Direct democracy

[Michael Allan]

Martin Gustavsson wrote:
> Well, as I see it the details of a more general budget as in your example in
> ABC where you turn C into X and Y is not really necessary. The detailed
> budget decisions will be taken by people who are interested in the detail
> budget.

But who decides who's interested? :) Suppose a member of the community
*acquires* an interest.  If the electoral system then prevents her
from expressing that interest (from posing a re-framed question, or
re-defined object of voting) then the legitimacy of the result is
weakened.

You see, if the premises of a question are not open to criticism or
debate, then the rationality of the discussion is in doubt.  (People
do not behave rationally when forced to reply to questions that do not
make sense to them.)  Best to leave these decisions to the community,
then.  Only they can decide what makes sense to them.

And this should pose no problem for the official who implements and
enforces the budget.  If the resulting consensus makes no sense to
*her*, then she enters into a dialogue with the consensus drafter (the
one having the most votes, at that moment).  In that dialogue, she
will effectively be *negotiating* with the entire community.  The
community's votes may shift consequently.  Eventually, something will
be worked out between them.

> About shifting the vote continuously... That is an issue we have talked
> about in my party, www.aktivdemokrati.se. We came to the conclusion that the
> vote should be changeable until either when people themselves agree on when
> it should be decided OR through a certain time constant that depends on the
> number of votes cast for and against OR when the parliament votes for it (if
> our party is a small party within the parliament).

This will work with Votorola.  The electoral administrator *can* stop
an election.

-- 
Michael Allan

http://zelea.com/