Pure Democracy

[Ace Pace]

Would it be possible to have a democractic means of voting?

What I mean is, where for importent votes, everyone can vote on it, using electronic methods (assuming no tampering), would such a system be worth it? can it be used in todays society?

[lgot]

????? In Brazil the elections are all eletronic (only places where it does not happen are in impossible places, the isolated tribes of natives in middle of amazon, where someone goes there to get the votes in paper), everyone votes (everyone allowed, meaning no younger than 16 years, everyone is obligated to vote - but the older people and the people between 16-18 years and special cases) this in a country with 180 millions ,so lots of votes, results come quickly, etc.
But it is not the style of vote that makes it more or less democratic...

[Ace Pace]

????? In Brazil the elections are all eletronic (only places where it does not happen are in impossible places, the isolated tribes of natives in middle of amazon, where someone goes there to get the votes in paper), everyone votes (everyone allowed, meaning no younger than 16 years, everyone is obligated to vote - but the older people and the people between 16-18 years and special cases) this in a country with 180 millions ,so lots of votes, results come quickly, etc.
But it is not the style of vote that makes it more or less democratic...

Perhaps I was not clear, I was not talking about elections, I meant voting on major laws.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It was hard to do even in Greek times with a vastly smaller populace. Today, even with all that technology, a lot just don't care to even vote.

[salm]

it works in swizerland.

they have to vote laws all the time. i don´t even think that they have electronic stuff. they simply do it the old fashion way like they´ve been doing for ever.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

It might be a nice idea if they could get people to actually participate. Not the the majority will always be right, but I would rather have a majority than lying politicians doing the job.

[lgot]

I was not talking about elections, I meant voting on major laws.

ah, yeah, It was not clear, but we can both live with that

Well, If they can do for "president" they can vote for laws. In fact in 1992 we had a votation where the public choose about the governament system (you had to vote for keeping the president or bringing back the monarchy, a parlamentarist system or the keeping the actual mixed system). It was a waste of time and public money...I suppose for some laws it could be done but them, the politics are already getting a lot of money to do exactly that...

[RedImperator]

Pure democracy is a recpie for disaster. The majority of the population simply isn't informed enough on any particular issue to make a good decision. Even the people who are informed on some issues are utterly clueless on the rest (I could talk your head off about drug or foreign or transportation policy, but what the hell would I know about farm policy or veteran's affairs--and I was a political science major until the last semester of my senior year). The idea with having representatives is that you have a group of people whose job it is to understand the issues a government has to deal with and vote in the way they think is best. Come election time, the people grade him on the results of the policies he voted for (or against). What actually happens is that representatives turn into vote whores who make decisions based on whether or not they'll get reelected, but that's a separate issue. If politicians make bad decisions because they're pandering to the polls, how good will the people actually answering those polls actually do?

[Andrew J.]

Would it be possible to have a democractic means of voting?

What I mean is, where for importent votes, everyone can vote on it, using electronic methods (assuming no tampering), would such a system be worth it? can it be used in todays society?

How do you decide which laws are important enough for referendums?

[CelesKnight]

Would it be possible to have a democractic means of voting?

What I mean is, where for importent votes, everyone can vote on it, using electronic methods (assuming no tampering), would such a system be worth it? can it be used in todays society?

I wish that the US system could work that way, but I doubt that it could. Most people don't care and aren't well enough informated to vote on day to day issues. Perhaps we could do something where Congress works as it normally does, and add an electronic way for people to express interest in having a referendum on a bill. If x people want a referendum, the bill is removed from Congress' hands and put on the next November ballot.

[Symmetry]

Would it be possible to have a democractic means of voting?

What I mean is, where for importent votes, everyone can vote on it, using electronic methods (assuming no tampering), would such a system be worth it? can it be used in todays society?

Who the heck has time to think about or vote on every issue that comes before congress, let alone study them? If you're worried about proper representation, let people give votes to their chosen representatives directly, rather than using geographic blocks.

[Ace Pace]

How do you decide which laws are important enough for referendums?

See CelesKnight, if enough people ask for a referendum.

Who the heck has time to think about or vote on every issue that comes before congress, let alone study them? If you're worried about proper representation, let people give votes to their chosen representatives directly, rather than using geographic blocks.

I did not mean every Issue, but major ones, that the public has interest in.



About this thread, I see the idea was foolish, thanks for explaining why.

[Son of the Suns]

N&P subject.

[Dahak]

As Salm pointed out, it works quite well in Switzerland.
They don't seem too unreasonable in their politics, and have a quite stable democracy and system of government.

[Anhaga]

But in Switzerland it's part of their culture. Would it really work in a society that is culturally more apathetic towards legislation?

[Dahak]

But in Switzerland it's part of their culture. Would it really work in a society that is culturally more apathetic towards legislation?

If people start feeling that their votes actually counted for something, and they are more important and useful than just voting once in a while, people wouldn't be so apathetic towards politics.

[Plekhanov]

Referenda have a place in the political system particularly upon issues of great national and constitutional importance but government by referendum (atleast in the UK) wouldn’t work.

Policies need to be coordinated in order to work, governing parties often have great difficulty of doing this I have very little confidence that the British electorate be able to do so. Opinion polls consistently show that we want higher spending on health and education and lower taxes, the government has to somehow attempt to reconcile this conflict I’m at all not sure the electorate voting in referenda would feel this responsibility.

To take a hypothetical example if it came down to referenda I expect people would vote Yes on Prop 1 to cut income tax and Yes on Prop 2 to increase spending upon the NHS. Leaving the executive to try and implement these incompatible policies.

Turnout would be a problem, my home town recently had a referenda on whether we should have a directly elected mayor the turnout was 21% in Sunderland it was 10%. Such low turnouts would allow organised minority groups undue influence.

[The_Nice_Guy]

There's a name for pure, total democracy. That's called tyranny by the majority. In effect, what you'll get is that the majority of folks will exploit the minority for benefits, wealth, etc.

You'll start to see very real economic consequences as taxes become ever more progressive, until you end up with virtual socialism, and nobody is rich, because being rich is to belong to a minority, and minorities are always outvoted.

TWG