CS Professor Announces Run For VT State Senate On a Platform of Internet Polling

Cynic writes "Having read pretty heavily on the topic, weighed the pros and cons, and seen a few relevant slashdot articles, I wondered why an elected representative couldn't use online and in-person polling of constituents to decide the way he or she votes. Though we are living in the 'information age' and have rich communications media and opportunities for deep and accessible deliberation, we are getting by (poorly) with horse-and-buggy-era representation. In the spirit of science and because I think it's legitimately a better way of doing things, I recently announced my candidacy for Vermont's State Senate in Washington County." How do you think such polling could be best accomplished? Do you think it's worth trying? Whether or not you buy into it, it's something that's only been made feasible in recent times with modern technology.

Comments

It's Possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to set up the system so people can't vote multiple times. Otherwise they could have a bunch of bots automatically do thousands of votes to sway things however they wanted.

Re:It's Possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd also run into vocal minorities, which would be especially heavy as time wore on. John Q. Public doesn't really want to vote on every single bill or issue that arises, that's why he's happier with a republic than a direct democracy. Of course, if John is a heavy advocate of a fringe idea, he'll make sure to log on and vote at 6:00 AM sharp when that issue is up on this representative's poll page.

Over time, as people forget that they elected this guy, fewer and fewer people will bother voting, leading to decreasing accuracy. I don't think it would be the worst situation for the voters (certainly it would be harder for single entities to lobby), but it would come with its own set of political issues.

Re:It's Possible

[rtfa-troll]

You'd have to set up the system so people can't vote multiple times.....

There are so many other possibilities.

• people who aren't supposed to vote, manage to vote
• people who are supposed to vote get stopped voting through tricks (like in Canada)
• the right people vote, but a trojan changes their online vote to a different thing from the one they wanted
• a computer manufacturer or OS vendor uses their control to modify votes, just like the trojan
• a minority of people has time to vote, the rest of the people have to work to keep their families together
• a "special" minority of people go round people's houses and make sure they vote the "right" way.

Election security is difficult and makes voting processes slow and difficult. This is why democracies moved from direct voting to "representative democracy" in the first place.

Computers just make it much easier to get a wrong system into place. They don't actually make it easier to make a good system. Maybe in the long long term, once everybody has access to a properly vetted secure device from a trustworthy manufacturer then we might be able to start thinking about online voting. Until we have that, such ideas are just asking for disaster.

Re:It's Possible

[SilentStaid]

... a properly vetted secure device from a trustworthy manufacturer ...

There's the issue in a pinch, isn't it? Who vets it? Who makes it? Who determines the trustworthiness?

Let's decide on the group that gets to decide that by internet vote! We'll elect our representatives to make sure the system gets in place properly!...

Re:It's Possible

[drkich]

You mean vocal minorities like corporations that hire lobbyists?

Re:It's Possible

[rtfa-troll]

There's the issue in a pinch, isn't it? Who vets it? Who makes it? Who determines the trustworthiness?

That's simple. Me. rtfa-troll for uber-dictator^W^Wguardian of the world. You've seen my Slashdot postings. You know you can trust me.

Seriously, though, you could do this provided that you had fully peer reviewed open designs; had greatly developed circuit reverse-engineering and analysis; had developed quite a few isolation techniques such as efficient Homomorphic encryption and have enough experience with them to truly understand their security. We probably also need to have provenly secure public key cryptography and shown that quantum attacks against it are impossible. We certainly need to have developed a level of civics education which means that the average voter fully understands economic models, the limitations inherent in them and how to work with uncertainty; statistics, large number mathematics and government budgets; social structures, human interactions and how to work with them; etc. etc. etc.

In other words, we are probably several lifetimes away from being able to do this even approaching safely.

There are other, much safer and better ways to introduce more direct democracy; for example the Swiss referendum system.

Re:It's Possible

[tlhIngan]

a "special" minority of people go round people's houses and make sure they vote the "right" way.

This.

Here's a great way to do it - you go knocking on people's door with a WWAN-equipped tablet or laptop and say "Hi, we're petitioning for issue foo. We think it should pass, do you agree? If so, help us by signing our petition". Of course, the petition is really either the voting site thinly veiled (i.e., by signing, you're directly voting that way) or just some fancy proxy that votes for you.

(A petition is a request to put something up to vote, not how you'd actually vote...)

Re:It's Possible

[icebike]

Election security is difficult and makes voting processes slow and difficult. This is why democracies moved from direct voting to "representative democracy" in the first place.

The state of public/private key technology today suggests to me that the system could be reasonably safe from each of the points you list, other than the purely social ones, (people with interest and time). You can't expect a polling system to solve social issues, such as disinterested voters, or organized vote buying. But duplicate or authorized users should be able to be controlled by a system of public/private key pairs.

Other than state actors, I believe an Open Source on-line polling system where registration was still handled (or at least vetted) by election authorities, would be at least as safe as any system currently in place.

Remember that the professor is looking for feedback from his constituents as to how he should vote, he is not looking to replace the ballot box.
Perhaps this is where your worry about direct voting went off the rails. That is NOT what he is proposing.

Direct democracy provides the people with a direct, unfiltered voice in that government. Stopping somewhat short of that, Hansen proposes a system of direct democracy in combination with our current system of representative democracy. He suggests that, “A representative should be elected who would work strictly as an advisor and make all policy and voting decisions based on the will of his or her constituents, regardless of personal opinion.

So the bar is much lower than replacing the voting system. He is perfectly capable under current law to do exactly as he proposes, simply by setting up a web site and collecting opinions, and then voting that way.

And in this regard such a system (if done right, or even approximately right) is probably better than the current method of lobbyists and letter writers, and campaign contribution fueled decision making. It at least has the potential of being more open, and more transparent.

The risk is more from "anonymous" denial of service attackers taking down the system during polling periods when ever an issue they didn't like was under discussion. Even this could be somewhat mitigated by making so many targets (ip addresses) available that anonymous would run out of bot-power. But that solution is probably beyond the capabilities of any given representative and would have to be run at the state or at least county level.

Re:It's Possible

[zlives]

money = votes, so if you are a rich corp, you are automagically a majority

Re:It's Possible

[rsborg]

a minority of people has time to vote, the rest of the people have to work to keep their families together

A really interesting book that looks at direct voting (sci-fi, future-tech) is Alistair Reynold's The Prefect [1]. The author posits a future where a small part of the populace does indeed dominate issue-based direct voting (and have a greater than 1:1 proportional vote weight) but that their weighting is tied to outcomes, thus providing a "feedback loop" into the mix. Interesting take.

Regarding your overall premise, I agree - well, I guess my .sig pretty much shows my stance. Anyone who deals with any level of system security (web or otherwise) should really be appalled at the idea of no paper trail. Bits are too easy to flip.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Prefect-Alastair-Reynolds/dp/0575078189

Re:It's Possible

[Amorymeltzer]

Maybe, but the reason Mr. and Mrs. Public couldn't vote on every single bill or issue is time spent voting and time spent understanding and debating the issue. The advent of internet polling does away with the former - it's trivial to register a vote on an online poll every morning. As for the latter, well, since when have our elected officials fully and honestly understood and debated every bill? A large portion of what gets voted on is just "issue bills," and those are usually treated as if they're black and white concepts anyway. In the end, all this guy needs to do is efficiently and fairly distill the essence of each bill into a few bullet points that people can easily say "Yea" or "Nay" on. If that arrives in everyone's inbox by 7AM he can have most of his voting planned by 10AM.

Re:It's Possible

[Chakra5]

money = votes, so if you are a rich corp, you are automagically a majority

I beg to academically differ if i may

Money != votes....at least not the peoples votes and not directly. It requires our collective consent before translating into actual votes.

Money = advertising and influence
Influence/lobbying equals politician's votes surely
Advertising equals influence over sheeple , who then do indeed vote as directed (when bothering to take time from the cud).

So money ends up influencing votes in the most egregious way. But if people were to decide that it was time to end corruption and vote the bastards out in favor of real public servants, we could technically retire a sizable portion of congress in one fell swoop. And if we collectively put emphasis on getting educated about issues, thus making informed choices on our own ballot selections rather than allowing political advertising to hold such sway, there is nothing sort of mayhem that big $ could do about it.

OK, "yeah, right,...likely." is the response to that,...but the point still holds....we collectively consent to this mess. And we should never take that failure out of the equation. You're point that they become some manor of "majority" is taken, they are certainly trumping the people's business to an ridiculous and disgusting extreme. But they are a "majority" because we allow it.

Re:It's Possible

[barv]

"doesn't really want to vote on every single bill.."

Only those that will affect him.

"vocal minorities"

Just set a minimum count of votes (say 20% of eligible voters) that must be cast for an issue before the representative must vote as requested.

Re:It's Possible

[__aaltlg1547]

The regular political parties already do the will of vocal minorities.

Re:It's Possible

[Darinbob]

You're going to run into the problem of having a self-selected group that is not representative of the voting populace. Those with a lot of internet know how will engage, which is a minority of people, and you'll be the representative who's totally out of touch with computer illiterates. Also those with strong opinions will participate heavily while those with mild opinions (even if not neutral) will decline to spend time making these opinions known. This is the same as Yelp and other similar things.

