China National People's Congress uses Approval Voting

90 views
Skip to first unread message

Clay Shentrup

unread,
Mar 4, 2018, 6:32:11 PM3/4/18
to The Center for Election Science
The number of votes cast for each ballot paper shall be more than the repeal of the number of deputies to be elected, which shall be equal to or less than the effective number of deputies to be elected.

http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2015-08/31/content_1945577.htm

Linked from the Wikipedia article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_People%27s_Congress

Ciaran Dougherty

unread,
Mar 4, 2018, 6:34:04 PM3/4/18
to electio...@googlegroups.com
Something is seriously wrong when a communist country does democracy better than we do...

That said, I don't think it helpful to create associations between a decent voting method and a government like China's.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Center for Election Science" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to electionscience+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Clay Shentrup

unread,
Mar 4, 2018, 6:46:38 PM3/4/18
to The Center for Election Science
ELECTION PROCESS

A namelist of candidates for deputies to a people's congress is made public 20 days before the election, then officially announced five days before the election.

Voters may vote for or against candidates or abstain from voting. They also have the option of voting for people besides the candidates on the official ballot.

Candidates who run in an election can be deemed elected if they receive more than half of the votes. If the number of candidates who receive more than half of the votes exceeds the amount of vacancies, those with more votes are deemed elected.

NoIRV

unread,
Mar 4, 2018, 9:04:20 PM3/4/18
to The Center for Election Science
Wait, so this is 3-value score voting with a default score of middle? Wow...

Of course, a real cynic could argue that OUR system is "as bad" as a communist country and WE should be given all the shame and bad public relations.

Phil Uhrich

unread,
Mar 5, 2018, 9:34:40 PM3/5/18
to The Center for Election Science
There is nothing to stop a communist country from being democratic, I believe the adjective you are looking for is authoritarian.

William Ti'iti'i Asiata

unread,
Mar 5, 2018, 9:54:29 PM3/5/18
to The Center for Election Science
Wow amazing that they are doing that.
I am of the opinion that the development and application of an optimal election algorithm and democratic structure will naturally lead to increasingly communistic social, economic and cultural relations - in line with the politics of social ecology.

Clay Shentrup

unread,
Mar 7, 2018, 5:24:32 PM3/7/18
to The Center for Election Science
2. How are the deputies elected?

The People’s Congress system in China has several levels: to county- and township-level; provincial- and municipal level; and the national level. Eligible voters elect county and township-level congresses only. The other levels are elected by deputies at the level immediately below theirs.

The election committee publishes a list of candidate deputies 20 days before an election. Sometimes there are discussions or preliminary elections. After that, officials release a final list of the candidates five days before the election.

Then it’s time to vote. Voters may cast ballots for or against candidates, or abstain from voting. They also have the option of voting for people who are not on the official ballot.

Successful candidates must receive more than half the votes. If the number of successful candidates exceeds the number of vacancies, those with more votes are elected.

Clay Shentrup

unread,
Mar 8, 2018, 5:01:18 PM3/8/18
to The Center for Election Science

Warren D Smith

unread,
Mar 8, 2018, 7:20:31 PM3/8/18
to electio...@googlegroups.com
I would like to know
1.when this NPC approval system got started --
it was sometime between 1954 and 1987 inclusive,
2.I would like to see some ballot images,
3.can any evidence be produced it is working well/badly?
4.can any official eletion-results announcements,
with counts, be found?

Far as I can tell, the view in the West is the NPC,
while supposedly the primo power body in China,
actually is a bunch of quivering cowards who
never do anything on their own initiative,
while the top commies make all
the real decisions. The NPC is a mere fig leaf intended
to create an illusion of democracy.
But the official story is rather opposite: the NPC
elects and can remove every person high
in power, who serve at their pleasure.

If they really are a mere fig leaf, they are a hell of
a large one, with about 3000 members.


--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)

parker friedland

unread,
Mar 9, 2018, 12:36:42 AM3/9/18
to The Center for Election Science
It's illegal for Chinese citizens to form their own political parties, so they still have to chose between the ones the Chinese government offers them. Also, there is no way the election is completely legitimate. The president of china and the Chinese establishment are still very much against competitive democracy and it would be naive to suggest that they would let Chinese citizens vote in an election that wasn't fixed in the NPC's favor. Stores of election rigging are far too common in authoritarian countries. The reason why most authoritarian countries have fake elections is because democracy is so popular. It's also why North Korea's full name is the "Democratic People's Republic of north Korea".

