Direct democracy

[Michael Allan]

Martin Gustavsson wrote:
> 
> For me it is clear that your system does NOT support the idea of
> direct democracy at the moment.
> If, however it is used somehow to delegate within a direct democratic
> party/organisation it would.

In that case, let's leave aside terminology (on which we disagree),
and consider a concrete scenario:

Stockholm, Summer-Fall 2008
---------------------------

A local resident (volunteer administrator) sets up an electoral
server, and calls an open election for Mayor of Stockholm.  (Assume
that Mayor is a directly elected office, and that any citizen is
eligible.)  In addition to the mayoral election, the administrator
allows open policy elections (citizen initiatives) to proceed in
parallel.  These elections proceed roughly as described here
(scenarios 1 and 2):

http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/design.xht#scenario-1

Suppose that one of the policy elections attains a consensus.  A good
many residents across the city (a quorum) are actively voting in it.
A large majority has voted in favour of a particular document, a
particular policy position (the consensus policy), and general opinion
has it (suppose) that this consensus policy is the true expression of
the will of Stockholm's residents.

Questions:

If a member of Aktivdemokrati were sitting on the Municipal Assembly,
how would she act, do you think?  Would she act in support of the
consensus policy?

How would the remainder of the Assembly act, in general?  Would they
act in support of the consensus policy?  Or against it?  Or would they
just ignore it?

If you were a politician who sought to become Mayor of Stockholm,
would you seek your nomination among the members of a political party
(using the party's electoral system)?  Or would you seek it among the
residents of Stockholm (using their electoral system)?  Or both?

-- 
Michael Allan

http://zelea.com/