Similarly you will get people with a strong vested interest in participating and encouraging others to participate. How do you know that someone is an average citizen versus a lobbyist or special interest or whatever? Or someone who pays others to keep filling out the polls.

Re:It's Possible

[edumacator]

l? A large portion of what gets voted on is just "issue bills," and those are usually treated as if they're black and white concepts anyway. In the end, all this guy needs to do is efficiently and fairly distill the essence of each bill into a few bullet points that people can easily say "Yea" or "Nay" on.

Who gets to distill it down to a few bullet points? That is precisely the reason that so many complicated bills get treated like black and white issues. The point of an elected official is to actually spend the time considering the complex and nuanced nature of the issue.

That is the problem with with using polls so much. The people being polled don't generally have the first clue about the topic being debated. We are supposed to be sending wise men and women to run our governments using measured reason and wisdom.

Re:It's Possible

[denmarkw00t]

Mod this guy up! An open, well-tested and well-monitored solution could someday be viable, but it has to be as open and clear as possible to avoid the problems associated with electronic voting, particularly over the internet. I think it will happen, but who knows when...probably when people start getting more unsatisfied with politics at a larger scale than they currently are.

Re:It's Possible

[zlives]

power corrupts
money is used to corrupt
politicians have power (given by people)
money corrupts politician
corps are people
corps are rich
rich people use money to corrupt politicians
can we vote out supreme court?

my thoughts != coherent

Re:It's Possible

[rtfa-troll]

The state of public/private key technology today suggests to me that the system could be reasonably safe from each of the points you list, other than the purely social ones,

I think that's a totally wrong assumption. Before you can do public/private key crypto safely you have to have a secure computer. Apparently most private computers are infected/compromised. When your machine is compromised you can make one vote and it can change it to another; you can check your vote and it can show you a different one. If that's true, then the whole game is lost.

If we can go five years or so without a single effective new computer virus or trojan being discovered for common systems, then we can maybe start to talk. Until then, the risks are just too great.

Re:It's Possible

[bogjobber]

Remember that the professor is looking for feedback from his constituents as to how he should vote, he is not looking to replace the ballot box. Perhaps this is where your worry about direct voting went off the rails. That is NOT what he is proposing.

True, but the moment he starts voting against the stated will of his constituents his entire platform goes down in flames. He may not be advocating direct democracy in the poly-sci sense, but I assume he's going to be campaigning as if it were. People will be rightfully indignant if he goes against their wishes a significant amount of the time.

I think it's interesting that he's trying this in Vermont. Vermont is pretty small and well-educated. It already has a lot of voter participation and limited direct democracy through their town hall meetings. And it's such a small population that I imagine regular voters can get fairly easy access to their representatives. It's not like at the federal level where lobbyists have such a disproportionate advantage over regular citizens.

I wonder if this idea would be more or less successful in Vermont than in other states.

Re:It's Possible

[BasilBrush]

Also those with strong opinions will participate heavily while those with mild opinions (even if not neutral) will decline to spend time making these opinions known.

If people decline to spend time making their opinions known, then they don't deserve to have their opinions count. Same as at an election.

Re:It's Possible

[icebike]

Remember that the professor is looking for feedback from his constituents as to how he should vote, he is not looking to replace the ballot box.
Perhaps this is where your worry about direct voting went off the rails. That is NOT what he is proposing.

True, but the moment he starts voting against the stated will of his constituents his entire platform goes down in flames.

As well it should go down in flames. If he is getting a surge of input from a significant number of his constituents and instead chooses to vote against those inputs, he, and the platform he ran on should go down to defeat in the next election.

If he decides to drop his public input scheme, he better have a goddamed good reason, because it may well turn out to be the bell that can't be un-rung, and his constituents may demand it back again or find someone who will re-instate it.

Re:It's Possible

[icebike]

You do understand that even private keys can require a passphrase don't you? Mere possession of someone's private key does not automatically get you in.

Further, when the constituent logs in, and finds that his opinion has already been registered, its his clue that he has been compromised, and further, since its merely an expression of his opinion, he can change it.

You would want constituents to be able to change their opinion right up to the time the floor vote was to take place.

(Note: I'm totally glossing over the statement "Apparently most private computers are infected/compromised.", for which you haven't presented a shred of evidence. Microsoft stats indicate 4 PCs per 1,000 for Windows 7, less for 64bit. Simply having some bad actors in your cookies does not constitute a compromise that would allow grabbing ones private key and the password thereto.)

Re:It's Possible

[jc42]

money = votes, so if you are a rich corp, you are automagically a majority

And in this case, the automatic response of many corporations will be to set up a new job position in charge of creating ids for all such voting, and learning how to maximize the corporation's contribution to the voting process.

I expect that this has already happened in many corporations ...

Re:It's Possible

[rtfa-troll]

You do understand that even private keys can require a passphrase don't you? Mere possession of someone's private key does not automatically get you in.

That would only be in very primitive systems unsuitable for this type of work. By the time you are talking about a voting system the private key should be stored in a hardware device and not even the owner of the key should have access to it. In systems where the private key is opened up with a passphrase, attacks would be trivial. My attacks were aimed at more advanced scenarios where you can't rely on direct key compromise and have to compromise the user interface which accesses the key. These types of systems would typically use combinations of codes and biometrics for key access.

Further, when the constituent logs in, and finds that his opinion has already been registered, its his clue that he has been compromised, and further, since its merely an expression of his opinion, he can change it.

I covered this when I said:

; you can check your vote and it can show you a different one.

In other words, when he logged in, it would show him the vote he thinks he's cast. Please note, though, that your security mechanism is actually making the vote buying attack much worse. Now the vote buyer can come back at any time and demand to see the constituent's vote; not just during the voting. Instead of having to visit every vote you buy, you just threaten to visit later and actually go to a small percentage of them. You can now buy hundreds of votes for the effort of visiting just a few voters.

You would want constituents to be able to change their opinion right up to the time the floor vote was to take place.

(Note: I'm totally glossing over the statement "Apparently most private computers are infected/compromised.", for which you haven't presented a shred of evidence. Microsoft stats indicate 4 PCs per 1,000 for Windows 7, less for 64bit. Simply having some bad actors in your cookies does not constitute a compromise that would allow grabbing ones private key and the password thereto.)

These are hard to come by numbers. Almost nobody wants to admit to being infected. Microsoft obviously has a horse in the race, so their opinion is worth even less than it usually is. Rate's given on the first places turning up in Google range from about 35% (Germany) through 58% (USA) up to 98% (Iran). See for example infosec island. Look around and most people claim approx 50%.

Re:It's Possible

[icebike]

Did you even follow read what you cited at infosec? No, I though not.
The link points to a single Jpg in some nondescript blog.
The blog sites the mere presence of a cookie from DoubleClick (now owned by Google) as an infection. It equates a cookie with infection!!!
Any you fall for it! Unbefrickinlievable.

Re:It's Possible

[Darinbob]

But you can vote without having to stand up and make a speech. Posting an opinion online is very difficult for many people, just as it is very difficult for other people to shut up.

legitimate polling?

[netwarerip]

How do you think such polling could be best accomplished?

Have a bunch of people walk around and ask other people questions, then have them log in via a portal and report the results.

Not everyone uses the internet, yet everyone should be represented. See the dilemma?

Re:legitimate polling?

[kelemvor4]

How do you think such polling could be best accomplished?

Have a bunch of people walk around and ask other people questions, then have them log in via a portal and report the results. Not everyone uses the internet, yet everyone should be represented. See the dilemma?

Not everyone votes in a traditional election, either. The percentage of the population with internet access far outweighs the percentage of the population who actually bother to go to the polls on election day. Further, anyone can go to a public library and access the internet for free.. at least they can do that in the state I live in.

Re:legitimate polling?

[Galestar]

Not everyone uses the internet, yet everyone should be represented.

If this became a widespread phenomenon, I'd agree with you. However this is one (potential) senator. If you don't have internet or don't believe in this model and live in his district you can vote against him in the general election like everyone else. You will not have been disenfranchised in any way, or at least no more than the current representational system.

I'd be more worried about the ability of the state or other powerful parties to disenfranchise a citizen by denying internet access, especially when it is done without being found guilty of anything in a court of law.

Re:legitimate polling?

[cpu6502]

>>>Not everyone uses the internet,

Why not. Netzero offers it for free. Netscape ISP offers unlimited net for $7/month. Anybody can afford to get online once a week, vote on the representative's website, then log-off.

Re:legitimate polling?

[icebike]

Not everyone uses the internet, yet everyone should be represented. See the dilemma?

And not everyone writes a letter to his representative to tell them how they think he should vote.
See That dilemma?

Please stay on track here. We are not talking about ELECTIONS.

This is NOT a system for ELECTING representatives, its a system for telling the representative how you would like them to vote.
If the representative gets ONLY 27 people demanding a For or Against an issue, out of 270,000 constituents it would be a clear indication that
nobody cares, and he should use his best judgement. On any issue for which a significant portion of the electorate cared enough to log in
and register their opinion (if even at a public library), a vote contrary to their wishes would stand out very publicly.

