Online Poll-Based Party Seeks Election Win

schliz writes "Online poll-based political party Senator Online is looking for senate candidates to contest the next Australian Federal Election. The party does not have any policies or an official stance, and promises to conduct online votes on major issues and act in Parliament accordingly. It has already appointed its candidate for the state of New South Wales through an online recruitment campaign in which candidates had to receive a minimum of 100 endorsements — either via its website or Facebook 'fans' — and raise a minimum of $200. This will be Senator Online's second Federal Election. When it contested in 2007, it received between 0.05 and 0.09 percent of each state's votes."

Comments

So we let the trolls win?

[Darkness404]

The party does not have any policies or an official stance, and promises to conduct online votes on major issues and act in Parliament accordingly.

Ok, so we suddenly now have a way to make really reliable online polls? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust a party with no real platform and outsourcing all policy decisions to whoever has the best poll-spamming software.

Re:So we let the trolls win?

[jeffmeden]

The scary thing is that you don't even need overt corruption for this to go horribly wrong. All you need is a little persuasion and access to the right kinds of media. Anything can be spun, in any direction, and if it's up to every voter to be legitimately educated on every issue that comes up in government, GOD HELP US ALL! It's bad enough that the current popular representative form of government (around the world) basically gives a group of guys the keys to the country for 2-4 years at a stretch, now policy will shift daily based on who ran the most emotional commercials or trotted out the most appealing pundits on television.

Re:So we let the trolls win?

[MightyMartian]

As has so often been pointed out, let's say we yanked all the Civil Rights legislation, and then let's say a black man is ejected from a restaurant which is now fully free to discriminate based on race. If the black man refuses to leave, and the police are called, the state is now not only tacitly accepting racism, it is in fact being used to actively support it.

Beyond that, the "let them eat cake" philosophy was tried, and its advocates ended up lighter the weight of their heads. No society in history, save perhaps in advanced stages of breakdown, has ever functioned the way Libertarians seem to think a society should function. Even Rome gave out bread, the alternative being food riots. Even enlightened self-interest suggests that the state better do something about the underclasses. In medieval times, the Church was effectively a branch of government, with forms of taxation powers and incomes from large land holdings to underwrite charitable works.

Interesting, yet scary, concept

[rotide]

I like the idea in theory. Majority wins and not just the vocal (or rich) minority. However, how susceptible to fraud is this system going to be? Find an exploit in the code of the poll and run your opponents into the ground? Errors, glitches, server downtime, etc, etc, etc. I'm not saying any one of those problems is unique to this style of voting, but it does seem to be an easier target.

Re:Interesting, yet scary, concept

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Majority wins and not just the vocal (or rich) minority.

If you want to see direct democracy at work, look at California. The Swiss have something similar and some of their Cantons only gave women the vote in the 90s. Thats the 1990s. And they had to be forced to do it. If you want to deal with corruption outlaw corporate donations to political parties, thats all.

Re:A good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, good ole' democracy, where 51% votes to oppress the other 49%. That's justice and liberty for all!

4chan

[Irick]

My logic is flawless.

Tyranny of the Majority

[GreatAntibob]

It's a dangerous idea to let a majority of voters decide things. Think about the Civil Rights Act in the US. If it had been based on direct polling of the public, it never would have passed. The whole point of a representative democracy is that the guys elected (or appointed) to the legislature should, in theory, be wise enough to occasionally act against the wishes of the majority of the public, even if this costs future elections. Doing the "right" thing isn't always doing the popular thing.

It's also the case that you don't always want a simple majority deciding issues. All you would need is a bloc of 51% of the polled members always agreeing to vote the same way. That's how political parties came about in the first place. Even though the other 49% represent almost the same number of people, their voices would be ignored in favor of a slightly larger group.

This type of "Party" might work for a few seats, but I doubt the general public of any nation is sufficiently informed (or intelligent) to decide on general legislation. It also opens the door to allowing small minorities (ethnic, religious, etc) to be completely ignored in favor of larger minorities or majorities (consider the case of Port Chester, NY). Perhaps not such a big problem in Australia but something to consider for direct democracies of all types. They only tend to work in places with very homogeneous groups of people (homogeneous ethnically, religiously, and economically).

Re:Good idea, but has some limits

[commodore64_love]

Hopefully the candidate would have enough sense not to follow Every suggestion from his home turf:

- Should women be allowed to vote?
55% no. 35% yes. 10% unsure

- Recently teens were caught in lacivious activities (photographing each other naked). Should I pass a law to give them 10 year sentences in juvenile hall for producing child porn?

70% yes. 20% no. 10% unsure

And so on.

Re:A good idea

[shutdown -p now]

Ahh, good ole' democracy, where 51% votes to oppress the other 49%. That's justice and liberty for all!

Indeed, and don't even get me started on those countries - like some in North America - that don't even require 51% of people's vote to amend their constitution, effectively allowing the minority to oppress the majority!

Re:Good idea, but has some limits

[Requiem18th]

Wait wait wait both of you guys, are you telling us that direct democracy will cause those problems and representative democracy would prevent them? Because those examples actually happened under representative democracy not too long ago, so what's the shit are you talking about?

Re:Great! One of my new party ideas...

[XxtraLarGe]

Discrimination based on sex is wrong.

I'm not trolling but you've just demonstrated a problem with a "scientific" party. You can't prove that discrimination is wrong using the scientific method. You and I may not like discrimination for whatever reason, but there's nothing in science that allows you to say something is wrong in a moral sense.