Warren D Smith

unread,
Mar 9, 2018, 10:56:15 AM3/9/18
to electio...@googlegroups.com

Warren D Smith

unread,
Mar 10, 2018, 9:17:04 PM3/10/18
to electio...@googlegroups.com
book recommended to me:

Kerry Brown: Ballot Box China,
Univ. of Chicago Press 2011
https://www.amazon.com/Ballot-Box-China-Grassroots-Democracy/dp/1848138202
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/B/bo20847730.html

Blurb:
"Since 1988, China has undergone one of the largest, but least
understood experiments in grassroots democracy. Across 600,000
villages in China, with almost a million elections, some three million
officials have been elected. The Chinese government believes that this
is a step towards democracy with Chinese characteristics'. But to many
involved in them, the elections have been mired by corruption,
vote-rigging and cronyism. This book looks at the history of these
elections, how they arose, what they have achieved and where they
might be going, exploring the specific experience of elections by
those who have taken part in them - the villagers in some of the most
deprived areas of China."

Brief review in Times Higher Education:
China is democratic - according to the Chinese Communist Party. Kerry
Brown knows better. He does not portray China as democratic under the
normal definition, but he does see China as practising democracy at
the grass-roots level. The ballot box in the title of this book refers
to elections at the village level, which were introduced at the end of
the 1980s. To Brown, village elections matter because "they occur in a
part of the country and in a sector of society which history tells us
matter hugely", and because they "are connected to the larger debate
about democracy in China, and that is connected to a whole
constellation of issues, from building the rule of law, to creating
civil society, to the very issue of legitimacy of the CCP itself".

Brown is right that village elections tell us much about the nature of
the regime. As China rises and is being taken seriously as a global
power, the rest of the world needs to understand it better, including
in particular the nature of its politics. The main body of this book
does not, however, really support the argument that village elections
in China are in any real sense democratic. As Brown observes, "Village
elections were not meant to be the seeds of anything else." He adds:
"There are plenty of cases of Party branch secretaries (or the real
power holders) viewing these elections as a threat, trying to stop
people standing who might compete with them, or simply obstructing the
whole process". That elections at the village level are taking place
at all represents a huge change from the old Maoist
near-totalitarianism. But holding elections that do not offer voters a
real choice, or the opportunity for any political party apart from the
governing party to win, is hardly democratic.

Brown is nonetheless excited by the village elections. It appears to
reflect his obvious devotion to China and the Chinese, which seems to
have affected his and indeed many China-watchers' judgement. This may
well be the reason why he is willing to accept the Communist Party's
assertion of "Chinese democracy" - by which it means "intra-party
democracy". In other words, the Party would allow more candidates to
compete for offices, but all must be loyal Party members. In reality,
it is just a means to enhance governance capacity. It also means that
Chinese citizens can have "free" elections at the village level,
provided the results will not produce unacceptable surprises to the
Party.

He also seems to have accepted the Party's monopoly of "Chineseness".
Thus, the Leninist concept of democratic centralism, which is the
essence of "Chinese democracy", is regarded as Chinese. But it is not.
Leninism is a Soviet import, not a Chinese invention. The extensive
introduction of consultation after the end of the Maoist era, and
village elections, which are almost invariably guided by the Party,
fit in better with this Leninist concept than with democracy. If one
rejects claims of Leninism's Chinese character, "Chinese democracy" is
neither Chinese nor democratic.

Should non-China specialists read this book? Yes, if you want a highly
readable and engaging introduction to the current political scene in
China, although one should bear in mind the caveats above. Critical
readers will in any event make up their own minds whether they will
accept Brown's, or the Communist Party's, definitions of democracy as
applied to China. Aside from this interpretation issue, the book
provides an easy-to-read short overview of where China has come from,
and where the Party is taking it in terms of the general direction of
political development.

Warren D Smith

unread,
Mar 11, 2018, 2:12:57 PM3/11/18
to electio...@googlegroups.com
I updated
http://rangevoting.org/ChinaNatCong.html
a lot. It is unclear and dubious how much this
"democratic system" operates.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages