deborda.org

The de Borda Institute, after Jean-Charles de Borda, 1733-99

Navigation

About us

.

DEMOCRACY IS FOR

EVERYBODY, NOT

JUST FOR A (OR

THE) MAJORITY.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Another journey to China, via Baku (COP29), Georgia, India, and return via Mongolia, Russia and (therefore) Ukraine. Here's the blog: https://deborda.substack.com/p/debordaabroad2

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The de Borda Institute

aims to promote the use of inclusive, multi-optional and preferential voting procedures, both in parliaments/congresses and in referendums, on all contentious questions of social choice.

This applies specifically to decision-making, be it for the electorate in regional/national polls, for their elected representatives in councils and parliaments, for members of a local community group, a company board, a co-operative, and so on. But we also cover elections.

* * * * *

The Institute is named after Jean-Charles de Borda, and hence the well-known voting procedure, the Borda Count BC; but Jean-Charles actually invented what is now called the Modified Borda Count, MBC - the difference is subtle:

In a vote on n options, the voter may cast m preferences; and, of course, m < n.

In a BC, points are awarded to (1st, 2nd ... last) preferences cast according to the rule (n, n-1 ... 1) {or (n-1, n-2 ... 0)} whereas,

in an MBC, points are awarded to (1st, 2nd ... last) preferences cast according to the rule (m, m-1 ... 1).

The difference can be huge, especially when the topic is controversial: the BC benefits those who cast only a 1st preference; the MBC encourages the consensual, those who submit not only a 1st preference but also their 2nd (and subsequent) compromise option(s). And if (nearly) every voter states their compromise option(s), an MBC can identify the collective compromise.

_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-

DECISION-MAKER
Inclusive voting app

https://debordavote.com

THE APP TO BEAT ALL APPS, APPSOLUTELY!

(The latest in a long-line of electronic voting for decision-making; our first was in 1991.)

_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-

FINANCES

The Institute was estabished in 1997 with a cash grant of £3,000 from the Joseph Rowntree Charitabe Trust, and has received the occasional sum from Northern Ireland's Community Relations Council and others. Today it relies on voluntary donations and the voluntary work of its board, while most running expenses are paid by the director.

_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-

A BLOG

"De Borda abroad." From Belfast to Beijing and beyond... and back. Starting in Vienna with the Sept 2017 TEDx talk, I give lectures in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Tehran, Beijing, Tianjin, Xuzhou, Hong Kong and Taiwan... but not in Pyongyang. Then back via Mongolia (where I had been an election observer in June 2017) and Moscow (where I'd worked in the '80s).

I have my little fold-up Brompton with me - surely the best way of exploring any new city! So I prefer to go by train, boat or bus, and then cycle wherever in each new venue; and all with just one plastic water bottle... or that was the intention!

The story is here.

In Sept 2019, I set off again, to promote the book of the journey. After the ninth book launch in Taipei University, I went to stay with friends in a little village in Gansu for the Chinese New Year. The rat. Then came the virus, lockdown... and I was stuck.

_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-

The Hospital for Incurable Protestants

The Mémoire of a Collapsed Catholic

This is the story of a pacifist in a conflict zone, in Northern Ireland and the Balkans. Only in e-format, but only £5.15. Available from Amazon.

_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-_/-

The director alongside the statue of Jean-Charles de Borda, capitaine et savant, in l’École Navale in Brest, 24.9.2010. Photo by Gwenaelle Bichelot.

Annual Reports

Decision-Maker APP

Won by One

MBC

QBS

The Matrix Vote

Practical Examples

WELCOME

Welcome to the home page of the de Borda Institute, a Northern Ireland-based international organisation (an NGO) which aims to promote the use of inclusive voting procedures on all contentious questions of social choice. For more information use the menu options above or feel free to contact the organisation's headquarters. If you want to check the meaning of any of the terms used, then by all means have a look at this glossary.

As shown in these attachments, there are many voting procedures for use in decision-making and even more electoral systems. This is because, in decision-making, there is usually only one outcome - a singe decision or a shopping ist, a prioritisation; but with some electoral systems, and definitely in any proportional ones, there can be several winners. Sometimes, for any one voters' profile - that is, the set of all their preferences - the outcome of any count may well depend on the voting procedure used. In this very simple example of a few voters voting on just four options, and in these two hypothetical examples on five, (word document) or (Power-point) in which a few cast their preferences on five options, the profiles are analysed according to different methodologies, and the winner could be any one of all the options. Yet all of these methodologies are called democratic! Extraordinary!

