, there's going to be an imbalance of voting power. If there is a solution, we haven't found it yet in 2500 years of looking. And I'm not making a case for either side here, because I don't know the answer either.

The lack of a UFP electoral college might be one way to explain the human dominance of the Federation. If humans are more prolific and more numerous than other member species, then they'd have more votes.


Marian

 

[Sci]

No, what you'd be doing is letting New York have 500 votes, and letting Oklahoma have .01 of a vote.

No, that's the consequence of what you're describing

You get that consequence either way. If it's one person, one vote then groups that have more people are stronger than groups that have less.

Again, that assumes a political unity that may simply not be present -- to say nothing of the fact that it presumes that there are automatically even going to be groups with sufficiently larger populations than others within the Federation to dominate UFP politics. Neither one of those assumptions may be accuare.

No matter what you do, there's going to be an imbalance of voting power.

Um, no, one-person-one-vote is a balance of voting power. By definition.

The lack of a UFP electoral college might be one way to explain the human dominance of the Federation.

I don't think we've seen enough of the Federation in general to conclude that Humans dominate it. Obviously there are more Humans than any other species in Starfleet (or at least there appear to be -- how many of those background extras are actually playing Betazoids, I wonder?), but Starfleet's not necessarily representative of the entire UFP. And two of the three Federation Presidents we've seen have been aliens, let's recall, with many major decisions being attributed to the entire Federation Council rather than any one individual or Federation Member.

What I'm saying is, when it comes to voting for the Federation President, everyone's vote ought to be equal. Period.

I rather doubt this particular vote would be meaningful enough to absolutely require one sort of approach or the other. How long a term does a Federation President serve?

Canonically, no data. The novels have them serving four-year terms.