Problems with democracy, elections and why modern democracy can be hacked
Backup page for:This story will shortly list the problems with democracy, poses many questions and provides some answers. It’s short and does not dive into the problems in great details. Among other topics, it touches upon the Catch-51 problem of “majority” rule, fundamentally flawed elections, disinformation and voting as an only way of expressing will of a nation. But first let’s start with obvious.
Term is ambiguous
The word “democracy” means that the people rule the country. Contrary to, say, “aristocracy” or “autocracy” where only subset of people or a single person can rule.
But the problem is that democracy in ancient Greece looked very different to what we call democracy today. To the very least they had slaves. And now there are countries which also claim to be “democratic”, for example North Korea (it’s a Democratic Republic) or China, which aren’t democratic in our sense.
However, I don’t want to go into defining democracy, let’s assume we all know what it is - free elections, all people have equal rights etc. Just know that the term is ambiguous.
Catch-51
People rule in democracy. But which people? The majority of them. And the majority is defined by 50% + 1 person. And if there is a choice between two parties, two blocs or two candidates, nothing forces the winning party care about what the losing party wants.
And this brings us to a problem. The 51% will force their ideas on to 49% disregarding what these 49% actually want. And it takes very few voters (a bit more than one percent in our example) to reverse the country in the next elections. Now winners celebrate that they finally can move country to the “right direction”. And at the same time they disregard wishes of the losing party, who were winners previously.
This is a Catch-51. 51% disregarding wishes of the 49%. But the difference between 51 and 49 is very small. 49% is still half of the country. And next time, when they become the 51%, they will treat their opponents the same way.
In other words - due to the Catch-51, half of a country is always disregarded. But is it actually a correct democracy?
Moreover, after the elections a country can change its policies to the opposite direction. Which makes a country unpredictable not only for its own citizens, but also and especially for the other countries. Who were allies, may become enemies and vice versa.
Even if a victory is not 51-49, but more of a 60-40, the 40% is still a pretty large minority. It’s more than a third of a country. And this brings us to the next point.
Vote for self or vote for others
This is more of a philosophical question, but has real life consequences. Should I vote in the name of people, whom I don’t belong to? Or should I vote for my own benefits?
As an example from Ukraine - the ones who receive retirement pension from state often vote for the candidate who promises to increase state payment for retired. This means that wishes of young generation, those who want to bring up children and get their amount of support, are disregarded, because amount of money in a country is always limited. Due to demographic pyramid, which soon will become a demographic upside-down triangle, older people have more and more votes. Which means that a country would prioritise supporting older people, thus de-prioritising young families and children, thus only making the demographic situation even worse.
So - should older people vote for the policies which benefit them directly? Or should they vote for the ones, which benefit others? Should a population, which owns slaves vote against slavery if slaves are in minority? Should majority vote for supporting ethnic minorities, their culture and education, or should they vote for policies which benefit the majority directly?
Election system does not give the answer. Theoretically elections is about “majority wins”. But what should the minorities do then? What is the correct answer here? Wait before saying that the answer is obvious. Because there are two obvious answers, and different people will consider their answer more obvious than another.
Voting system is flawed
The “fair voting system” is a topic which is seriously discussed by various researches. And mathematicians have also a word to say there. It’s a very interesting topic, so you may do your own research.
I will only hint on a problem here. Imagine three candidates: Adam Forest, Bob Greenfield and Eve Stone. Adam Forest and Bob Greenfield are antagonists and they hate each other. Both have devoted voters, who love them and hate their opponent. Eve Stone is different - she is not particularly loved, but she is not hated either.
Most people would be fine with her winning. In the direct clash with either of the other two candidates Eve Stone would win. But if all three candidates are included in the voting, suddenly people vote for their favourite candidate and either Adam Forest or Bob Greenfield would win, making half of population very happy and another half - very sad, even though everyone agrees that Eve Stone would be a nice middle ground.