Do you see anyone auditing the letters your congressman receives on any issue?
Of course not.

This dilemma you worry so much about is already upon us, we've been living with it for 200 years and its getting worse day by day.

Re:legitimate polling?

[BasilBrush]

Polling like that tends to overrepresent the unemployed and the retired. They are the ones that are out on the streets, or at home during the day, and available to pollsters. Working people tend to be unavailable for polling by pollsters walking around.

Re:legitimate polling?

[s73v3r]

Yes, but now you're putting another artificial hurdle in the way of people making their opinion known.

slashdot polls

[anonymousNR]

Need I say more

A fantastic idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like mob rule to really get some well-thought-out laws passed.

Maybe we can all vote on criminal trial verdicts too.

Re:A fantastic idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we can all vote on criminal trial verdicts too.

Week 1: "Zimmerman's guilty, hang him!"
Week 10: "Oh, maybe he wasn't, unhang him. We can't? Oh..."

Re:A fantastic idea

[magarity]

This is exactly why even if this sounds like a good idea, it is not. The point of representative government is that one picks a representative, not a pass-through object. Representative candidate A takes certain positions on certain issues, representative candidate B take an alternative set of positions. Whoever is elected is supposed to do the dirty work of finding out that the proposed Sunshine For Kittens Act has nothing to do with neither sunshine nor kittens and vote for or against based on its actual provisions based on their platform. If you have an internet poll for "Should I vote for or against the Sunshine for Kitten Act (see link for details)" you're going to end up voting for it, even though the actual provisions are to spend billions on a combination tunnel/bridge across the Bering Sea. You can talk all you want about how voters are SUPPOSED to be informed, but if your experience in reality hasn't taught you the value of that truism yet, you'll never learn it.

Re:A fantastic idea

[GodInHell]

Maybe we can all vote on criminal trial verdicts too.

::cough:: Jury of our peers. What exactly is it you think juries DO to reach a verdict?

Re:A fantastic idea

[Baloroth]

::cough:: Jury of our peers. What exactly is it you think juries DO to reach a verdict?

Sit in court for days/weeks/months, listen to both sides' arguments and evidence, and assemble for a period of discussion among themselves for as long as it takes to reach a decision (after, of course, being vetted by both sides and the judge). The Internet... well, let's just say it tends to be a little less objective, far less informed, and significantly more hasty than that, 99% of the time. Would you want random Youtube commentators to decide your verdict in a trial?

Re:A fantastic idea

[Whorhay]

Of course not, but that isn't what is being proposed here. This is a candidate for elected office actually taking whatever position on an issue the people he represents dictate. The method used for polling is of debatable merit. But who would honestly complain about having a representative actually represent them?

The merit of such a system in my view is that it would help alleviate the absurdity of a two party system.

Re:A fantastic idea

[SiMac]

Week 1: "Zimmerman's guilty, hang him!"
Week 10: "Oh, maybe he wasn't, unhang him. We can't? Oh..."

While I certainly don't agree with GP's (sarcastic) position, this is really an argument against capital punishment, which, (barring invasive mind-reading technology) will always kill innocent people.

Re:A fantastic idea

[The1stImmortal]

The problem with the "Pick a representative based on the [realistic] choices available at election time" method is that you're forced to vote for someone who has a wide range of positions, some of which you may agree with, and some not so much. Unfortunately once elected representatives tend to assume they have approval for their whole platform, and anything else they may decide on later in their term, and act as such. Then by the time the next election rolls round they've spent 6-12 months appeasing people ready for the next election, and everyone's forgotten.

This is especially apparent with Australia's preferential voting system, which is designed to essentially give people the representative everyone hates least, rather than that the most people want. [As an aside this does seem to force the parties to get closer and closer on platform however - as everyone aims for the most central ground where they're most likely to be "least hated", especially given compulsory voting]

Yes I know the article's about the US.

The representative's job IMHO is/should be to represent the electorate - essentially do as he's told, and yes do some legwork interpreting laws and communication that interpretation back to their constituency. The representative therefore is a replaceable civil servant - the electoral process is in turn then just a method to ensure that the constituency control the representative and not the other way around.

In that light going back to the electorate to determine voting decisions seems like a great idea for a representative, as long as measures are taken to ensure fair representation occurs.

Perhaps we need a (working, not theoretical) FOSS platform for secure, anonymous, one-time-per-person polling? I've had a look around previously and haven't been able to find anything that's actually open and available now... any suggestions folks?

Re:A fantastic idea

[networkBoy]

I think the bar should be much higher than it is on average for capitol punishment, however, it is possible to only convict those who are guilty, with the tradeoff that very few will be hanged. This is ok. There are some for which recovery is impossible, a return to society impossible, and reprieve impossible. These should be hanged by the neck until dead.

There should never be *any* doubt prior to a capitol conviction (IMHO). If the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt then ok, incarcerate them. If the prosecution has proven beyond any doubt and the crime is that heinous, then hang them.

From a monetary aspect, however, I believe the death penalty is not sustainable.
-nB

Security

[sideslash]

So the most effective hacker gets to determine the representative's positions?

Re:Security

[XxtraLarGe]

While hacking the polls is one danger, the other danger is gaming it. If his constituents were polled and voted in favor of something he found morally reprehensible, would he still vote in favor of it, or would he claim that the poll broke his way? Who is going to verify the results?

Re:Security

[Hentes]

Still better than the richest corporation.

Re:Security

[Eightbitgnosis]

And so, by a vote of %5 no and 135% yes, the county shall now be known as "1337 R0X0R" county

Re:Security

[rsborg]

So the most effective hacker gets to determine the representative's positions?

I can just see the headlines now: "99% of the ballots were cast 2 seconds after polling was open!"

The First Thing I Thought of Was

[LifesABeach]

What if the constituents that want to voice their opinion don't have access to the 'net?

The other thought that came to mind is, "um, do you feel compelled to sign a 'pledge'?" If so, then as a solid Republican since '71; I say, "we don't need you."

Re:The First Thing I Thought of Was

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has the ability to access the internet these days. The public libraries I've known have had computers with internet access in them since the 90s and I bet by now virtually all of them do.

Not a better way

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wondered why an elected representative couldn't use...polling of constituents to decide the way he or she votes."

Because the electorate are stupid and ignorant, and malware will be developed to submit votes.

"In the spirit of science and because I think it's legitimately a better way of doing things'

If you really believe these things, then you should absolutely never hold any public office whatsoever.

Ignoring your constituency is very bad; doing exactly what they say is worse.

Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Use slash dot polls!

Re:Let's be honest here

[zero.kalvin]

I'll the give them the same trust I give a man who can cross his legs with ease!

People need mediation

[Tester]

Even if the polling could be made to work to get a true representation of the people's will (and not of some determined hackers, social engineer or just well organised group), there is a much bigger problem. One of the important uses of representative democracy is that the People are often wrong about the details, and you can't let them make all the choices. As an example, see California, which has a very strong popular initiave system (referendums), and they voted themselves low taxes and lots of services, and now the state is more or less bankrupt. And California how has a constitution that runs hundreds of pages with all kind of crap added by referendums. You can't trust the average man to know what's best in details. That why we vote for politicians along broad principles and let them figure out the details.

Re:People need mediation

[mycroft16]

I think the important thing is to use the polling system to gather information about public opinions, not necessarily as a vote to approve or set policy. Especially if competently coupled with facts, pros and cons from both sides written and vetted so that they are as honest and truthful as possible. I've actually been thinking about coding something like this for quite some time.

Re:People need mediation

[Sarten-X]

What are you saying? Are you trying to imply that 4chan isn't the best choice for President?

Re:People need mediation

[Sarten-X]

So it's like every other government poll/petition site, where the popular but shortsighted positions get replies that are politically-correct forms of "fuck off, dimwits", then people complain that their idiocy isn't being fairly represented?

Re:Let's be honest here

[Missing.Matter]

Given the kind of content at places like 4chan, can you really honestly say you care about the opinion of people with the internet?

Like Henry Ford said...

[bigredradio]

Leaving all the decisions up to popular vote makes for poor decision making because the general public (usually) are not as informed as the lawmakers. Like Henry Ford said, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[kelemvor4]

Leaving all the decisions up to popular vote makes for poor decision making because the general public (usually) are not as informed as the lawmakers. Like Henry Ford said, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."

It's amazing the similarities in decision making skills between the general public and elected officials, isn't it?

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, TFS seems to imply that representative democracy was some kind of compromise based on logistics rather than a conscious choice. Even ignoring the lack of knowledge and understanding the average person has of complex issues, the tyranny of the majority is very real and something that all democracies need to keep a careful eye on. To use the most obvious of historical examples, in 1860 more than 50% of those eligible to vote supported slavery. That didn't make them right. And even looking past that, the practicalities of direct democracy go far past the logistics of collecting votes. Everyone will gladly vote for every tax break and most spending initiatives, then stand around wondering what happened when the city/state/country goes broke. Managing a national government is a full time job, best left to people able to work on it full time.

