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Australians Running On-Line Poll Based Senators
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.
But in all - this seems to be the next step in democracy.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Australia:
Rest of capitalist, democratic world:
Perhaps a bit of a cynical view?
I'm all for people getting involved in their political system, but this kind of system is exactly what the authors of the American Constitution were trying to moderate because they understood a government that is strictly Democratic doesn't work.
Some non-political example is slashdot versus digg. Moderation is required.
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You elect people to have judgement in complex legislative matters, and you replace them if they exhibit bad judgement. And many legislative matters, especially as related to defense or other security issues, can require a legislator to have an understanding of information that isn't (well, can't be) widely known. That's why you send a human to do that job, not a robot. Many legislators are not, in useful terms, human, of course. But net-based polling systems strike me as a crazy way to handle lawmaking. Simple majorities are often simply wrong about things.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
And a pony?
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
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.
I suppose the next iteration will be text messaging the way you want your senator to vote.
Text "Aye" to 73628 to vote YES.
Text "Nay" to 73628 to vote NO.
(Standard messaging charges apply.)
Democracy doesn't work. We've had them for thousands of years, and they always fail as the majority learns they can just vote to steal from the minority. Superdemocracy is even worse.
The United States Beta that was started in the late 1700's had a great idea: let there be a pseudo-democracy at the Federal level, but limit is greatly. Don't let there be an easy way for the majority to steal from the minority. It worked for a while, until the People slowly upset the restrictions provided for in the Constitution. It was a sad day when Lincoln was elected, the first tyrant of many.
The idea of voting en masse online sounds like a good idea. I recall that MajorBBS founder, the late Tim Stryker (a man I knew personally) was a big proponent of a Superdemocracy. Back then I agreed with him, until I started to realize that the failings of a nation/society generally happen because the People want more without giving more.
My own political thought is what I call a Unanimocracy: a law doesn't get passed without unanimous consent. If you can't get it at the National level, try at the State level. Keep going down the ladder of size until you might end up with a law passed only in a home, or even only by an individual who restricts themselves. Sure, it's a grandious idea, but I feel it is the only fair way to set legislation. The Internet is a great Unanimocracy, with individuals deciding what limitations they'll accept, and others forming relationships based on agreeing to those limitation. You could say that the dreaded click-contracts are similar, although they're covered by "laws" rather that voluntary contracts that can be broken by either party.
The only way I'd accept a Democracy of any kind is if there was an agreement that 10% of any voting bloc can veto any legislation they disagree with. Let 50.1% say "We want to tax tall black men to pay for education of short asian women." Let the legislation be unless 10% of the population votes VETO. That's three ways to vote: Yes, I want it. No, but I don't really care. Veto, this is bad. A 10% veto requirement would get me to support government again, because the minority has power to stop a crazy, and theft-prone, majority.
How do you expect the people's will to be subverted by corrupt politicians in such a system?
By sucking around for unwise votes in response to well-groomed populist or alarmist nonsense. If all it takes is a mouseclick to "agree" with a position that's been slickly presented to you in a nice Flash-based web site that you just visited while reading your e-mail at home and having your fourth beer, then this makes matters worse, not better. If you can get a Nobel Peace Price for slickly packaging semi-truthy rhetoric, you can certainly get your pet legislation passed that way too - and even more quickly using this new bots-using-Senatorial-bots method. You want less corruption? Elect people with integrity and good judgement. Is that just too much work, compared to complaining? Then quit complaining.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The beauty of republicanism is that even though the people may only elect a representative by a majority, the representative is then the representative of ALL the people. The social contract is that the people agree to be represented by a representative chosen by the majority. Thus, at least in theory, republicanism is government by the People, by consent of the People, not government by the majority.
A direct-democracy candidate is by definition only and always the representative of the majority, leaving the minority unrepresented. Direct democracy is, both in theory and practice, government by the majority and only the majority. It is therefore arguably the worst possible form of government, as all other forms of tyranny involve a tyranny of a minority, which inherently gives the majority the potential power to forcibly overthrow the tyrants. One cannot overthrow a tyranny of the majority.
Governing bodies make dozens of votes on bills a day. Do they expect people to read, understand, and vote intelligently on, dozens of bills dozens of pages long a week? There's reasons we have people that work do this crap (nearly) full-time.
Voter turnout for everyday things is gonna suck.
Senators do more than just vote, too. They talk about bills, argue them, control things in committees, and introduce bills themselves. How are you going to do that if you are supposed to be a puppet of the people without any ideas of your own?
I wouldn't vote this party in.
Elect people with integrity and good judgement.
I would. I really would. I'm serious, I would.
If I just could.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's not a sham joke, it's simply misguided. Like communism and anarchy, it relies on the flawed axiom that humans are, at their core, good. Nearly all evidence points to the contrary, as shown by how the other political ideaologies based on the same axiom have played out.
Only read a couple comments before posting...
Before you debate about this, clear up your vocabulary. Democracy is everyone votes on everything. A Republic is where everyone votes to put Senators, Republicans etc, in power and then they vote on the issues. The United States, is NOT a democracy, Austrailia, is NOT a democracy, etc..etc... If you question my vocabluary, look it up. Most people don't get the difference between a Democracy and Republic and think voting in officals who make the law is a Democracy, which it isn't.
The SOL party appears to be truely pushing a Democracy, i.e. everyone votes on everything for their one vote. One of the problems with a Democracy is if the majority of the people voting (or the population majority if you have 100% voting population) are pushing one particular issue, be it racial issue, public floggings, etc., that issues wins, no questions.