This small simplified example shows that this voting system (and many others for that matter) is flawed. There is a single voting system, which would be fair, but it’s not implemented anywhere in the world. In particular - it’s non-exclusive voting, so you can tick all the candidates you like, but without ranking them.
Voting for best candidate does not pay off
When voting - should you vote for the best candidate? Or should you vote for another candidate, but in a way so that your most hated candidate won’t win?
The 2004 presidential elections in Slovakia are a great example. There were two main candidates for presidency - Meciar and Kukan. Older and uneducated people would vote for Meciar, but young and educated would definitely choose Kukan. Polls showed that Kukan (choice of the youth) would win in the second round.
However, in the first round lots of young people voted for the best independent candidate. He was educated, smart, kind etc. But he was not too popular and had almost zero chances to get into the second round. What happened is that he stole enough of votes from Kukan, so that Kukan did not get into the second round.
Do you know who got into the second round? Old friend of Meciar - Gasparovic. Even he himself did not expect this. Two friends, both liked by older generation got into the second round. Kukan was out. Youth was heartbroken.
Should they have voted for Kukan in the first place? Should they have tricked the system and not actually vote for the candidate they really liked?
If in order the election system to work, you need to trick it, then it means that the system is broken. The “fair voting system” by the way, would have fixed the above situation. But nowhere it is implemented.
1 day of democracy, 4 years of dictatorship
What if the president is absolutely horrible? Imagine the most horrible president - the incompetent one, the one which is easily bribed, or who gifts the best of the country to his friends and relatives, the one who suppresses a free press, the one who starts unjust wars or puts his opponents into prisons - you name it. What is the usual response? “Let’s wait for few years and reelect him”.
Well… does this mean that the only way of influencing the fate of the country are elections? What if he actually becomes a dictator and usurps the country and then cancels the elections? What then? Wait for the next never-happen elections?
We sincerely hope that the president will play by the roles. “Checks and balances” and all that stuff. But they may fail. And they do fail. And these failures may lead to a disaster.
The “let’s wait till the next elections” is not the best approach to fight against a wannabe-dictator. And even if he’s not a wannabe-dictator, waiting for the next elections may take too long time, while country takes immense damage. If elections is the only way to influence life of a country, then it means that only on the elections day there is a real democracy. But all other years are dictatorship.
The great example is war in Iran 2026 - highly unpopular in the USA, but people can’t really stop it. Because they wait till the next elections - that seems the only way.
Lies are not prosecuted
Politicians lie - we all know that. Why do I even say the obvious? But aren’t lying politicians the worst thing which happens under the democracy? Why democracy is totally littered with lying politicians and nothing can be done about it?
Politicians often lie before the elections: “I will decrease taxes”, “I will not start any wars” or “I will increase social security” - it does not matter what they say exactly. And then when they get to power, they don’t do what they promised. But then - how can people actually know whom to vote for?
Should we all be a walking lie-detectors who know people psychology perfectly, so that we can know who lie and who don’t? If we pretend that people can distinguish lies if they want to - that’s a wishful thinking. People don’t.
Blaming people for trusting a politician who lies is easy. Making a politician accountable for his lies is difficult. That’s why countries choose an easy way: blame people, wait 4 years for the next flawed elections where people should trick the system to get the good outcome, and navigate a sea of lies.
Democracy is hacked
Should stupid people be protected from their stupidity? This question may sound funny. But it’s much deeper than it seems. And it also applies to elections.
Not all people are economists, historians and psychologists. They can easily be manipulated. People can be manipulated by the TV, newspapers or social media - it does not really matter how. What matters is that there is a whole industry of manipulating people. And it includes bot-farms.
By using these techniques, people start believing some harmful narratives. A good example would be Brexit. Brexit was a horrible idea. Many people regretted it almost instantly. But they were manipulated into thinking that Brexit was a good idea before the vote.
Can we call these people stupid? But should we naively expect everyone be clever and a diligent citizens? All people have voting rights: bad and good, clever and stupid. And many (most? all?) people are irrational. Thinking that people are rational is naive. Thinking that it will change and all people will become rational soon is even more naive.
