E-Democracy

[Captain Utopia]

You simply refuse to hear differing thoughts. You say you have addressed the issues brought up concerning proxy voting but you haven't, you have tried to gloss them over. Votes HAVE to be anonymous to guarantee free elections. It was mentioned earlier that you are in love with this idea and are now married to it. I honestly believe this to be the case. I will not post anymore in this thread since disagreeing with you isn't allowed.

kthksbai

I wrote down some ideas on E-Democracy in a bunch of threads, and you attacked me for having no substance.  So I take those ideas and put them together into the OP, which you don't even bother to read but continue to snipe.  Fine, whatever.  But don't tell me I'm married to an idea - I don't deserve that insult.  Not only did I express my dissatisfaction with non-anonymous votes in the OP, I did at several points in the thread earlier, which I guess you didn't read either, here's one:

I'm not sure what to think of this issue - I'm not fully convinced by my arguments, but if you could address them I might be more inclined to reach your conclusion.

And another, where I mull over an alternative which does include anonymous voting:

Votes are not anonymous, as per the OP.

I'm not convinced that this is a good thing.  Again - see the arguments for/against in the OP.

Potentially individual votes may be anonymous, but proxy-carriers would publicly publish their tallies - that might work.. I'll think a bit more on how that could be hi-jacked.

So you can fuck right off with the whole "disagreeing with you is not allowed" bullshit - I lost patience when you made it very clear that you were just here to shit over the thread with snippy little comments, and ignoring any evidence I provide that I'm not a zealot, because you've already made up your mind.

[Captain Utopia]

Also, if the proxy group gets your vote and then leaves town, how are you supposed to change your vote?

By logging on with your username and password, and changing your proxy vote.  In the case of the computer illiterate, it would be the charity case-worker logging on and setting the proxy vote in the first place.

But the proxy group has left town. 

Or are you proposing that every proxy group have an infrastructure of charity case-workers in permanent residence and offices in impoverished areas? 

No, there would be a web presence to an E-Democracy system, so you just need to find someone to help you who has access to the internet.

[Doktor Howl]

Also, if the proxy group gets your vote and then leaves town, how are you supposed to change your vote?

By logging on with your username and password, and changing your proxy vote.  In the case of the computer illiterate, it would be the charity case-worker logging on and setting the proxy vote in the first place.

But the proxy group has left town. 

Or are you proposing that every proxy group have an infrastructure of charity case-workers in permanent residence and offices in impoverished areas? 

No, there would be a web presence to an E-Democracy system, so you just need to find someone to help you who has access to the internet.

Other than allowing instant recall of anyone who tries to impliment an unpopular measure, no matter how necessary, what concrete benefit do we get out of all of this?

[Captain Utopia]

There's two issues here - proxy voting for the 6% of people in poverty, which is my benchmark of incremental success, and proxy voting for everyone else.  There may be people who try to scam - I've already debunked that though

You offered a rebuttal, but you have not provided anything that I can see that would actually adequately protect against corruption.  I think you need to research that more and do some more thinking on that.  

Well can you tell me why you think the I am wrong to suggest that corruption would be limited, referencing what I wrote rather than relying on generalities?

- so I won't repeat my argument here.  But there will be trusted organisations for whom giving them your proxy will be more effective than voting D or R in an election every four years.

But I thought this was about local government not federal?  Which is it?  

I'm a Brit living in Canada, I've spent less than 72 hours in the US - so forgive my ignorance - but thought that even local officials were affiliated with the major parties?

For that 6% of people in poverty, the proxy vote is not ideal, but at a bare minimum it gives them something better than they have today -- do you disagree on that point?

Yes I do for all the reasons I've laid out from capacity to education.  You are adding a barrier which is the navigation of a new voting system and use of a new technology.  If you are looking to go from 5% to 6% introducing a new barrier will be counter productive.  You are better off starting a non-profit that has funding to educate and transport people to polling places.  I'd dare say you could get to 8 or 9% with that kind of initiative.  

Please explain why what I describe is worse than what they have now.  Today.  Not if I try another scheme other than the one I'm proposing.

This is a thread about whether or not E-Democracy is feasible, not whether it is better or worse than some other utopian ideal.

If you have an implementation idea for E-Democracy which improves upon proxy voting, then I'll be all ears.

Define feasible.  Feasible from who's perspective?  