So, make your statement about Democracy failing, public floggings, etc., if you are in a true democracy and the voters want that, you get it. It can be scary if the population in the democracy is scary, or if they are so ambivilent they just don't care and don't vote and you could get crazyness.
Our democracies (I'm from the UK) aren't perfect, but its better than handing the lunatics the keys to the asylum.
Actually, I honestly don't think it is at the moment.
Today, we have a Prime Minister, complete with new Cabinet, who has never been voted into that office by the electorate, and indeed who just backed down from holding an election to get a mandate. (Anyone who is about to bleat about a party political system where the Labour Party was elected would do well to remember that they were elected after Blair said he would serve a full third term. There is no rational way you can argue that the Brown administration has a mandate based on party politics. And even if they had been elected without that promise, our first-past-the-post system is so broken that you could hardly call it representative.)
Many of the less popular acts of government in our country are now coming down from above. At national level, we have the unelected European Commission running the show, despite the presence of the directly elected European Parliament, and imposing legislation on national governments. I find it sadly ironic that the government is desperately trying to wriggle out of a referendum on the big European treaty on the basis that it has certain key safeguards for national sovereignty in place, when those "safeguards" basically mean they can ignore the few bits of European law that actually serve the interests of the people: human rights, protection for workers, etc. Meanwhile, the government imposes all sorts of unpopular nonsense on the basis that Europe told it that it had to. Remember that our own European Commissioner is serial ministerial resigner and locally politically uncredible screw-up Peter Mandelson — so when they say "Europe told us to", this is the sort of person they're taking orders from!
This happens at more local levels, too. I live in Cambridge, where right now our County Council are pretty obviously setting up a hugely unpopular congestion charge in the city. This is being done despite widespread opposition among city residents and their elected City Council, who aren't even being shown the models from the consultants. It's also being done by much the same crowd who are already screwing up local transport because of a pet scheme of theirs, which can't possibly be enough to solve the problems they claim we're going to have a few years down the line even according to their own laughably physics-defying models, yet which is being implemented right now at vast cost in both taxpayers' money and disruption to local residents and businesses, even after thousands of local residents opposed the scheme and basically no-one without a vested interest supported it.
In other words, right now the basic decisions that are going to affect me as an everyday guy, at local, national and international levels, are all being made by people I have had no chance to vote for or against. And a great many of the big decisions they are making are in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, which would probably be enough not just to get rid of the legislation but to outright finish political careers in some cases if any remotely democratic form of voting were in place.
I do not believe in a 100% "one adult, one vote" type of system for every little decision, for the simple, pragmatic reason that no-one has enough time to consider all the issues deeply enough to make a sensible, informed choice. I believe in a representative government elected according to the basic principles of the people, where those in the civil service can do the detailed investigation where appropriate and decisions are made by the elected representatives on the basis of the information and any expert advice available to them. I also believe in checks and balances, and in particular that if interest in a particular issue is sufficiently widespread, it should be possible for the people to override the government on that specific issue immediately, rather than waiting for anothe
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Some thoughts:
... uh ... better than the other guy who wants to do the same thing. Umm ... I'll do it naked!"
a) Homogenization of the vote? Any other senator would be wise, in the absence of strong constituency lobbying, to simply vote with the Senator Online. How could you go wrong if the Online vote is a reflection of the public desire?
b) What is the likely demographic of those who would use Senator Online? The hard working middle-class type isn't likely to want the added burden of being a defacto senator added to the existing job, parenting, soccer mom'ing, etc. Maybe the Senator Online would reflect the will of those with time to spare eg. retirees, welfare abusers, other politcal candidates with an agenda to push, Slashdotters wanting to comment on something different?
c) What platform would a Senator Online candidate use? Great to be a candidate if all you do is vote as told. Who could find fault with your performance? A job for life if you could get it. But what's your election platform? "Vote for me. I'll do exactly what you want
Doesn't this almost seem like Tom Sawyer? Get someone else to do the work (assume researchers/collaters are hired), get someone else to take responsibility (the online voters) but you take the perks (and pay). Does this seem like a scam to anyone else?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
While you were probably joking, this brings up a very important point -- elected officials do more than just vote "yea" or "nay," and I'm not talking about all the subversive stuff like accepting bribes and getting wined and dined...
A good elected official will take a piece of legislation that has good parts and bad parts, strip out the bad parts, and add more good parts to it. If all you can do is simply vote yes or no, you're losing quite a bit of power there. Would they allow you to vote on a particular bill and say "yes if you strike out this one provision" or "yes as long as we add x, y, or z." What about creating legislation from scratch? If you rely on the other senators to do so, you are really at their mercy in terms of what legislation the "voting mass" ever gets to vote on.
Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
The American Ideal. ...or...
more to your point.
That's the point — it will not be different from today. But today's politicians don't promise to obey the electorate's wishes literally, they all use their own judgement (for better or worse) — nothing to enforce here.
These new guys in Australia, however, promise to hold no position of their own and to vote purely as the electorate wants them to.
There is no way to legally hold them to that specific promise. For example, their voters will not be able to access their web-servers' logs in real-time... There may also be a situation of "Yes, our voters wanted A, but B was obviously superiour, so we voted for B anyway."
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"You're still making it harder for people without computers or internet access to vote."
Harder than showing up at a precinct and voting?
Exactly, no it isn't.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Everything you said applies just as much to voting for a representative as it does voting on individual issues. Can I think of many ways direct Democracy would fail? Sure. But in most every case, representative Democracy is already failing the same way. Vote buying? Check. Uninformed ballots cast? Check. Pork? Double-check!
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.