*Disclaimer: I have zero faith in the current US Government and the way it operates. I just don't think direct democracy is anything resembling the solution since the only thing I have less faith in than the US Government is the US general voting population.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[networkBoy]

The HOA did it wrong, in the same meeting they reopened the pool there should have been a fees increase to cover the cost of reopening and ongoing operation of the pool and related facilities/areas. Then she would have had to hold a sign saying "re-open the pool without me paying for it" ;)

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[r0ball]

The current state of the system in California is a good present-day example, where the people vote simultaneously for lower taxes and more expensive public services. There was a really good 'Special Report' on this in The Economist sometime last year, beginning with: The People's Will.

Quite long, but worth popping a Ritalin(TM) to read:

California’s democracy is not at all like America’s, as conceived by founders such as James Madison. The federal constitution is based on checks and balances within and among three and only three branches of government—executive, legislative and judicial. That is because Madison feared that popular “passions” would undo the republic, that majorities might “tyrannise” minorities, and that “minority factions” (ie, special interests) would take over the system. America’s was therefore to be a representative, not a direct, democracy. “Pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention,” Madison wrote, “and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[BooRolla]

I think the point on slavery is a good one, but one could counter with marijuana laws. More than 50% of the population would repeal them today. Do you think the people would vote to invade Iran or stay forever in some country we've liberated? Maybe not the same scale but real wars and the war on drugs certainly restrict freedoms. the war on drugs more so since people end up in jail which is analogous to slavery. And as far as voting for lower taxes and more benefits, that sounds like what we get today with our reps. I'm not saying direct vote on things would be ideal, but seems like we have these issues today. I can understand the want to try something different

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[bigredradio]

This is the typical arm-chair quarterback responses that make governing via teh interwebs a bad idea. Most law makers hold advanced degrees (J.D., MBA, P.H.D, etc). Most have studied public policy and have spent time in local government before jumping to congress. It would not be my choice in a line of work, but they have decided that it is what they want to do. Sure, most are influenced by campaign donors, but usually they align themselves with donors that are like-minded. I would bet few sell their soul (given they have one) to a donor that they completely disagree with.

As a citizen, I can protest all I want and try to apply pressure on our ELECTED representatives. I don't see why I can't cry or fuss if I think they are aren't working in my best interest. This is how representative democracy works. True democracy will just turn into chaos.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[steelfood]

That's because we've gone from a Republic to a direct democracy. There's a difference between electing our own senators, and having our state legislature pick them. It's a subtle difference, and the current method appears to be better. But it's not.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[chill]

The exact same way they vote now. Democrat activists will bus them to the polls.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[CityZen]

I agree. But it's not all or nothing. People should be able to decide on things that don't matter so much (it makes them feel empowered)*.
For the things that matter, polling is still a good idea, assuming that you limit it to only those people who know what they're talking about.
So perhaps a good solution is to include a quiz, the results of which provide a weight factor for each poll entry.
If properly designed, it will help root out the automated entries. Of course, that's a bit of work.
And of course, corruption is possible by the poll maker as well. Lots of possible pitfalls here.

* (This is what our two-party system provides: it doesn't really matter, since both pay homage to the corporate money pipe.)

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[DarkVader]

Well, what we have now IS better than state legislators electing senators.

But it's terrible. If we're going to have a bicameral legislature, we need to district the senate, and stop tying it to the states at all. There is absolutely NO legitimate reason that North Dakota should have as much representation as New York.

I think a better option would be a unicameral legislature that proposes bills, and a direct public vote for them to become law. We have the technology to do it now.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[Doc Ruby]

Both the Drug War and all our foreign wars since December 1941 have violated the Constitution. The Constitution prevents the Federal government from running a military budget for longer than 2 years, requires Congress declares war, and even discourages a standing army in favor of a National Guard. We have never actually abided the Constitutional prescription for war. And we have been perpetually at war since we started the country with one. After a while we even gave up the formalities.

But we've been doing it so long now that the country might be running out of steam. Certainly the perpetual Drug War is harder every day to keep funding and fighting. The foreign wars too, since we've also lost every war we've started, minus a few exceptions that prove the rule, since we stopped declaring them.

We should insist on war declarations and a permanent end to civil wars like the Drug War. We should insist that deficits be voted only in the same terms that we declare war: to deal with a specific cause, as a last resort, and with a declared exit strategy before committing. Until we run the country like that, we'll stay screwed. These days seem like the best time to make that point enough that we actually act on it.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[Doc Ruby]

Polling places are so close to where people live that buses aren't necessary.

Except when Republicans make them so far from Democrats that they are indeed too hard to reach. Like how you Republicans stole Ohio in 2004. Which is precisely why your Fox masters feed you BS like you just regurgitated: because that is your crime, that you blame on the victims.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[DarkVader]

You're full of shit.

23 representatives with PhDs. 17 with MDs. 166 with JDs. 22 with MBAs. All together, that's not even a majority, certainly not what I'd call "most".

And now that we have the technological capability to put true democracy into play on a massive scale, it's probably time to do it. What we've got DOESN'T work, it's been broken since nearly the beginning but it's been the best we've ever been able to put together. Coupled with strong constitutional civil rights protections, direct democracy could be the best thing so far. It would certainly be capable of being the most fair.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[ranton]

23 representatives with PhDs. 17 with MDs. 166 with JDs. 22 with MBAs.

Those numbers add up to 228 advanced degrees, which is about 52% of the House of Representatives. Heck, almost 60% of Senators have law degrees. I haven't checked the numbers you gave, but you seem to have validated that most congressmen have advanced degrees (there is likely overlap, such as a JD having an MBA, but even being close to 50% is pretty high). And considering that about 10% of citizens have Masters degrees or higher, the average knowledge of a congressmen far exceeds the knowledge of the average voter.

What we've got DOESN'T work, it's been broken since nearly the beginning but it's been the best we've ever been able to put together. Coupled with strong constitutional civil rights protections, direct democracy could be the best thing so far. It would certainly be capable of being the most fair.

In my opinion one of the very things breaking our system is how politicians have to adhere to so many of the rediculous wishes of the majority. Giving more power to the voters would just result in half the taxes and twice the social programs.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[Fjandr]

Originally the States were intended to be nearly completely separate sovereign entities, with a Federal government providing a limited role in dealing with external entities and mediating internal disputes. With the way the Supreme Court has expanded certain clauses in the Constitution, modern government bears little resemblance to what the intended balance of power was, which is why a bicameral legislature seems redundant today.

It was a way to slow government down, and while many of the "fast-forwards" happened to correct abuses they also set the precedent that it was alright to ignore process in favor of expediency. As a result, few respect the process anymore. Some don't because they believe it was a failure to use it as intended. Some don't because they recognize it frequently has been ignored, rather than being used as intended. Some don't because they conflate the way the process has been used with the way the process is supposed to be used.

In the end, I'm inclined to agree that there should be a unicameral legislature and a referendum process nationally.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[s73v3r]

There is absolutely NO legitimate reason that North Dakota should have as much representation as New York.

Why not? What makes North Dakota not worthy of equal representation?

Besides, we already have a part of the legislature tied to population. Tying both of them to population gives the populous areas disproportionate representation. Do you really want California making most of the decisions?

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[chill]

I'm not a Republican. I didn't vote R in 2004. I don't watch Fox. I just don't ever remember seeing a R bus in people to where they can vote, only ever Ds.

I didn't mean to imply it was a "dirty trick", just a simple statement of fact. Assume I was giving a compliment to Ds for caring enough to assist people in exercising their Constitutional Rights.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[Doc Ruby]

Where's your evidence of this Democratic bussing that you're complimenting as a fact?

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[chill]

Evidence? I'm talking personal anecdote. I was a volunteer poll worker in the 2008 elections in DuPage County.

Churches in the town alternated weeks on being open at night and providing homeless a place to sleep and an evening meal.

They used the opportunity for other activities, like AA/NA meetings, worship service, etc. One of those was a "register to vote" activity, where they helped people register to vote and get proper ID.

During the actual voting on election day the homeless that wanted to vote went to the churches who used their vans and mini-buses to give them a ride to the proper polling place. Free coffee and donuts to all who showed up with an "I voted" sticker later -- homeless or not -- at the churches.

Most, not all, who did this were Democrats.

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[Doc Ruby]

OK, I take your word for it.

I apologize for contradicting you. But you hit a nerve: Republicans routinely prevent people from voting who are most likely Democrats (or just not reliable Republican voters), while accusing "Democratic activists" of stuffing the ballot boxes. I get defensive about it, even though I'm not a Democrat. I just care about justice. Sorry for taking it too far.

Resolved: "Howard Stern's Penis is Amazing"

[crazyjj]

Happy, Senator Hansen?

Bad Idea

[nuckfuts]

Even if one disregards the technical hurdles, the very idea of government run strictly by polling is ill advised. Firstly, poll results are heavily influenced by the wording of the questions. This would essentially be handing over a great deal of influence to whoever gets to phrase the questions. Secondly, it is likely to encourage demagogy.

We already have this - it's called..."polling"

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> an elected representative (could use)...polling of constituents to decide the way he or she votes

We already have this. It's called..."polling", and it's a major function of entrenched political parties and their support groups.

Of course, the way the question is phrased has a lot to do with the outcome (remember opposition to the "dihydrogen oxide" plants?), so political support groups spend time crafting polling questions that help show that the majority is clearly with their team. (e.g., "Do you support the terrorists and my opponent, or apple pie and me?")

