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Ask Slashdot: We've Had Online Voting; Why Not Continuous Voting? (iamnotanumber.org)
periegetes writes: This idea has been bugging me for a while. It takes months to organize a physical election, and several days to count the results, so it makes sense that we don't organize elections every day. However, with the computing resources at our disposal, it would be child's play to setup a site where every citizen could vote for (or against) proposed laws themselves, and could even change their vote at all times, cutting out the middle man and restoring true democracy to the world. That last part may be a stretch, but I, for one, would feel more involved in my government if I didn't have to watch it screw up for years before getting another say in it. I've found precious few articles discussing the matter, which usually means I'm missing an obvious problem. Why, in the age of Big Data and petaflops, don't we consider continuous voting?
You're away on holiday.
An important vote you care about gets put up.
You want to change your vote, but can't because of whatever reason (no Internet, etc.)
Do you end up voting by default the way you voted last time? Or do you have to put in a vote between a certain window?
Oops. You either have a stupid situation, or you're back to the old way of voting.
Not to mention that it requires electronic voting which - in any significant amount - is still not as provable, prevalent or as tamper-proof as it could be.
Generally, the electorate isn't informed enough on issues to make good decisions. One of the reasons we have elected representatives in office for 2, 4, 6, etc. years is to provide some stability. People's views change on a whim. Watching one news special about a particular issue can swing views wildly.
This kind of direct voting would result in utter chaos. Nothing's more fickle than public opinion, and it's impossible to get anything done when changing direction at the speed of the news cycle.
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I'm not sure applying such a concept to anything important is a good thing.
A fundamental tenet of democracy is that voting is secret, and that the counting process is transparent. E-voting provides none of these. I'm aware that there are cryptographic protocols that would allow this in theory, but this does not resolve the issue of the voters being coerced by their spouses, families, communities or big brother to vote a certain way. Only casting your vote anonymously inside the voting booth prevents this. Further, having a verifiable paper trail and manual counting makes fraud MUCH more difficult. In E-voting, you only have to alter a single number to sway the election in your favor. In traditional voting, throwing a whole election becomes much harder.
Even if we assume that we go the E-voting path, how can we trust the software running on the system? Who wrote it? Me? Then I know who the next president will be! We can cook up all kinds of hashes etc, but how can you verify that a system that claims to run a particular version of the code is, in fact, running this version? Particularly on a remote connection? Even if all this were, in some fictional universe, in place, this system is highly complex: In code, in technology, in infrastructure. I may be able to grasp this, but my mother (a smart woman, but not tech savvy) won't have a clue. This is fundamentally undemocratic.
See this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
Because as bad as politicians are, they are still better-informed than the general population.
I don't want government looking like a Facebook feed.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I have always been in favour of people voting on individual issues rather than for representational democracy. We have the technology; that is if we can get citizens to keep up with passphrases and singing keys.
No, we really don't. The current system allows everyone to go to some central place and cast their vote. Why? Because then there are witnesses around to make sure that nothing improper happens. In a totally online system, what prevents coercion? What happens when a boss demands all employees vote the way he wants? Or some lead family member? Some neighbourhood bully?
Until we figure that out, we don't have the technology to all vote on each issue from our homes.
Here in the US at least, and honestly it should be the same elsewhere, we don't want an actual Democracy due to the downfalls of that system. In effect a true, pure democracy will always devolve into anarchy and eventually a dictator will rise to power and effectively enslave the population.
Tell that the Swiss.
The US system is designed to provide a modified democratic system with protections against the outcome I just described.
No it is not. You are governed or herded by a money aristocracy, or call it the oligarchy of the 1% super rich.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
"Protip: it's generally a good idea to read all of something before commenting on or replying to it, even if your finger gets tired."
The vote would be based upon the latest headline flashed at the most people. However the latest twitter celeb of the hour felt, would become the law.
And, of course, being able to "change your vote" means that, somewhere, the way that you voted is recorded... so that you can be tracked down if you voted "the wrong way".
The current system, which limits the number of entitlement programs voters can vote for themselves, has created an $18.8 trillion national debt and what's far scarier, over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities: http://usdebtclock.org/
If those limitations were removed, I'd expect such an orgy of debt that the U.S. would have no choice but to default or careen into hyperinflation.
As they say, "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
In addition he doesn't understand other people's reasoning (and isn't interested in trying), can't think straight (leaves gaps in reasoning and lacks the stamina to address them) is far too emotional to deal in a sane way with complex policy issues. jumps to conclusions, and has the attention span of a goldfish (and therefore hardly never learns, except the most basic facts).
That is the reason we have a representative democracy, not a direct one. Elected politicians look after the medium-term tactics, and direct the professionals. That doesn't always pan out, but more often than not it works quite well.
Technical issues aren't important. If desired we could have set up nation-wide monthly referenda since the advent of the telegraph.
The thing the average voter can sort of be trusted with is (a) judging people (running for office) (b) choosing between to opposing world views, and (c) choosing to adopt or reject certain fundamental ideas.
That's sort of doable for almost anyone: if people make a mess of things, vote 'em out and go with the competition. It also allows people to decide on questions of principle (but only after they have been assessed by functionaries and elected officials)
The electorate (in our case) works like a final court of appeal, but also as a "noisy" arbitrator: individual opinions run the gamut from smart, insightful, and perhaps even noble to dumb, blind, and venal with terrible extremes. Fortunately _on average_ our electorate seems to have done fairly well over the past few centuries.
Direct democracy would be terribly noisy, incredibly volatile, over-emotional, and would in general serve us very very badly.
So lets leave day-to-day affairs to officials, short-term politics to representatives, and genuine questions of principle to the electorate.
The slavery thing... Well, it's a matter of perspective. That they argued about it at all is actually an indication of improvement. This is hard to explain but I've done a fair bit of reading on the subject because a part of my heritage is descended from Black African slaves who fought on the side of the English during the Revolution. (It's a neat story but I'm not going to share it all tonight unless you really want me to type it out.)
Anyhow, to the point (and it's not much of a point), we must look at things in perspective. This is not an attempt to wipe it away or to minimize it, it's wrong and was always wrong even if there were people who felt it was perfectly justified.
See, to them it was normal. In 200 years we'll have people looking back at us and thinking we were uncultured, barbaric, ignorant, evil, and worse. The things you do today will be considered an abomination tomorrow by those who wish to judge you their lesser.
Keep in mind, it wasn't a bunch of white people running around with nets to catch fine specimens. No, it was black people selling their brethren into slavery. They too were making use of slave labor. Those "Slavic" countries? Err... Yeah, not even all slaves where black.
An article on Slashdot, a day or two ago, was about the targets for nukes. Many of us thought it was deplorable. Yet, you weren't there. (I wasn't even born yet - I was born in '57 and the list was made in '56.) What nobody in that thread mentioned was that the USSR had started targeting American population centers and the USA responded in kind. Then long-range missiles came out and there was a bit of a gentleman's agreement (likely violated) where they agreed to go back to targeting military infrastructure instead.
Times, perspective, and values change. What you're doing, right now as you read this, may be considered a crime against humanity in 200 years. It's okay to judge and to judge harshly but I think it's important to understand the environment and perspectives. Ethics are situational, though we might say that morals are not but those are often influenced by perspective.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."