Friday

Oct302026

2026-19 Press release 138

Friday, October 30, 2026

MESMERIED BY “THE MYSTIQUE OF THE MAJORITY”

Click to read more ...

Deborda | Comments Off |

Tuesday

Oct272026

2026-18 Slugger: a critique of majority voting

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

https://sluggerotoole.com/2026/10/27/go-east-old-man-part-iii-are-you-this-or-that/

is a critique of majority voting. (See also 2026-16.)

Deborda | Comments Off |

Tuesday

Oct272026

2026-17 Serbia

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

The Students' List's success in the Serbian elections is a wonderful opportunity for a new, and non-adversarial, political structure: decisions on matters controversial could be taken, not in binary, but in preferential ballots; and ministerial appointments could be made via a matrix vote. We're in touch with Belgrade so... yz malo creće (with luck)...

Deborda | Comments Off |

Tuesday

Oct132026

2026-16 Cycling in China on Slugger

Tuesday, October 13, 2026

https://sluggerotoole.com/2026/10/13/go-east-old-man-china-village-democracy-majority-rule/

The first of four installments of my journey, now on Slugger. It starts in February '25, on a country track in Yúnnán, as I head from one village to the next.

Part II describes my return journey, ocverland, via Moscow and Kiev just last autumn:

https://sluggerotoole.com/2026/10/20/go-east-old-man-part-2-putins-war/

Part III is in 2026-18.

Deborda | Comments Off |

Tuesday

Jul282026

2026-15 Ireland's TASC publishes:

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

DEMOCRACY IS FOR EVERYBODY,

NOT JUST A MAJORITY,

AND DEFINITELY NOT JUST THE MAJORITY

...of Unionists, Russians, Hutus, Jews, Sunni/Shi’a etc..

It’s on:https://www.tasc.ie/blog/2026/07/24/democracy-is-for-everybody-not-just-a-majority-and-definitely-not-just-the-majority/

Deborda | Comments Off |

Monday

Jun222026

2026-14

Monday, June 22, 2026

THE DE BORDA RULE

A MAJORITY VOTE MAY BE FAIR IF,

AND ONLY IF,

ITS DICHOTOMY IS A DUALITY.

Deborda | Comments Off |

Thursday

Jun112026

2026-13 Artificial Incompetence (another) AI

Thursday, June 11, 2026

Brexit is now 10 years old. The following letter has just been published.

Many have recalled the 2016 referendum; some have suggested a few minds have now changed; but (as far as I know) none have critiqued its basis: trying to resolve a multi-option problem in a binary vote on just one of those options - a classic case of artificial incompetence, the other AI.

In June 2016, there were four options ‘on the table’ - in the EU, EEA, CU or WTO - my press release of February 2016 spoke of multi-option referendums, like New Zealand's five-option vote in 1992. But Brexit was binary, and a (small) majority didn’t like ‘remain’. Maybe even bigger majorities didn’t like the other options. As in Theresa May’s indicative vote on eight options, maybe there was a majority against everything. And maybe, losing by just 52%, ‘in the EU’ was the least unpopular, and therefore the most popular. Maybe ‘remain’ was the winner.

There were lots of things wrong with that referendum, not least the lies used during the campaigning. But another huge error was to think that reducing four options ‘on the table’ to just one option on the ballot could be fair.

Deborda | Comments Off |

Thursday

May282026

2026-12 The Press is Free... to ignore!

Thursday, May 28, 2026

On 3rd June, the Community Relations Council published: https://www.community-relations.org.uk/news-centre/free-press

Binary voting, some 2,500 years old, is primitive, divisive and often hopelessly inaccurate. Everything else these days is modern, but not our decision-making. Pluralism is possible, however, and instead of reducing debates to short lists of only two options, decisions in our multi-party chambers should best be taken in multi-option, preferential ballots on (short) lists of up to six options.

Deborda | Comments Off |

Wednesday

Apr222026