Hacking democracy through manipulation is a serious threat. But how can it be countered? How can people be protected from these manipulations? That’s an especially weak point of democracy.
No one to vote for
This one is simple. Politicians are often bad. Some are good, but many of those are bad. Sometimes there is no real choice.
Moreover - by electing a candidate or a party, a person does not vote for exactly types of policies he wants, but for the policies of that particular candidate or a party.
I’ll give an example from the USA. Imagine a person who is against a death penalty - he would vote Democrat. But at the same time he is pro-life - that makes him Republican. He wants a right to carry guns - Republican again, but he is for same-sex marriages - this makes him Democrat. This is not an unbelievable combination of beliefs, yet this person has absolutely no one to vote for.
Even if there was a party which would encompass the previous four points, then another bullet comes into a picture. Say he is for lowering the taxes, but the party wants to make them higher. Or he wants to support regime changes abroad, but the party is against it.
We can’t have a party for every permutation of beliefs. By selecting a party, a person does not make the best available choice. He makes the least bad one. Can you blame him for bad choices?
Conclusion
People blindly believe that democracy fixes itself. But voting system is deeply flawed, people can not vote in their best intentions, politicians lie and are not prosecuted for it, false narratives are easily spread among people, dictatorship can arise after the elections, and often there is no real choice between candidates.
Can we really blame people for voting incorrectly? Maybe we should do a little bit more than simply rely on once-per-four-years elections? How it can be proved that democracy and fair elections are superior to autocratic regimes or absolute monarchies?
Democracy is not chaos, but order. By all laws of physics, it requires some energy to keep the order state, otherwise it will become chaotic (yes, I’m talking about entropy here). There should be other mechanisms, which would allow a more direct influence from people.
Ukrainians use “Maidan” for this purpose. Not the perfect system, but it may work. Thailand relies on military coups. Not exactly the same as Maidan, but may produce similar results. Can there be some better way?
The article idea was brewing for a long time after seeing elections and voting process in Poland, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Northern Korea, China, Slovakia, Czechia, France, Germany (both modern and those which happened about one hundred years ago), UK, Bulgaria and Thailand. But the trigger to write this was definitely the Trump victory in the USA in 2024 and his subsequent actions.
Демократія і Пастка-51
Проблема демократії в тому, що в ній править більшість, але більшістю вважається 50%+1. Тобто, виходить, думка 50%-1 населення держави, що є практично її половиною, не береться до уваги. Проблема в тому, що у двопартійній системі ніщо не змушує більшість, хай якою мінімальною вона не була, рахуватися з думкою меншості, хай якою великою вона не була.
В більшості випадках перемога одного з кандидатів на виборах не є одноголосною. Часто різниця між переможцем та переможеним рахується у один-два відсотки. Але саме ці один-два відсотки змушують партію переможців шалено радіти, а переможених - розуміти, що з їхнім голосом ніхто рахуватися не буде. Хоча насправді цих людей майже порівну. А поразка 60 на 40 вже вважається “нищівною”, хоча по суті більше третини держави проголосувало за другий варіант.
Ідеальною ілюстрацією цього є двопартійна система в США, де як демократи, так і республіканці вважають своїх опонентів недоумкуватими і коли приходять до влади навіть і не думають шукати компроміси. Наприклад відверто дивує небажання шукати компроміс в питанні абортів, носінні зброї, або прав трансспортсменів. Суто теоретично, якщо партія набрала 50%+1 голос, вона б могла взагалі заборонити партію суперників і ввести однопартійну систему. І це - не гіпотетична ситуація. Схоже в історії вже траплялося.
Але ця проблема є не лише в США. Від цього страждає багато держав Європи. Наприклад в Польщі, Словаччині чи Чехії може повністю змінитися зовнішньополітичний курс лише через незначну перевагу в піввідсотки.