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Australians Running On-Line Poll Based Senators

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the crowds-are-right-half-the-time dept.

exeme writes "The 2007 Australian election was recently announced and a new completely on-line based political party is running for election to the Australian Senate. Senator On-Line will give Australian residents eligible to vote a chance to vote in on-line polls for every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. The senator will then blindly vote in accordance with the majority. The party has no position on anything until it is voted on and has been approved by the Australian Electoral Commission as a legitimate party. The party will be running two candidates in each Australian state." I imagine this could have a huge impact on CowboyNeal related legislation down under.

3 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Nice one... by thelamecamel · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, actually! According to their FAQ they're only running for the Senate, our house of review. So they won't be proposing any bills and effectively give the public a veto. Looks surprisingly well done

  2. Re:Depends on definition of majority by thelamecamel · · Score: 3, Informative

    their FAQ says 70%. And they'll be on the watch for lobby groups manipulating results, unless there are over 100,000 votes cast for that piece of legislation (which will almost never happen). There's some space for them to stuff it up in the implementation, but this could be a lot worse.

  3. Australian Senate != US Senate by Eskarel · · Score: 3, Informative
    Just wanted to make that one clear. The Senate down here is much more about moderating bills that are already going to go through as opposed to being directly involved with legislation. For the most part its role tends to be to bicker continuously and moderate the really terrible stuff. Folks here tend to vote pragmatically for parliament and then vote their conscience for the senate.

    Most of the time it works pretty well(though the current government is sort of suffering quite a bit because in the last election they took the senate too and there's no one there to buffer their own stupidity), but it's not composed of the same sorts of people as the US Senate and an on-line senator would fit in pretty well there.

    Add the fact that most politicians tend to just vote the way of the polls anyway.