Ask Candidate Jeremy Hansen About Direct Democracy in Vermont

We mentioned yesterday Jeremy Hansen's run for the Vermont Senate. There are a lot of political races currently active in the U.S.; what makes Hansen's interesting (besides his background in computer science) is his pledge to use modern communication technology to provide a taste of direct representation within a representative democracy. He makes a claim not many candidates (and probably even fewer elected officials) ever will: "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." To that end, Hansen says that if he's elected, he'll employ "an accessible online voting platform to allow discussion and voting on bills" for his constituents. He's agreed to answer questions about how such a system could work, and the nature of democracy in today's ultra-connected world, in which distance and communication delays are much smaller than they were even 20 years ago, never mind 200. So ask Hansen whatever questions you'd like about his plans and philosophy; as always, ask as many questions as you please, but please separate them into separate posts, lest ye be modded down.

Comments

Security?

[eldavojohn]

To that end, Hansen says that if he's elected, he'll employ "an accessible online voting platform to allow discussion and voting on bills" for his constituents.

How are you going to stop someone from hacking this system? How will accountability be implemented while protecting voter's anonymity (so that employers or other interested parties with leverage can't influence their vote)?

What Is Right but Unpopular

[eldavojohn]

So ask Hansen whatever questions you'd like about his plans and philosophy;

Throughout history many leaders -- Abraham Lincoln, Harry S. Truman and even George W. Bush -- have made decisions that they felt were "right" but were definitely unpopular. Post hoc, we can see the effects and judge those actions. Now these were all high level actions but similar things do happen at the state and county level. Example: Your county's schools are failing horribly and need money but the only place you have money is vehicle tax that is supposed to go to your roads. You propose (if you are even going to take such actions) to move some money from the road fund to the schools -- sacrificing potential traffic problems in the name of education and staying above backwater Mississippi standards. Your populace (who have completed high school and already make long commutes) disagree with you when their vote fails to pass the proposition. What do you do? Maybe an example closer to home: With soaring copper prices, someone proposes to reopen The Elizabeth Mine but the EPA warns you that clean up from 150 years of abuse hasn't even concluded yet. Unfortunately your populace votes for their jobs and temporary income over the environment, what do you do?

Re:What Is Right but Unpopular

[Tailhook]

your populace votes for their jobs and temporary income over the environment, what do you do?

Have pressure groups file suit and direct the case to a friendly judge who issues an indefinite injunction. No stink on you. Then, call your broker and put your money in foreign manufacturing where your wealth grows unimpeded by such problems. Then, have the 'community' where your mcmansion is being built zoned for a nice high brick wall all the way around so working class riff raff the use to do stuff like mine copper don't bother you or yours. Finally, attend lots of "non-profit" dinner parties and bask in the environmental kudos of your fellow wealthy politicos.

Re:What Is Right but Unpopular

[dgatwood]

The thing is, the people of the county have a right to decide whether their education or their roads are more important. The purpose of indirect democracy is not to protect the people from bad decisions, but to ensure that no group of people can unjustly oppress another merely because of their quantity. In order for such an unpopular decision to be appropriate, you would have to show that there was a group of people who were going to be severely harmed by the continued operation of the schools in such a manner who did not agree with the decision, and that those people had no other options (private schools, homeschooling, etc.). That's actually a pretty high bar because it only takes one stay-at-home parent out of said group of households to provide an alternative for the kids whose parents want them to learn.

Regarding the mine, operating under modern regulations, I wouldn't expect the mine to pose substantially greater threat to the environment while operating than it does just sitting there idle. The burden of proof should be on the environmentalists that this is not the case. This is a relatively high bar, because if reopening the mine were not relatively harmless, the environmentalists would have pushed for (and gotten) more regulations over the proper operation of mines years ago.

In other words, both of those are poor examples of why we should not have direct democracy. Good (recent) examples include California's prop 8, where the majority clearly denied the rights of significant minority groups.

Finally, although I agree in principle that tyranny of the majority is not that much better than our current plutocracy, in the absence of limits on paid political speech, it will inevitably devolve back into a plutocracy eventually anyway. The problem is not the form of government, but rather the fact that campaign finance laws have not been enhanced to mitigate the power imbalance caused by the growing disparity in wealth between big corporations/unions/PACs/political parties and the average member of the general public.

Re:What Is Right but Unpopular

[MightyMartian]

I wonder if every generation thinks that they're the first ones to ever have substantial political or social problems. The way people talk, you would think that the last 200 hundred years have just been clear sailing, and our problems or sooooo huge that no other generation has ever had to face them.

Give it up, people. We lead a pretty charmed life compared to most folks who lived even a couple of hundred years ago.

Don't you risk vote buying?

[Kupfernigk]

In effect, isn't there a risk that following your idea will simply mean that you will vote according to who buys the most online votes, whether by advertising or direct corruption? In this country (the UK) there is a long history of people voting for extreme parties or positions in elections that do not seem to matter. We believe that our representatives have not only the right, but the duty, to identify what is best for their constituents rather than simply to follow whoever shouts loudest.