Feasible from the perspective of, does it have great gaping holes which mean it'd never work or not.  Not, would some other non-profit plan help some segment of the population better.

Please consider the point whereby the majority of issues would not be monolithic thousand-page reforms but minor informed tweaks.

Yes there may be a period of chaos.  But consider this as a process, it's not like we're stuck with a single idea for a decade, unable to modify our course - if things get too chaotic - and a majority of people decide to continue, then who are we to say what is best for them? 

If things really get chaotic though, doesn't it seem likely that we'd all just start talking about that problem and come up with a way to solve it by making things less fluid for a while?

Okay, so Town X passes a law to require your headlights must be on when you use your windshield wipers.  Two months later,there is a movement to overturn this because people find it inconvenient to have to remember that, so the law is overturned.  3 days later, there is a horrific pile-up because someone didn't see another car coming because it was drizzly and they didn't have headlights on.  A new movement reinstates that headlight law.  So, within a few months you've had the law change 3 times.  

Do you think the citizenry is going to be able to keep up with all of this.  What about law enforcement officials who need to keep track of all these changes and adjust training curriculum and enforcement activities with each change?  

This is the best question I've seen so far in this thread.  I'm going to mull it over, okay?  (I'm not glossing over or ignoring it)

[Captain Utopia]

Other than allowing instant recall of anyone who tries to impliment an unpopular measure, no matter how necessary, what concrete benefit do we get out of all of this?

I'm not proposing instant recall of elected officials.  I did state my preference for term periods, but I guess it got buried.

[Captain Utopia]

So, I read the OP again, and have a few thoughts.

1) is this e-dem for the election of representatives, or for deciding on the bills and resolutions that representatives usually vote on in congress?  The two ideas get conflated about 10 posts in.

It's for deciding resolutions on issues.  One neat feature of proxy-voting is that it gives you a built-in structure of authority, should you wish to structure your leadership tree that way.  I also think that proxy-voting is a neat way to deal with the information overload that an e-dem system would create.  So I can see how that got conflated, sorry about that.

2) proxy voting and approval voting have very little to do with the medium in which they're employed.  it is just as easy to do proxy and approval voting with paper ballots as it is with e-dem. So e-dem needs to offer something paper balloting doesn't.  So far, reversal of vote seems to be a main difference.

It allows for smaller issues to be addressed more quickly.  Health Care Reform - a massive percentage of that was agreeable to both sides, but the small percentage of partisan catnip prevented anything happening for months.  Also, this would seem to marginalise highly partisan groups, since they'd no longer be able to hold up the whole show.  Voter education, apathy, participation.  Things actually getting done is better than nothing getting done, even if there are a few fuckups.

I'm summarising here, partly because I've gone into more detail ITT, but also because it'd be a good thing to chew over and add to the OP.

3) e-dem seems to offer the immedite proposal of ideas from citizens.  But is there a vetting process, or do people just vote, change their vote, and see what happens, like some massive Jennifer's Government/Nation States game, where there are a dozen or so new proposals every day, from "more money to schools" to "bring back segregation"?

In the OP I talked about the need for a new method of group communication, for the reasons you raise above.. now I think that the solution will involve grouping people into their areas of self-proclaimed expertise, and layering concepts from social networks on top of that, particularly getting interesting content from friends-of-friends-of-friends-of-etc.  E.g. I might not know much about a particular subject, but if a bunch of people in my network who are knowledgeable it are really excited about a new issue, it can bubble up and appear on my radar that way.

So you'd essentially crowd-source filtering the "schools" issues to one group of people who care about it, and "civil rights" issues to another.  At the end of the day, an issue would just be a link, so anyone could bring attention to any issue in a manner of different ways.

I haven't seen much/any research on this front from metagovernment -- most of the projects in testing average around a dozen or so participants.  But it is a vital issue, and it's still an open question whether it can be addressed.

4) if people have direct access to issues, who decides which issues they can vote on?  Something as large as Iran could get horrifically messy if people keep changing their votes on sanctions, invasions, nuke attack, etc.

I'm going to stay away from national security for now, unless anyone really wants to get into it.  I'm going to address the switching problem in my response to RWHN.

[Doktor Howl]

Other than allowing instant recall of anyone who tries to impliment an unpopular measure, no matter how necessary, what concrete benefit do we get out of all of this?

I'm not proposing instant recall of elected officials.  I did state my preference for term periods, but I guess it got buried.