So, meh. Interesting proposal, but ridiculously naive.

Virtual Representatives

[Bigby]

Why not just remove the representatives completely? With that strategy, you get rid of the worst problem in government: lobbyists. If anyone in the country could be voting, then they will have to lobby everyone and no one has problem with that.

The voting could be statistical and random. Use some nice mathematics and multiple ways to vote from verified citizens and certificates. Just get the thing done. Institute a requirement for a super majority (60-80%) to pass anything. Bam! Problems solved.

As far as those without the Internet, statistics and public libraries could be the answer. Or, we could still have a vote by phone option.

Re:Virtual Representatives

[Attila Dimedici]

What gets me is the number of people who fail to realize that the majority of lobbyists work for non-profit organizations, from Greenpeace to the NRA. That is the majority of lobbyists are hired by groups of people who have gotten together and pooled their money so as to petition Congress to take action on issues that are of particular concern to them...you know, the way some here on slashdot have done concerning Network Neutrality.

Re:Virtual Representatives

[neurophil12]

What gets me is the number of people who fail to realize that the majority of lobbyists work for non-profit organizations, from Greenpeace to the NRA. That is the majority of lobbyists are hired by groups of people who have gotten together and pooled their money so as to petition Congress to take action on issues that are of particular concern to them...you know, the way some here on slashdot have done concerning Network Neutrality.

Granted Bigby seems to be making that mistake, but I think that when most people say "lobbyist" they really mean "corporate lobbyist". Some people may not understand the difference, and special interests are a problem in any system of government, but corporate special interests are a special problem because corporations (or the associations that represent them) represent only peoples' commercial and financial interests. There is a legal firewall between those interests and all other interests (e.g. environmental, social, civil/human rights).

Non-corporate special interests may be less influential in a direct democracy, but I would certainly disagree with Bigby's claim that lobbyists/special interests are in general the worst problem. That is an incredibly poor generalization.

Not A Good Idea

[kaellinn18]

Here's how I see it. Feel free to add your own. It would be an interesting experiment, but I think the cons may outweigh the pros. Pros: -True democracy -Actual representation of the constituents -Ability to gauge public opinion on X almost instantly -People may get more interested in politics and more willing to participate Cons: -True democracy (all people are ignorant on a large amount of subjects which could lead to poor decisions en masse) -Uninformed voters, instead of voting for a person to make decisions, will now be voting on specific items. -Representative not free to act without first consulting the people. This would be cumbersome. -How do you deal with decisions based on classified information? -How do you propose a law? Do you have to go through a draft process with your state citizens first? -What happens when your constituents make a choice that you can not in good conscience follow through on? Say they are against equal marriage rights and you are for it.

Re:Not A Good Idea

[kaellinn18]

Ugh, let's try this again with formatting. Note to self: preview exists for a reason. Here's how I see it. Feel free to add your own. It would be an interesting experiment, but I think the cons may outweigh the pros.

Pros:
-True democracy
-Actual representation of the constituents
-Ability to gauge public opinion on X almost instantly
-People may get more interested in politics and more willing to participate

Cons:

-True democracy (all people are ignorant on a large amount of subjects which could lead to poor decisions en masse)
-Uninformed voters, instead of voting for a person to make decisions, will now be voting on specific items.
-Representative not free to act without first consulting the people. This would be cumbersome.
-How do you deal with decisions based on classified information?
-How do you propose a law? Do you have to go through a draft process with your state citizens first?
-What happens when your constituents make a choice that you can not in good conscience follow through on? Say they are against equal marriage rights and you are for it.

Re:Let's be honest here

[zero.kalvin]

4chan represents human nature! Well a certain aspect of it. It is just a place where thoughts that were concealed and buried away comes to life. But it is human!

Aha..Another Newcomer

[Cornwallis]

Vermont has a long tradition of town meetings where people actually meet - in person - to discuss the issues.

It has worked pretty well. Too bad yet another newcomer feels the need to remake Vermont in his image.

Maybe I can get Avi Rubin to run against him.

Re:Bah, Hum buggy

[magarity]

You're a Spartan?

He doesn't understand the job he is applying for

[rgbrenner]

This guy clearly doesn't understand the job he's applying for. We live in a REPUBLIC.. which means we elect people to vote on our behalf for/against proposed laws.

Our founders knew that people did not have the time to read, understand, and vote on each and every issue.

Do you really think technology changes that? In the 2009-2010 congress, there were: 9239 proposed bills, 998 acted on by the congress, 26 failed, and 366 enacted = 10629 bills.

Each one hundreds or even thousands of pages long.

So seriously ask yourself: do you have time to read a several hundred page law, filled with legalese and references to other laws, 29 times per day every day of the year?

There's a reason why our REPRESENTATIVES have dozens of staff.

Number of votes = number of people who don't care

[Ameryll]

I always thought it would be interesting to try this system:

Each Senator (or Congressman) get N votes, where N is the number of their voters minus the number of their constituents that care enough about the issue to vote on it themselves. So if there's a vote on an issue (say for changing the calendar to an 8 day week), and 100 constituents in Smallville care enough about this to vote on this, they get to vote however they wish. If you're the Senator of Smallville population 500, you now cast a vote equal to 400 votes.

There are problems with this system. A) It encourages Senators to play down a particular vote if they think the populace will go against their interests B) It may lead to the majority suppressing the minority in bad ways (like racial, sexual, or gender in-equalities) C) could potentially take a lot of time D) could require people to understand lawyer-speak.

But I think it has some interesting pros. A) It means that on an issue where the corporations are throwing their weight around with kickbacks to the Senators, the public just needs to mobilize and the Senators are powerless because they don't have any votes left. We know that people *can* mobilize. They did when SOPA hit the senate floor. And the public could find ways to make sure people know what's being voted on. B) It may nerf the current policy of tacking unrelated items together to get them through the senate.

A better idea.

[C10H14N2]

Get elected, actually READ legislation before voting on it, actually WRITE legislation you submit, abstain from or vote no on anything where neither of the above are possible.

The "horse and buggy" model isn't just because of distance. It is because even the most well-informed voter cannot possibly have the time to comprehend every piece of legislation that comes up, so they vote for someone who generally aligns with their interests who's f'ing JOB it is to know how to analyze and vote accordingly WITHOUT a f'ing poll of the consituents, who honestly might as well be your cats. You risk voting "NO" on necessary, well thought legislation and "YES" on outright insanity at the whim of easily manipulated ignoramuses responding not to measured reason, but irrational frenzy.

This sort of crap is NOT being responsive to your constituents, it's being willfully lazy, actively incompetent and easily used.

internet makes it easier to cheat then in the old

[Joe_Dragon]

internet makes it easier to cheat then in the old days of voteing.

Hell you can code a page to make it look like you voted but make it really vote for the other guy or not even take your vote at all.

your employer can make you vote at work there way

[Joe_Dragon]

your employer can make you vote at work their way with your boss breathing down your back as you vote online at work.

Re:This is why we are a Republic, not a democracy

[kelemvor4]

Because we don't individually have time to research and analyze all the issues. So we hire people to do it as a full time job.

This guy is basically asking his constituents to do his job for him, while ignoring the fact that they're mostly guaranteed to screw it up.

An elected official's "Job" is to represent the will of the people who elected him.

Some of the major flaws

[dkleinsc]

1. Those without Internet get no vote.
2. Ballot-stuffers, firewalls, botnets, etc.
3. The most vocal and thus most likely to vote are not necessarily representative of the public's opinion. Case in point: The Parent's Television Council, which represents about 120,000 people, is able to dictate what the other 300 million people in the US are allowed to see on broadcast television.
4. Those without the time to do the research don't vote in a way that makes any sense.

Re:Some of the major flaws

[dkleinsc]

Everyone has the Internet now

Roughly 30% of Americans had no Internet access as of 2011, including over 40% of poor and not-white people. So no, not everybody has the Internet now.

Its about time!

[PetiePooo]

One big plus: you're opponent can't wield the "wishy-washy" label over you. "It's not my stance, it's that of the people."

Another plus: you get to brush off the lobbyists with, "you're talking to the wrong person. Go convince my constituents."

Go. Experiment. Learn. Then run for a federal congress-critter position. They could all use a little more "by the people, for the people."

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it have to be all or nothing? Can't we have both? A representative that runs his staff and goes through all the legislation and decides which ones they would like to advocate for. The representative then makes a brief case for each piece of legislation and solicits feedback from his constituents.

It doesn't have to be a pass-through so much as a check that the representative is ACTUALLY representing his constituents...

Re:Who cares about poor people anyway?

[Imrik]

Too bad there isn't a place where people can access the internet for free, regardless of economic standing. While we're at it, lets put a bunch of books there for people who can't or don't want to buy their own so they can educate themselves as well.

How will he ever be elected?

[vlm]

How will he ever be elected?

Our system is based on "one dollar one vote" more or less whoever donates the most re-election funds.

So his election donors have no idea how he will vote, vs the other guy who will do what he is paid to do.

Will he be able to afford to run a campaign at all?

LiquidFeedback ?