Campaign Confusion

[eldavojohn]

Why would someone who feels that their important issue views are a minority ever vote for you? Clearly an opponent of yours could approach the LBGT community and say "Hey, Hansen's going to ask the population if you guys can get married and you're the minority so don't plan on that ever passing." Or the Atheists, the rich businessmen, the greens, the unions, any very specific religious group, etc (the list goes on). And by the time they're done pointing out how the majority are going to "oppress" the minority for all these interest groups, they've covered a large part of the population. How are you going campaign against something like this? Surely you can't even run on a position in response to any of these questions? Your answer will always be "Whatever the most people want." So how will you combat such a strategy?

Civil Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

How will you vote if "the will of [your] constituents" is to pass a law making homosexuality or teaching evolution a capital offense? How about implementing a Shirley Jackson-style "lottery?" I.e., should basic civil/human rights be subject to mob rule?

Do You Experience Any Apprehension?

[eldavojohn]

At the prospect of going from a professor of deterministic systems to someone who will be a part of and responding to an inherently chaotic and non-deterministic system?

Security

[macaran]

How will you ensure that only your constituents vote on the topic, and that they vote only once?

Constitution?

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

What will you do when your constituents want you to violate the Constitution?

Re:Constitution?

[pixelpusher220]

Well there is the Healthcare Mandate. I'm a flaming liberal and I say it's unconstitutional.

I don't want the gov't granted the ability to make me buy services. Tax me and provide the services, i.e. single payer, is absolutely constitutional and that would be the right choice.

But yes, the GOP has a nice long track record of unconstitutional laws...like the 'Mandate' for instance ;-)

Re:Constitution?

[JJJJust]

YOU need to look it up.

"general welfare" appears twice in the Constitution.

Once in the preamble, which has NO force and effect.

And once in the Taxing and Spending Clause, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States".
The General Welfare (sub-)Clause applies ONLY to how Congress may spend money. It does not give them authority to implement the healthcare mandate, merely give them authority to spend money on it,

Re:Constitution?

[JJJJust]

No. But since the Constitution does not grant the right to impose this mandate and does not prohibit the states from handling it, it's a Tenth Amendment right reserved to the states.

Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Re:Constitution?

[Obfuscant]

Did you really expect the founders to come up with a list of every single thing they want the government to do in the next millenium?

Yes. Everything that the federal government is to do. The rest is left to the states, or to the people.

And "general welfare" doesn't mean "everyone gets free stuff paid for by the productive members of society". "Welfare", in this context, means 'general wellbeing', not specific benefits for designated beneficiaries. That same "general welfare" clause that you think allows a welfare state applies just as much to the people who pay for the welfare as those who get it.

Re:Constitution?

[JJJJust]

The former.

The Taxing and Spending Clause was not intended to be an independent grant of power. It has evolved that way due to court decisions, but it was originally intended to give Congress the power to tax in relation to another one of their powers. That's why it says they shall 'have the power to tax and spend to provide for the general welfare'. Not "have the power to tax, have the power to spend, AND have the power to provide for the general welfare". If they enact something under the Commerce Clause, they can levy a tax and spend that money for it with the Taxing and Spending Clause.

Congress can provide for the general welfare by exercising the power of the purse in another way, as well. The drinking age is not 21 at a Federal level, because there's no Constitutional basis for Congress to set it that way. Instead, Congress passed a law saying they would withhold Federal funding for any state that didn't raise the age to 21. Boom, general welfare provided for without being unconstitutional. (That's also how we got stuck with No Child Left Behind.)

And also

[Anonymous Coward]

People are too stupid to govern themselves. The will of the majority can actually be quite harmful, unjust, or simply unmaintainable, which is why a representative democracy works better than a direct democracy.

Of course, the more power you give to one person, however competent he may be, the more evil he becomes. There really isn't a solution to that problem. But disempowering evil by empowering stupid is jumping from the frying pan into the eternal flaming abyss.

Re:And also

[shutdown -p now]

People are too stupid to govern themselves. The will of the majority can actually be quite harmful, unjust, or simply unmaintainable, which is why a representative democracy works better than a direct democracy.

I love how it's modded insightful. I wonder if the mods also consider themselves to be too stupid to govern themselves, or whether it's always some abstract "people" that they aren't personally a part of.

The will of the majority can certainly be unjust, but so can be the will of the representatives of that majority, as amply demonstrated by any modern representative democracy - and especially the USA. You also failed to give any references for your claim that "representative democracy works better than a direct democracy" - and please don't try to pull crap like comparing, say, Athenian democracy to USA, because there's two and a half thousand years and countless other differences between the two.

How do you plan on handling the political "game"

[MetalliQaZ]

I like the concept of taking direction directly from the will of your constituents, but how do you plan on handling...politics? More specifically, when the party needs votes and deals have been made, how will you stand up to the leadership and refuse to take part? Will that not render you an outsider and remove valuable (perhaps necessary) political clout? It seems like the Washington political machine is incompatible with direct democracy.

