“If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went,” quoted by Will Rogers. The quote elucidates the love of Will for dogs. Same is the case with most of the people, Dogs tends to create a happy vibe around us and leave us in utmost peace. Also, their loyal behaviour is what makes them the most lovable animal by humans. But when I say, dogs can assist in defining democracy; I’m pretty sure this might lead to the emergence of certain conjectures by you. There’s no need to do so, just stick on to the article to know about it.
Democracy being a system of government by the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives allows us to choose our leader. Choosing a leader is not an easy task to do with a huge population of people voting, there ought to be a proper system which provides fair chances to every representative standing in the elections. Keeping the gravity of voting and choosing a future representative in mind, a group of students at the Northeastern University initiated a democracy and social choice project. The project involved voting, to find out the cutest dog amongst the Northeastern’s philosophy and religion department. This led to the naming of the project as, “The Cute Dog Project”. The accomplishment of the project was not an easy walk for them with facing the challenges of designing a democratic voting system.
“In the last presidential election, both parties went through long, exhaustive primaries and at the end of it, it came out to two options, who a lot of people said didn’t really represent their preferences. People were unhappy with the result and also the process itself,” said Sam Hass, a fifth-year student with a major in philosophy, political science, and economics and minors in ethics and data science from the Northeastern University.
This observation from the presidential elections led the students to devise a democratic voting system. They chose dogs for the project due to the love of people towards them and hence making people eager to vote. The students took certain measures towards creating a democratic voting system which involved
Allowing people to cast more than one vote
Keeping barriers to keep participation low and to avoid internet troll.
These measures can be taken into consideration for presidential elections as well to move towards a more democratic voting system.
Priyanka Rawat
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