[oneiros27]

I assume that he'd use something that's already been tested, like LiquidFeedback, which was developed by members of German Pirate Party. ... or any of the other ones in the list of active or related projects listed at metagovernment.org

Democracy reduced to data

[anyaristow]

I don't just want an elected official to do what I say. If I'm honest I'll admit that I don't give things that aren't my full-time job enough consideration to make decisions I want acted on. I want my elected official to spend more time considering it that I did. I want him to take into account my wishes, and the wishes of everyone else he represents, but also do some research that I didn't do, surround himself with experts that I don't have access to, and talk to people that aren't in my social circles, and make a better decision than I can. I vote for people I hope can do these things with diligence and integrity, not people who will vote the will of a million uninformed people.

Re:Bah, Hum buggy

[thomasw_lrd]

I know you are being tongue in cheek with this remark, but I think our Founding Father's might have actually had a clear plan in mind when they said you had to own property to vote.

I think it has to do with being invested in the future of the country. Maybe we should bring something like this back. It doesn't have to be property, but maybe paying taxes? Just something to show you are actually a responsible citizen.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of
: government. It can only exist until the voters discover
: that they can vote themselves largesse from the Public
: Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes
: for the candidate promising the most benefits from the
: Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always
: collapses over loose fiscal policy always to be followed by
: dictatorship.

: The average age of the worldâ€s greatest civilizations has
: been 200 years. Those nations always progress through the
: following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith,
: from spiritual faith to great courage,
: from great courage to liberty,
: from liberty to abundance,
: from abundance to selfishness,
: from selfishness to complacency,
: from complacency to dependency,
: from dependency back into bondage."

: â€"Alexander Fraser Tytler Lord Woodhouselee (1748-1813),
: "The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic",
: Scottish historian at Edinburgh University

Re:Who cares about poor people anyway?

[ZeroSumHappiness]

And let's also give them extra time to get there between holding down two jobs and taking care of their kids.

What would you say you do here?

[somarilnos]

It sounds way too much like this guy is trying to make a living off of being Tom Smykowski from Office Space. Let everyone else do your job for you, and make money off of it. Quite a dream, eh?

At the end of the day, there's a hell of a lot more to being a legislator than taking the votes from the people and giving them to the senate. It's about taking complex problems, and coming up with complex solutions, combined with the sales component of convincing people that that's how they would have wanted it to be solved.

Re:This is why we are a Republic, not a democracy

[Atzanteol]

An elected official owes the people not only his industry but his judgement. And he betrays them if he sacrifices it for their opinion.

Paraphrased.

This is not why we elect people

[vinn]

First off, I'm an elected official and sit on a town council, so I have some insight in this. This sounds crass, but people are too dumb to understand every issue and special interests will get constituents to manipulate polls.

The reason we have elected officials is quite simply because the process of governing in a democracy is time consuming and requires people who can devote time to actually studying issues and making decisions. The average person may have time to study an issue here or an issue there, but no one has time to study every proposed bill and dig through the gory details of all state statutes. That's not to say you need to be a lawyer to understand this stuff, because most of the time you don't, but you need time. It's also not to say most people can't understand a particular topic, because 90% of the time most people can, it's understanding how they relate that gets difficult. For example, there could be a proposed bill for something like "Allow counties to assess 100% of voted mills for rural fire department special districts that choose not to collect their entire levied mills." Well, it may not make any sense and may need to die in committee if a bill was passed last year that says, "Rural fire department special districts crossing county lines must follow the same boundaries as school districts unless a park district exists along the same boundaries with a corresponding mill levy." Really exciting stuff that most people just aren't going to care about.

Even assuming people can intimately spend time to understand issues, it's astonishing how much people want to just jump on special interest bandwagons. When it comes to state issues, all it takes is some large outfit to take notice and rile up it's base. If you're going to poll people, you're simply going to get a skewed poll on any subject and moderates are going to get drowned out. That's the last thing we need. Take the example above - one group can easily skew it to say, "The county governments want to raise your taxes and take more money from you!" Another group could easily say, "We absolutely better fire protection and here's a way to do it without raising taxes." Both groups could be right, both could be wrong, or the answer is something more gray and in the middle. Most likely it's gray and in the middle and most likely mindboggingly boring and most likely only brought up because Rep. Joe Smith in West County ran into the issue, needed clarification in the state statutes about it, and it's going to be another 50 years before someone else cares about it.

Now, having said that, I think anything that gets people to get involved with their government is a good thing. Most people simply like to bitch about it without understanding it or participating in it. (Hey you - if you've never gone to your local town council meeting, you should do it sometime just to see how it works. You'll learn something about the people you vote for.)

Re:This is not why we elect people

[aurispector]

All excellent points.

To distill it even further, how would we make unpopular decisions? Tyranny of the masses is not an effective form of government.

It's called "representative democracy"

[Tim Ward]

My constituents vote me into office to do the work for them.

This evening after a four hour formal public committee meeting I made decisions on two related items, for which I'd had to read and understand a 1,500 page agenda pack, most of which I'd seen (and contributed to) several times before in the various drafting stages over the past few months.

Now, who do you suppose is in a better position to make a good decision:

(a) the elected politician, who has done all the above work (plus many hours of informal private meetings to get to that point)

(b) some random constituent clicking on a couple of buttons on an online poll they don't know, and don't care, anything about?

The Lesser Voice

[SuperKendall]

as long as things are kept small and local, it should give people a less-infinitesmal voice.

How does it give PEOPLE a less-infinitesmal voice, when the percentage of responses that are generated automatically by hackers will far outnumber real people?

Yes, even at a state level. Why would it not be so?

I cannot believe a CS professor came up with this plan, unless he basically has the polls pre-rigged for the result he desires and the polls are just there to lent legitimacy to his choices.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Let's be honest here

[JustOK]

But it is human!

[citation needed]

Terrible idea!

[GodfatherofSoul]

Pure democracies do no work; that's there hasn't been one in in 2000 years (if even that counts). The average person simply isn't informed enough about every issue to make valid decisions. Plus, you have to guarantee near total participation for even the theory to work. In our society of imbalanced access to resources, you're invariably going to end up with a daily voting class (probably wildly slanted to retirees) disenfranchising the working/busy/disconnected members of society who won't be able to log in every day to pick which street gets new curbs. Yes, representative democracies are flawed, but do you really want every schmoe in the country voting up or down on minutia?

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[rgbrenner]

We have something even better than that...

If you have an opinion (strongly or not) on a piece of pending legislation, you can CALL or WRITE your representative.

So even if your rep chooses not to solicit your opinion on an issue, if enough people write and call to voice their opinion, the rep may choose to change his vote, so that he doesn't risk losing the next election on an issue people feel so strongly about.

Isn't that cool? It's like some smart people over the last 200 years have thought out a thing or two about our system.

Direct Democracy

[coastin]

This Swiss have just about got this figured out. It is called Direct Democracy: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/switzerland_for_the_record/world_records/The_Swiss_vote_more_than_any_other_country.html?cid=8483932 Several years ago I was visiting a friend in Sion Switzerland, when he excused himself for a few minutes saying that he had to vote on an important issue. He then turned on the TV where the representative for that district was speaking, picked up his home land-line phone, dialed several numbers and after just a couple of minutes he hung up. He explained that big insurance companies wanted to pass a law mandating that all vehicles be outfitted with a monitoring device that would record the drivers driving habits. As we watched the vote total shown on the TV, the representative explained that although there were vastly more cars on the roads than in the 1950s the safety of drivers had increased greatly and that the mandate was not justified. The public vote overwhelmingly defeated the new law and the representative cast his vote in favor of his constitutes. From what I witnessed that day, it seems like a Direct Democracy works very well in most cases.

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'reason' you quote is THE PROBLEM.
 
Can we pretend for one second that "government" is not exactly complicated, and that legalese exists entirely to obfuscate the purpose of the law? Because that is the reality, even if you don't know it. The vast majority of bills introduced could be boiled down to a handful of simple yes or no questions. The really complicated stuff, should just be immediately canned. There isn't any need for it.
 
75 years ago California and the Steel workers union built a big ass bridge, UNDER budget, EARLY, and CORRECT. 10 years ago California and 28 various organizations teamed up to build another bridge. It's a BILLION DOLLARS over budget, it's 2 years late and it's not even close to done. Now, you are probably asking what this has to do with your post. Everyone else thinks the answer is obvious.
 
The problem isn't that this stuff is hard, or complicated. It's that YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT BULLSHIT.

The majority ain't always right

[macraig]

So what if you e-polled your constituents about, say, reinstating slavery, public segregation, revocation of black voting rights, or renewed forced sterilization of mentally ill people, and a majority responded in favor of it? Would you slavishly honor the will of that misguided majority, or would you try to inject a little meta-parental oversight into it?

Democracy ain't perfect. I hope this dude recognizes that, aside from his little publicity stunt.

More information is better than less

[clovis]

You may have already realized from the comments that many of the respondents took what you said:
"I wondered why an elected representative couldn't use online and in-person polling of constituents to decide the way he or she votes."
and interpreted it as:
"I wondered why we couldn't use online and in-person polling of constituents to decide the whether or not a bill is passed."
I think that is a reasonable interpretation, but I doubt that's what you meant.