How do you ensure the poll is representative?

[gstoddart]

How do you ensure the poll is representative?

If you let everyone vote on a web page, you're self selecting for technology literate, able to afford an internet connection, and politically engaged enough to care to vote.

If the same 10% or so vote on every issue, you might end up with skewed results.

And, as has been pointed out, you'd need to be sure the system was secure and had some validation in it -- otherwise you have no idea if you can trust the votes. Then of course, all of your voters are essentially on record for having voted for/against something.

It sounds like a good idea in theory, but the devil is always in the details.

How will the Web-challenged be represented?

[Anonymous Coward]

What will you do to hear the will of those who aren't on the Web? Many seniors aren't (e.g. my father): will their thoughts be selectively excluded from the voting?

Access

[Obfuscant]

In addition to the questions about authentication and authorization, how do you intend on dealing with the following critical issue:

1. Access to "voting" by people who aren't online. How do you keep from disenfranchising those who are not electronically capable, either because of cost or because of ability?

Do you think direct democracy is the answer?

[PCM2]

California has been running an ongoing experiment with direct democracy for many years, and here IMHO it's mostly been an abysmal failure.

What happens is that all kinds of budget earmarks get put on the ballot. Well-meaning voters think, "Well gosh, of course we should have funding for after school sports programs!" Next thing you know, there's a law on the books that earmarks X percent of the school budget for after-school sports programs -- whether or not the students have textbooks.

Or just as often, the bills are put on the ballots by special interests with hidden agendas. Here in San Francisco, a group operating out of San Diego -- some 450 miles away, in Southern California -- seemed close to getting a bill on the local city ballot that would have banned the practice of male circumcision in the City. You can debate whether circumcision is "torture" all you want (for both my father and I it was a medical necessity, due to a congenital defect). But the bill's supporters' real agenda became painfully apparent when they advertised the bill using a comic book featuring "Foreskin Man," a blonde, blue-eyed superhero who saved blonde, blue-eyed boys from forced circumcision by leering, demonic Jews with glowing eyes, pointed teeth, and Hassidic dress.

Of course, the classic example of direct democracy gone wrong in California is Proposition 13, which put strict limits on property taxes, and as a result, impoverished school districts, libraries, fire departments, and other community services in many areas. Debate over the bill was so contentious at the time, and continues to be to this day, that to even approach the idea of repealing it is considered a political death sentence, so no representative has the will to do it.

So to repeat my question: Are you really sure this is a good idea?

Informed electorate

[Obfuscant]

How do you ensure that the voters are educated on the issues and not just voting because it's 'leet and kewl" and they can 'vote no on everything just because they can'? I.e., you have money to hire a staff, and have access to background information that most people do not, and are expected to "do your homework" and cast informed votes because that is what you are elected to do in the current system. How do you make sure your proxy votes are cast with the same care and attention?

This is related to the question about keeping advertising from swaying the votes, but different. How do you get people who may be busy trying to make enough money to get by to spend the time doing the research that you were elected to do? And in that latter vein, does this change to the process not violate the "equal protection" clause of the Constitution? You are, after all, giving your constituents a much bigger voice in the vote of your elected body than those in other districts. Don't those other people deserve the kind of government that they are voting for, and which you are seeking to change?

Please View

[The Wild Norseman]

For those who have questions of how such an e-voting type system could work, watch this TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_bismark_e_voting_without_fraud.html

Thanks.

Use the Solution to Decide!

[eldavojohn]

What will you do to hear the will of those who aren't on the Web? Many seniors aren't (e.g. my father): will their thoughts be selectively excluded from the voting?

It's simple, we solve that problem with the solution. Our first online vote will be on a bill that will solve this very problem. Interestingly enough, over 100% of the population turned out to vote on this particular issue with a surprisingly large number of referral clicks coming from 4chan. As it turns out, the resolution is to grind up individuals who do not have internet connections (like your father) and feed them to the web savvy users and their "lulled cats" in a nice pink slurry. I'm sorry for your loss but the populace has spoken in so strong a voice that it was statically impossible.

Who gets a vote?

[dkleinsc]

Should people who work in Washington County but do not reside there (e.g. somebody who works at Ben and Jerry's but lives near Burlington) get an online vote to determine how you vote? What about seasonal residents and workers?

What is your participation threshold?

[Burz]

It is conceivable there would be many bills that do not have popular attention, but which are still critically important to a functioning society. Will you require a minimum number of votes on an issue before going against your own better judgement, or will any amount of citizen input suffice to direct you?

Vote Tabulation?

[BlueStrat]

Will such votes also be counted by SOE, a vote-tabulation/counting company tasked with counting a large portion of the US Presidential popular vote, which is owned by Scytl, a foreign company that is owned by a major Obama campaign contributor?

What is Jeremy's stance on the SOE/Scytl/Obama-contributor issue regarding vote counting and the conflict of interest and foreign influence possibilities inherent to this situation?

Strat