Vote Sizing Institute Real change from within.

Vote sizing is a new and efficient tool that can effectively and accurately reduce poverty which is today considered as a global tragedy which leads to frustration, spread of deadly diseases, so many violent crimes, loose morals and many other negative factors eating away our fabric society.

The Fair Choice respects much the pyramidal system of a society or the laws of nature.

To best understand this, it is first of all important to understand the meaning and causes of poverty, especially in the African context where an investigation has been carried out.

Let us first try to answer the following questions;

1. What is poverty?
2. Who are the poor people?
3. What are their priorities?
4. Why they remain poor?
5. What is good and bad life?

According to the United Nations Human Development Report (2002), the richest 5% of the world’s people have incomes 114 times those of the poorest 5%; so while a lucky few live in relative comfort, millions of the less fortunate ones live in squalors and are squatters in streets and abandoned buildings. The Human Development Report (2002) also showed that many countries are poorer than 10, 20 and in some cases 30 years ago in spite of the many noble efforts to make improvement.

Despite the numerous proposals brought up as solutions, we instead observe that the gap between the poor and the rich is widening. The Fair Choice Method, which brings forth the vote sizing idea, can be used to fight this social ill.  It proposes that those involved in the fight against poverty should not just decide what they think is good for the poor but take into consideration the requests of those who are in need of help (the poor).

After carrying out an interview in some major and sub towns here in Cameroon, I came out with these view points.

Going around town, I also observed that children are the most affected by poverty because they need to work (hard labor), beg, steal or prostitute themselves just to have money to feed and clothe themselves. Some of these children are abandoned and so they sleep in abandoned buildings, under bridges and sewers. These dire situation push some for them to get involved with illicit drug consumption which they believe helps them forget their pains - but which really adds to their woes by endangering their health, as this is linked to life threatening diseases like heart attack, stroke, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and lung cancer. Drugs also push others to commit rape, which then lead to unwanted pregnancies; spread of HIV/AIDS, suicide, and abortion - resulting then in lifelong disability, infertility or death.  There is an increase in sexually transmitted diseases for those involved in prostitution and unwanted pregnancies for girls. Intravenous drug users are exposed to killer disease like Aids.  There is increase in insecurity since these children equally consume the drug to boost their courage so that they could steal, kidnap or even kill just for money or an item they can sell in order to have money.

The Fair Choice says that if the voices of these helpless and poor people are not taken into consideration, they become frustrated which obviously leads to agitation then finally to anarchy which is very dangerous for the stability and peace of the world.

To solve the problem of poverty, we must first have an objective of the basic needs of the poor like health care, education, infrastructure, employment and reasonable salaries.

The diagrams below explain how the fair choice proposes a solution for poverty reduction. A poor versus rich scale balance can be used to better explain how the Fair Choice method explains the concept of poverty and riches and how it affects the society.

The main idea behind Vote sizing is to reduce poverty in such a way that it is not over felt by the people. Vote sizing respects very much the laws of nature (gravitational force)

In a society where the number of rich is equal to the number of poor, we turn to feel equilibrium leading the society to be stable in terms of development and progress. This leads to a situation where nothing seems to move and can be compared to a stagnant pool. This is shown by the diagram below.

In the case of the diagram above, the scale shows equilibrium between the rich and the poor. The status of the society cannot be clearly defined and the problems are hidden and can instead turn to increase the number of poor people thereby causing more destruction to the society. This eventually leads to the diagram below.

The above diagram shows that when the power and wealth (riches) in a society are concentrated into the hands of the minority, there is an increase in number of poor people since their voices are not taken into consideration. This type of society breeds insecurity, underdevelopment, anarchy, thereby affecting the few rich making them to equally become poor and causing a danger to the society which might certainly lead to war. This is the situation found in most African countries today and that is why there is civil war all over the continent. Generally, in most developing African countries, less than 0.05% of the population detained wealth and power and the majority percentage abject poverty. There is no fair distribution of wealth and power.

In the case above like is the case in most developed countries, where the number of rich exceeds the number of poor, poverty is not so felt and the few poor easily see the possibility of becoming rich because they feel surrounded by riches. This is the main idea behind Vote sizing. It is not to completely eradicate poverty but make it very minimal that should be felt by the majority of the people.

The logic linked by the fair choice in the concept of wellbeing and development is that, in most developed countries,  the scale of poverty and riches is titled towards the rich direction and that is what causes development in many fields of life. In this case very negligible number of people cry of poverty and hence making this type of environment a good place to be. In the developing countries, it is the case where the scale is tilted towards the poverty direction and this is harmful even to the few rich because with all the social vices that are going to arise, everyone feels the impact of poverty on them.