4 ms·

I would like to say I think e-voting is a very good thing and could be transformative to society, given the political will. We have a very weak form of democrac

I would like to say I think e-voting is a very good thing and could be transformative to society, given the political will. We have a very weak form of democracy in which we elect representatives and then entrust them to make decisions for us (yes I know we can lobby and petition govt). However this could allow a form of government where the population actually ratifies decisions made by government - a direct form of democracy.

electic 10y ago
This seems like a bad idea. You are assuming you have an informed electorate and that is rarely the case. Not saying what is in place is the best right now, but what you are suggesting seems far worse.
- Synaesthesia 10y ago
  In other words people are too ignorant to know what's good for them and we must trust our smart government officials to make decisions for us. A typical line of anti-democratic ideology.
  - electic 10y ago
    No. It is not likely the average person will have time to go through all the nuances of a bill to properly evaluate it and make an informed decision. You are obviously passionate about the big name issues but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of boring bills and policy adjustments that the common person is not going to research to make an informed decision. Direct democracy has been tried and it largely failed.
    - Synaesthesia 10y ago
      It hasn't been tried! Not to my knowledge. And the closest approximations have been quite good successes too. For example the Swiss system, in Liby under Gadaffi there was a system where every law had to be ratified by the population. Apparently it was very successful. Lastly the system of workers councils and anarchist rule in revolutionary Spain was very successful.
adrianN 10y ago
Not everybody thinks that a direct democracy is better. I for one don't have the time or the expertise to make informed decisions about all the issues my representatives handle.
- ams6110 10y ago
  Neither do the representatives, honestly. They are elected to two-year terms so they spend half their time in office campaigning, and there are no particular qualifications or expertise required to run.
VLM 10y ago
You specifically used the word "ratify" which could be very important. The other commenters are assuming you mean voting on individual policy issues. A more generic weekly vote of confidence or no confidence in the government in general is somewhat more practical, although only somewhat. The problem with a weekly vote of confidence is you're just going to motivate massive chronological engineering such as doing everything unpopular the same week and taking the lumps and hoping no one notices, or playing mixing games that have nothing to do with good governance to ram something unpopular thru the same week something happy happens (or possibly refusing to do something popular until a stockpile of equal and opposite unhappiness accumulates). Its not bad that both good and bad things happen simultaneously, its bad that they have to be stockpiled and delayed until they match up for weekly election reasons. I can only imagine how awful this would work for situation where the government is sort of expected to lie for awhile, longer than a week anyway. Foreign diplomacy, military action, negotiations of all kinds, sometimes faking people out for more than a week is necessary to achieve victory in the longer term (like on a scale of months years decades centuries) Another problem with weekly confidence votes is what happens if the government gets tossed out three times in a month, as could happen if the electorate are generally pissed off. You can't really form a government and operate and judge its operation in a mere week. Now maybe an annual confidence vote is achievable. Maybe. Or maybe one weekly no confidence vote means little more than internal "WTF are we doing" conversations, but more than 7 no confidence in a 13 week quarter means they all resign, something like that.
- Synaesthesia 10y ago
  Not every decision literally needs to be ratified by the public but maybe only the major ones.
  - VLM 10y ago
    You mean ratify in the veto sense, perhaps. That's an interesting option.
tobltobs 10y ago
You somehow manage to confuse referendums with e-voting.

electic 10y ago

This seems like a bad idea. You are assuming you have an informed electorate and that is rarely the case. Not saying what is in place is the best right now, but what you are suggesting seems far worse.

Synaesthesia 10y ago
In other words people are too ignorant to know what's good for them and we must trust our smart government officials to make decisions for us. A typical line of anti-democratic ideology.
- electic 10y ago
  No. It is not likely the average person will have time to go through all the nuances of a bill to properly evaluate it and make an informed decision. You are obviously passionate about the big name issues but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of boring bills and policy adjustments that the common person is not going to research to make an informed decision. Direct democracy has been tried and it largely failed.
  - Synaesthesia 10y ago
    It hasn't been tried! Not to my knowledge. And the closest approximations have been quite good successes too. For example the Swiss system, in Liby under Gadaffi there was a system where every law had to be ratified by the population. Apparently it was very successful. Lastly the system of workers councils and anarchist rule in revolutionary Spain was very successful.

adrianN 10y ago

Not everybody thinks that a direct democracy is better. I for one don't have the time or the expertise to make informed decisions about all the issues my representatives handle.

ams6110 10y ago
Neither do the representatives, honestly. They are elected to two-year terms so they spend half their time in office campaigning, and there are no particular qualifications or expertise required to run.

VLM 10y ago

You specifically used the word "ratify" which could be very important. The other commenters are assuming you mean voting on individual policy issues. A more generic weekly vote of confidence or no confidence in the government in general is somewhat more practical, although only somewhat. The problem with a weekly vote of confidence is you're just going to motivate massive chronological engineering such as doing everything unpopular the same week and taking the lumps and hoping no one notices, or playing mixing games that have nothing to do with good governance to ram something unpopular thru the same week something happy happens (or possibly refusing to do something popular until a stockpile of equal and opposite unhappiness accumulates). Its not bad that both good and bad things happen simultaneously, its bad that they have to be stockpiled and delayed until they match up for weekly election reasons. I can only imagine how awful this would work for situation where the government is sort of expected to lie for awhile, longer than a week anyway. Foreign diplomacy, military action, negotiations of all kinds, sometimes faking people out for more than a week is necessary to achieve victory in the longer term (like on a scale of months years decades centuries) Another problem with weekly confidence votes is what happens if the government gets tossed out three times in a month, as could happen if the electorate are generally pissed off. You can't really form a government and operate and judge its operation in a mere week. Now maybe an annual confidence vote is achievable. Maybe. Or maybe one weekly no confidence vote means little more than internal "WTF are we doing" conversations, but more than 7 no confidence in a 13 week quarter means they all resign, something like that.

Synaesthesia 10y ago
Not every decision literally needs to be ratified by the public but maybe only the major ones.
- VLM 10y ago
  You mean ratify in the veto sense, perhaps. That's an interesting option.

tobltobs 10y ago

You somehow manage to confuse referendums with e-voting.