I'm going with the belief that you meant to say something more like :
"I wondered why an elected representative couldn't use online and in-person polling of constituents to assist with deciding the way he or she votes."
If you did mean "to decide the whether or not a bill is passed.", I have a bowl of hot grits ready for your pants.

However, I'm of the belief that more information better than less even if some (or much) of the information you get is nonsense, what I think you're proposing is a good idea. If you're thinking of simply having online polling, I would rather you did something else.

Find someone who can setup a slashdot server for your constituents.
I suggest that you control it so that you initiate the topics, decide how you want moderation done, and let us have at it.
You will learn more than you had hoped, and some of it will be useful.

Re:Let's be honest here

[lister king of smeg]

i thought that 4chan is where trolls went to breed and reproduce

Empirical testing, starting on a Small Scale

[Anonymous Coward]

This post and others before it take this proposal rather bluntly. When he mentions "opportunities for deep and accessible deliberation" this could mean a wide range of possibilities. We can see this proposal as anything on a spectrum from a mere online discussion forum, to more frequent referendums, all the way to you voting on every bill. There are countless configurations such systems could have.

Some of the more feasible and preferable possibilities in my opinion:
- I still choose a representative because, as mentioned, its not practical for me to read every proposition
- When (all/some) Laws are up for a vote, and I have a special stake in it going one way or another, I can take my vote back from the representative and cast it myself
- At the very least I would like to see a slashdot-like discussion platform supported by the government in a party-neutral way. The representatives and their staff can help inform people of the critical details in those huge bills.

Other possibilities that might also be interesting but which are logistically even more questionable:
- Choosing person A for representation on all Financial Matters and person B for representation on all Environmental matters
- Allowing people to change their representative at any time, or at least more frequently then now

As for the danger of demagogy, and the increasing role of human bias in the voting process, I would tend to agree its a risk. On the other hand the current system also has the same risk. The essential question is: "Does this System of Social Organization Amplify or Dampen human bias?"

What do we love about science? Its an awesome human bias dampener.

Perhaps we should experiment with these ideas by slowly allowing more voter participation, and doing empirical research to see how we can reduce human bias. Starting with local government and simpler laws seems to me to be a good testing ground. It has the benefit that its more tractable, and failure is confined to a small geographic and legislative region.

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[rgbrenner]

The vast majority of bills introduced could be boiled down to a handful of simple yes or no questions. The really complicated stuff, should just be immediately canned. There isn't any need for it.

So we make the bills simpler, try to boil everything down to a few sentences, and ignore anything more complicated? Yes, this sounds like a great idea </sarcasm>

BTW, if congress writes a simple bill that says the government will carry out task X. Guess who's responsible for doing that? The executive branch/the President.

Just because you write a simple bill does not mean the complexity has gone away. And if the bill does not specify HOW to do X, then the President will decide how that is done.

In other words, you have turned the president into a super-representative. You've concentrated power in the President.

How is that better than 400+ people deciding?

If you like dictators, you're welcome to leave.

Platform of Internet Trolling

[PeanutButterBreath]

Plank One -- Nonsensical polling idea that will be sure to attract attention.

Horrid Idea asking the public

[johnwerneken]

When I've been elected to represent x thousand people I've never been terribly concerned about my constituents' opinions - after all it was my job to determine what their opinions were to be for I was the leader...as in, the one who had to bring home the bacon, to show visible progress in addressing perceived material and emotional needs. Which I did. Without asking for advice thank you. A government can barely function as a synthetic mob, turn it into an actual mob, and nothing but the fad of the moment will ever find support. Heaven help such a country.

Something I'd ask every politician...

[rrohbeck]

What's your price?

Re:This is why we are a Republic, not a democracy

[chill]

No sir, it is not.

The United States is a Constitutional Republic, not a Direct Democracy. It is NOT the job of the elected representative to query his constituency on every issue. It is his job to represent ALL of the people of his constituency as best he can, using his talents, wisdom and judgments.

The Founding Fathers were vehemently against a Democracy and with good reason. It rapidly degenerates into a tyranny of the majority. If the populace is contentious enough to not be able to form a majority, nothing is accomplished.

Guardian of the People

[Plumber, Programmer,]

According to the Vermont Senate Rules, you must swear the following oath: (bold case mine)

"I, ...., Senator from ..... County (or Counties), in the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, do solemnly swear, that as a Member of this Assembly, I will not propose or assent to any bill, vote or resolution, which shall appear to me injurious to the people, nor do or consent to any act or thing whatever that shall have a tendency to lessen or abridge their rights and privileges, as declared by the Constitution of this State; but will in all things conduct myself as a faithful, honest representative and guardian of the people, according to the best of my judgment and ability. So help me God. I do solemnly swear that I will be true and faithful to the State of Vermont, and that I will not, directly or indirectly, do any act or thing injurious to the Constitution or Government thereof. So help me God. I do solemnly swear that I did not at the time of my election to this body, and that I do not now hold any office of profit or trust under the authority of Congress. So help me God. I do further solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the State of Vermont and the Constitution of the United States. So help me God."

I don't see a way that "voting according to poll results" will match up with "the best of my judgement and ability" unless you have very little of either. Your idea negates the whole idea of representative government. Hopefully, we elect wise, thoughtful, and honest representatives to do the hard work of legislating so that we don't have to. Direct democracy just isn't efficient - if you actually want to get anything else done.
Yes, the people of your district elect you. However, once you swear the oath of office, you must not forget your duty is to the State of Vermont. It is your sworn duty to make the best choice you can to the best of your judgement and ability, even if every single person in your district disagrees with you.

Re:Guardian of the People

[Plumber, Programmer,]

I should add that this does not imply that you should ignore the people - on the contrary, you should certainly listen to them, and ask for their thoughts and opinions. Also, if you do disagree with them, you must explain why you disagree.

Re:It's Possible BS & BS & .....

[barv]

You post problems, but answers are obvious.

Points 1&2&3&4 Well the banks manage online banking OK. I haven't noticed the extra odd $million in my account recently.. Just use their system with an accessible vote history on each account. And make the name-encrypted database available to everyone, and also use open source software where possible, but especially to tally the vote database.

Point 5. If people take so little interest, they probably don't even vote for representatives. So no loss.

Point 6. What, with guns and stuff? Maybe in countries that have gun control. I wouldn't
  want to be one of those "special people who go round people's houses and make sure they vote the right way" in the USA.

I alway thought we went to representative democracy because taking a poll over the whole of the US was impractical back in the 1700s. Silly me! It's obvious now. The scaling problem was not the reason.

Nonbinding Polling

[Doc Ruby]

Our legislatures are designed to be re-publics: members of the public who represent the public at large. Representatives are supposed to be leaders who represent the people, but not necessarily their day to day whims. It's one reason why we don't have direct democracy, putting every vote to public ballot.

What would be good would be a poll before every vote, published before every vote. Then the rep voting however they best decided to represent the public's interest. Voting in the legislature against the result of the public poll would require explaining to the public how they were exercising leadership, and give undeniable facts to back their accountability in the next election. Political risks are all too rare, and the cowardice that avoids them in favor of "go along to get along" a strong root of why the public dislikes and distrusts politicians.

Nonbinding polls as a basis for comparison to the rep's track record would make for a very strong communication between the electorate and the elected. But I expect that if only one or a few reps do it, they'll be smothered in the herd mentality on the part of both the voters who reject their "disobeying the poll", and the other reps who don't poll so they can easily disobey their constituents and their best interests.

Re:The root of the problem

[Doc Ruby]

But the best part of democratic voting is securing the consent of the governed. Not because the polled public makes the best decisions, but because they had their say in the decision and the majority ruled. The rest of the system that gives people a chance to persuade the majority makes that consent a consensus.

Of course, that's the theory. In practice, so much bad government and politics has alienated a large minority of eligible voters, who don't vote. The rest are highly polarized when voting, even if not very polarized in disagreement about actual policies.

  The root of the problem with this system is the ease with which the powerful manipulate the voters through media that is bought and concocted to produce election results both specific in resulting policy, and general in overall ideology.

So yes, better communications among the people is the best solution to the real problems.

Re:It's Possible BS & BS & .....

[Doc Ruby]

The Diebold voting machines that Bush/Cheney used to steal 2000 and 2004 elections were supplied by Diebold, which was primarily an ATM supplier.

Both kinds of machines operated to protect Diebold's best interests. In the ATM case those interests coincided with the people using the machine. In the voting machine, not so much.

Re:Madison feared...

[Doc Ruby]

Madison's Constitutional system has lived for over 2 centuries, usually prospering more than any other contemporary or predecessor.

There's no other government system today that is older than Madison's Constitutional system, with the arguable exceptions of Egypt and China.

The US government is both closer to Madison's specified system and further from it in different ways, but overall this system is very long lived and stable. Even the features for modifying the system are remarkably rarely used.

Representative Proxy Votes

[Mandrel]

You'd also run into vocal minorities, which would be especially heavy as time wore on. John Q. Public doesn't really want to vote on every single bill or issue that arises, that's why he's happier with a republic than a direct democracy.

