Quantum democracy

There is a story of two rich dowagers going to a party with what they thought were unique designer dresses, only to discover to their and onlookers' shock that their clothes were identical. Great minds think alike, and it came as no surprise to me after having typed the title above and searching Google that there are scores of pages on the web with the same two words, even though we may not be speaking about the same things. I have driven my voice hoarse talking about "quantum systems" for decades to sleepy students (even Einstein said he did not understand quantum theory, though he got his sole Nobel Prize for a discovery based on it), and I go nuts listening on TV to the word "democracy" in political speeches and comments by people who obviously have other things in mind. Hence, juxtaposing two nebulous concepts, I am probably just trying to be diplomatically evasive, and in so doing I must be in the safe company of the majority.

Sociologists, media commentators and columnists, and other non physicists today talk freely about "quantum leaps" all the time. It first appeared around 1956. I believe this phrase now means sudden big changes, usually for the better. But in the original version of quantum jumps by Planck and Bohr half a century earlier, the leaps were supposed to be very tiny indeed, virtually imperceptible, in the atomic world. In 1960 Ian Fleming wrote his famous collection "For Your Eyes Only" and one story in it was named "Quantum of Solace". Later a Bond film with the same name was produced, where "quantum" was a villainous organization. Bond is pure nonsensical entertainment, and anybody looking for cryptic semantics here is bound to be disappointed.

Another word in everyday use now, more by non-scientists who are not interested in the difference between a 'byte' and a 'nibble', than computer specialists, is "digital". Everywhere we see slogans written in expensive banners put up by local political hopefuls: "Let us build a digital Bangladesh. It is the dream of our great leader." Fortunately the great leader mentioned is a living person and not one resting in peace since before the IT revolution. I suppose all our present leaders, big and small, have been impressed by smart, colourful powerpoint presentations in meetings, and favourable blogs and facebook comments about them or their near relations shown to them by private secretaries, who meticulously hide the nasty ones. Notwithstanding any conceivable erroneous notion about the possibility of possessing an Aladdin's lamp to control this genie, they are right in concluding that the information age is here to stay. In future, data records and files will be kept in electronic devices, and the ordinary paper form will gradually become obsolete.

So, we don't really need ballot papers. The voters do not write on the ballot subjective comments on the merits and demerits of the candidates to be judged at length by a sagacious election commissioner. It is simply a YES to one man and NO to all others, i.e. just 'bits' of information that are so efficiently handled by an electronic machine. If EVMs are checked by all parties not to contain pre-arranged sub-circuits for vote transfer at any later stage during the elections, there is no reason why anybody should object. If all the machines cannot be checked, a large sample can be tested for fairness, as in industrial quality control. A 95% confidence level is good enough.

Now that we have come to probability and statistics, may be we should also consider if we might have something different from a "one man one vote rule". Should a voter be allowed to split his vote, say 0.6 to A, 0.3 to B and 0.1 to C, and nothing to the others? It can be done fairly easily in something like the EVM, and may be more representative of the electors' choices. The victor may turn out to be everybody's second choice, but on the whole more representative and acceptable than polarized first choices. Alas, this can be done only when most of the electors are numerate enough to handle fractions. For us, that means waiting at least a couple of decades.

Is every man really worth one vote? There are complications due to different viewpoints — is a vote a right, or a responsibility? All citizens should of course have the same rights, but can the illiterate day labourer choose his representative with the same reliability as a university professor? Prejudices prevent an objective discussion. New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote in 1895, and in the United States, the most vocal and aggressive protagonist of western-style democracy today, women's franchise came only with the advent of the First World War in 1919. To bar blacks from voting, the poll tax, the 'grandfather must be voter' clause, and 20 page literacy tests were designed, and full rights came finally only as late as 1965. Even during the Bush elections ballot papers were cleverly designed in a staggered form in black-dominated areas of Florida, governed by George Bush's brother, nullifying a large number of votes from that non-Republican section.

Why are some people now complaining that only 1% of the population in that country dominates national life? Why should that country support a small minority of people in the Middle East? Why should it be staunch friends of Saudi Arabia, which can hardly be called a democracy? Do the US government's policies truly reflect the feelings of its people? Just as in this poor, semi-literate country, the people of one of the richest, and most advanced countries appear like pawns in a game played by powerful minorities. Influence of money, parochialism and elitism pervade across racial, historical, cultural, educational differences.

General Ayub Khan thought he had invented a new form of democracy – Basic Democracy, where the ordinary citizens would elect a large electoral college at the union level, and they would be voters for all national and presidential elections. His argument was that the ordinary villagers could possibly know well only the local village leaders, who in turn would be more knowledgeable to qualify as national voters. Most people called it foul — it was simply a gimmick to produce a smaller, more 'manageable' electorate. The Sandhurst trained general did manage to hold on to power for a while, making his son a rich industrialist, but also giving some stability that saw some progress nationwide, whence his claim of a "decade of development". But the more populous Eastern wing did not get its fair share, because representatives from this part were too daunted by the Sandhurst general to press legitimate demands. Mujib stood apart and rose to supreme leadership of East Pakistan quickly. In 1970 there was a landslide election, but later history shows that rajakar-minded people were not actually all that sparse.

Not everybody goes to vote. During the elections domestic helps take leave for a few days to go to their constituencies and collect sarees and 500 taka banknotes from every candidate who approaches them hoping for a gratitude vote in return. Learned university professors often stay at home because they cannot find sufficiently great differences between the candidates to justify standing in a queue in the scorching sun for more than an hour. More older people stay back than eager eighteen-year-old freshmen. In some areas minority communities are threatened not to meddle with the majority's game. It is likely that ladies of more orthodox families also do not participate as freely as their emancipated sisters. So, even if we discount vote forgeries, the profile of people actually voting may be somewhat different from that of the full population.

There is a way of ensuring that no artificial bias is introduced, by using statistical techniques instead of conventional universal voting. By choosing random samples from the voter list and making sure that they, only they, and all of them, vote, freely, it is possible to ensure that the people's verdict is truly reflected in the limited, but far more efficient and less costly sample opinion poll. The system of voting for the entire population we use dates back to ancient times where the number of voters was small, everybody was available, and when statistical methods were unknown.

According to quantum theory all results are statistical. Nature is democratic only in a probabilistic sense. Even the least expected outcome has a chance of becoming reality in a particular case, but on an average the strongest candidate wins. In our classical system of democracy the majority wins every time, and we have to sacrifice the needs and/ or dignity of the minority for ever, unless they can find a strong external ally. Does the idea of quantum democracy, permitting at random even a minority to form governments occasionally for a short period (say in Gujarat), seem more whimsical than the notion of the majority being always right?

Many years ago in ancient Greece there was a system of banishing a citizen if people voted against him in an annual event. On one such day Aristides, known as "the Just", was approached by an illiterate voter to write down the name of his choice for banishment on the ballot – a piece of broken pottery called "ostraka" (hence "ostracise"). He chose Aristides himself. When the surprised Aristides asked the man what his grievance was, the man said, "I am simply sick of that man being always called the Just". Apparently the majority had similar opinions and Aristides the Just was banished.

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Ahmed Shafee is vice chancellor of East West University.