At the same time you say above that this would reduce the power of journalists that find out which politicians vioate their promises. This seems to imply that politicians would violate less promises under this system, in your view.
No. Powerful journalists who punish politicians who violate promises put a disincentive on politicians violating promises. If journalists get less powerful in their function of holding politicians accountable for promises, politician will violate more promises.
At the present a lot of people read newspapers. Bob the journalist might tell a voter: "Don't vote for Dave" Dave being a clever guy raises money from some lobbyist. When it comes to answering the questions for your VAA he uses that money to hire a polling firm to find out which answers to the VAA maximize the amount of votes that Dave gets. Then he gives exactly those answers to the VAA.
When voters listen to the VAA instead of listening to the newspaper Bob loses his political power. Bob can't punish the politician anymore for violating his election promises. The VAA cuts Bob out of the process. In a world where Bob has readers who follow his advice to vote for politicians who don't violate their promises a politician incurs a cost for violating election promises. Readers who trust Bob give Bob political power that Bob can use to hold politicians accountable.
We don't live in a world where our newspapers journalists manage to punish politicians enough that no politician dares to lie on election eve but we do live in a world where newspaper journalists can put pressure on politicians to prevent the worst excesses of behavior of politicians. Getting voters to make decisions based on a VAA that matches their own policy wishes with election promises of the politician means that those voters put less weight on the opinions of newspapers and the 4th estate.
In a world where 90% of voters make their voting decisions via VAAs Moloch will prevent any politician who doesn't hire a pollster to give optimal answers to the VAA, but who openly speaks about what he wants to do when being elected, from getting elected.
But why would the voters be less interested in whether politicians violate promises if they follow the advice of VAA's? It seems to me that if anything they'd be more interested. Under a VAA system in effect politicians have made many more and more precise promises to voters than they have under the present system.
Probably a "fulfillment of promises" score could and should be worked out along with the VAA. Politicians could be forced to sign beforehand how highly they value different questions. If they, e.g. broke a promise that they assign 5 % v...
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