You could counter this by giving the representative one proxy vote for each citizen who doesn't cast a ballot on each issue. This would however mean that the representative stays in control unless 50-75% of citizens cast individual ballots on an issue. So you could tweak it to dial down the weighting of representative votes as participation rates increase.

The security of online voting doesn't concern me as much. There is however an insoluble choice between anonymity (the secret ballot) and making it easy to buy and sell votes. But attendance at a polling booth isn't a perfect system either.

North Carolina

[bill_mcgonigle]

see subject.

Nice

[ShakaUVM]

I've debated something along the same lines for at least a decade now.

It's nice to see someone going forward with it.

Even if direct democracy is a danger, I don't see why each representative shouldn't have his own forum set up for his constituents.

To the contrary, do away with districts altogether

[bradley13]

No, we don't need to district the Senate. We need to eliminate districts for Representatives. There are two reasons:

First: Gerrymandering. It happens, despite whatever people may think. Every few years, districts are redrawn, and the politicians in power redraw the boundaries to their own advantage.

Second: By eliminating districts, you reduce the stranglehold of the two big parties. If State X has 10 seats in the House of Representatives, you distribute these according to the overall vote. A third party can can a seat with only 10% of the vote.

To address your real point, though, about low-population states having the same number of Senators as the high-population states: You have missed the point of the Senate. The House of Representatives is apportioned by population - that aspect is already dealt with. The Senate serves a different purpose. It is (supposed) to be compose of elder statesmen, selected by the sovereign states. They are elected for longer terms, and are (supposed) to provide a stabilizing counterbalance to the much more fluid House of Representatives. This bicameral idea exists in many countries, in different forms, for much the same reason.

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[bogjobber]

I don't know how this meme started, but republic does not mean that we elect people to vote on our behalf. Republicanism is a form of government where the people rule, rather than a single monarch. This has no bearing on the form of that government or how those people are chosen. China is a republic. Iran is a republic. The USSR was a republic. So was Rome up until the time of Julius Caesar. None of these places are/were democracies (well Rome was eventually, but it was a republic even when it wasn't a democracy).

What we are is a *representative* democracy rather than a *direct* democracy. That is the distinction you are arguing.

Re:We were never built to be one of those

[bogjobber]

They also thought black people were 3/5 of a person with no civil rights. The argument to the authority of the founding fathers is ridiculous. Our country should be the way *we* want it to be and reflect the current opinions and needs of society, not some guys that lived a few centuries ago.

The structure of our country is different, the culture is different, technology is different, education is different, etc. etc. There is no reason the politics can't change as well.

Re:It's Possible BS & BS & .....

[Alex Belits]

I haven't noticed the extra odd $million in my account recently.. Just use their system with an accessible vote history on each account.

And if they don't match, do what exactly? Vote "no" next time when there is a vote for keeping this system in use?
Without third-party verification it's all worthless.

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[rgbrenner]

Yes, we are a representative democracy... and a republic.

You are correct about the definition of republic, unless you're American. When the term is used to refer to America, republic == representative democracy.

Dictionary:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republic
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republic

Wikipedia explains (first paragraph.. the rest included because it's interesting):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

United States

A distinct set of definitions for the word republic evolved in the United States. In common parlance a republic is a state that does not practice direct democracy but rather has a government indirectly controlled by the people. This understanding of the term was originally developed by James Madison, and notably employed in Federalist Paper No. 10. This meaning was widely adopted early in the history of the United States, including in Noah Webster's dictionary of 1828. It was a novel meaning to the term; representative democracy was not an idea mentioned by Machiavelli and did not exist in the classical republics.[53]

The term republic does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, but does appear in Article IV of the Constitution which "guarantee[s] to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government." What exactly the writers of the constitution felt this should mean is uncertain. The Supreme Court, in Luther v. Borden (1849), declared that the definition of republic was a "political question" in which it would not intervene. In two later cases, it did establish a basic definition. In United States v. Cruikshank (1875), the court ruled that the "equal rights of citizens" were inherent to the idea of republic.

However, the term republic is not synonymous with the republican form. The republican form is defined as one in which the powers of sovereignty are vested in the people and are exercised by the people, either directly, or through representatives chosen by the people, to whom those powers are specially delegated. In re Duncan, 139 U.S. 449, 11 S.Ct. 573, 35 L.Ed. 219; Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L.Ed. 627. [54]

Beyond these basic definitions the word republic has a number of other connotations. W. Paul Adams observes that republic is most often used in the United States as a synonym for state or government, but with more positive connotations than either of those terms.[55] Republicanism is often referred to as the founding ideology of the United States. Traditionally scholars believed this American republicanism was a derivation of the liberal ideologies of John Locke and others developed in Europe.

A political philosophy of republicanism that formed during the Renaissance period, and initiated by Machiavelli, was thought to have had little impact on the founders of the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s a revisionist school[citation needed] led by the likes of Bernard Bailyn began to argue that republicanism was just as or even more important than liberalism in the creation of the United States.[56] This issue is still much disputed and scholars like Isaac Kramnick completely reject this view.[57]

Re:Polling? How last decade.

[sureshot007]

I know this was supposed to be a joke, but this might actually have more merit than you think. FB/G+ accounts are associated with a specific an identifiable person, and thus would allow you to audit the votes to ensure no one is cheating/hacking/etc. However, the one drawback is that your vote is no longer private.

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[sureshot007]

Just because you write a simple bill does not mean the complexity has gone away.

I like to think that "simple bill" means it has one objective. Not a bunch of extra shit attached to it at the last second that has nothing to do with the original intent, but is there just to get others to vote for it. So I'm all in favor of "One Bill, One Purpose".

money === votes

[Anonymous Coward]

I have attended local government meetings - county, township, etc. - and I recommend this experience to you. Real Life [tm] is empirically observable, no theory required.

Corporations and developers hire lawyers to attend and shape the debate - this is obviously legitimate use of resources under the current social/economic/political system in the USA.

Private citizens work for a living outside the council chambers, and thus do not have the time or energy for fighting paid legal experts who are putting in eight hours a day influencing legislation.

Thus, corporations and developers dominate local government, and voila, can you say regulatory capture?

The only force for good government at the local level is cranky, opiniated old retired men. I swear those guys are the last true bastion of freedom in this country. They are the only people who have the time and singlemindedness to even begin to compete with the corporate reps. At one time, corporations were a fairly benign influence, but then we started worshipping greed and short-term profits over social responsibility and long-term sustainability, and corporate influence became anti-human.

Voting isn't a congressman's only job

[T.E.D.]

The problem with this is that meerly voting isn't the only thing a congressman has to do. Somebody has to actually write the bills they vote on. Even that is done collaboratively in committees. Somebody has to push the good bills through the process, fight against bad changes to them, and push against or improve the bad ones. Often these changes are brought up on the spur of the moment. How is this poll-congressman supposed to do that?

Occasionally a congressman has to make deals on legislation. Perhaps support something for someone else, in exchange for support on things their contituents care about (eg: improvements to their airport, etc.). It would be impossible to make such deals with your poll-congressman, because he can make no promises whatsoever about how he will vote.

Go further

[buck-yar]

Why not just eliminate rep/senators and the president and make everything an instantaneous vote? Maybe have elections to determine what bills get presented. Why have this middleman that essentially does nothing.

Make the "polling" an essay question.

[Mike Van Pelt]

Sure, have a "yes/no": check box, but after it, a text box where the voter gives their reasoning behind their vote. No reasoning, then the vote can be appropriately weighted. A whole bunch of votes with identical boilerplate "reasoning" pasted in, also weighted appropriately.

This proposal seems sort of OK ... he's not constrained to vote whatever way the internet polling goes. I'm very much against internet voting for real votes, though -- unless some scheme can be devised to guarantee the secret ballot. It is absolutely essential that a person is not only able to cast a vote where no one can tell how he voted -- it *must* be impossible for anyone to prove to a third party how he voted to prevent vote buying/extortion schemes. Absentee ballots are a violation of this, but probably necessary. I'd sure like to see their use restricted to people who are actually absent, or have mobility issues with getting to a polling place.

Perhaps some way a person can change their vote later, up to the deadline? There should be a way with one-way hashes and encryption to make that possible, while not making it possible for anyone on the inside to determine how they voted, either time.

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[Tyndmyr]

Er, I suspect that the bills acted on and enacted are also among the bills proposed. So, you're counting them twice. 9239 proposed, 9239 total.

He stole my idea!

[Theovon]

Hey! I was going to do that!

Re:He doesn't understand the job he is applying fo

[bogjobber]

That's interesting. I guess I got my answer. It started with Madison.

Re:It's Possible BS & BS & .....

[barv]

" those interests coincided with the people using the machine"

You mean the people withdrawing money got extra payouts?

It's not so much who supplies the machine. It's does matter who operates it.

Re:It's Possible BS & BS & .....

[Doc Ruby]

No, I meant that the people withdrawing the money and the people making the machine both wanted the withdrawing people to get the correct amount of money. To avoid the extreme hassle of the backlash by either side if either too much or too little money came out. The right amount is in their mutual interest.

As Stalin said, democracy is controlled by who counts the votes. With voting machines, both the operators and the suppliers of the machine collude to count the votes the "right" way.