Okay, let me rephrase:  What possible benefit do we get from this that we don't get from paper ballots?

[Captain Utopia]

Other than allowing instant recall of anyone who tries to impliment an unpopular measure, no matter how necessary, what concrete benefit do we get out of all of this?

I'm not proposing instant recall of elected officials.  I did state my preference for term periods, but I guess it got buried.

Okay, let me rephrase:  What possible benefit do we get from this that we don't get from paper ballots?

It allows for smaller issues to be addressed more quickly.  Health Care Reform - a massive percentage of that was agreeable to both sides, but the small percentage of partisan catnip prevented anything happening for months.  Also, this would seem to marginalise highly partisan groups, since they'd no longer be able to hold up the whole show.  Voter education, apathy, participation.  Things actually getting done is better than nothing getting done, even if there are a few fuckups.

I'm summarising here, partly because I've gone into more detail ITT, but also because it'd be a good thing to chew over and add to the OP.

[Doktor Howl]

Other than allowing instant recall of anyone who tries to impliment an unpopular measure, no matter how necessary, what concrete benefit do we get out of all of this?

I'm not proposing instant recall of elected officials.  I did state my preference for term periods, but I guess it got buried.

Okay, let me rephrase:  What possible benefit do we get from this that we don't get from paper ballots?

It allows for smaller issues to be addressed more quickly.  Health Care Reform - a massive percentage of that was agreeable to both sides, but the small percentage of partisan catnip prevented anything happening for months.  Also, this would seem to marginalise highly partisan groups, since they'd no longer be able to hold up the whole show.  Voter education, apathy, participation.  Things actually getting done is better than nothing getting done, even if there are a few fuckups.

I'm summarising here, partly because I've gone into more detail ITT, but also because it'd be a good thing to chew over and add to the OP.

Things actually getting done is an undesirable thing, CU.  I can prove this.

[Captain Utopia]

I can't imagine the status quo heading anywhere but off the cliff.

[Doktor Howl]

I can't imagine the status quo heading anywhere but off the cliff.

Sure.

On the other hand, do you think we have too many laws, or not enough laws?

[Captain Utopia]

Too many.

[Doktor Howl]

Too many.

And when's the last time you heard a politician say "I'm soft on crime?"

The system is in the shape it's in because people DEMAND it, not because they use paper ballots.

[Captain Utopia]

The people don't invent their own DANGER signals.  Those are foisted.  And then, admittedly, repeated by the people.

[AFK]

Well can you tell me why you think the I am wrong to suggest that corruption would be limited, referencing what I wrote rather than relying on generalities?

You seem to be relying purely on faith.  You essentially said it might happen but it won't, but if it does, people can just log in and change their vote back.  Which gets to the whole problem of vote reversal which will be a monumental pain for those in charge of enforcing the laws and those who are supposed to follow the everchanging body of law.  Moreover you seem to think that there will be no motivation to vote under another person's identity which is complete bullshit.  It happens now.  Dead people somehow manage to register and vote.  And now, if you actually legalize people giving their vote to someone else?  You've just made it that much easier for the con-men. 

Yes I do for all the reasons I've laid out from capacity to education.  You are adding a barrier which is the navigation of a new voting system and use of a new technology.  If you are looking to go from 5% to 6% introducing a new barrier will be counter productive.  You are better off starting a non-profit that has funding to educate and transport people to polling places.  I'd dare say you could get to 8 or 9% with that kind of initiative.  

Please explain why what I describe is worse than what they have now.  Today.  Not if I try another scheme other than the one I'm proposing.

I've told you over and over again.  You are adding an extra hurdle, an extra barrier.  Computer literacy.  It WILL by its very nature be more discriminatory. 

Feasible from the perspective of, does it have great gaping holes which mean it'd never work or not.  Not, would some other non-profit plan help some segment of the population better

Okay then by your definition of feasible I would say it is a resounding no because of all the problems I've raised.  Again, this system as you've laid out has issues with voter discrimination, voter corruption, and impracticality of policy implementation and enforcement.

This is the best question I've seen so far in this thread.  I'm going to mull it over, okay?  (I'm not glossing over or ignoring it)

Pardon the gloat here but I do have quite a bit of experience working with law enforcement and working in the state and local policy arena.  I'm not being argumentative for the sake of arguing.  I simply know the issues that this will cause and know where it will not work and serve to disenfranchise the disadvantaged.  Quite simply, I think you have a bit more research to do on this.