Direct democracy

[Michael Allan]

Martin Gustavsson wrote:

> I imagine a system where "the party opinion" is set as a default and where
> possible delegates could be ex.: Democrats, Republicans, Liberals,
> Greenpeace, you, me etc.
> Issues would be ex.: energy, environment, defence, education, etc.
> 
> Who is interested in the details is regulated by who is actually
> participating in the discussions, voting and then offering to be a delegate
> within the issue.

That makes sense.  That's how I forsee it, too.
 
> A forum of this size needs limits. People cannot keep themselves informed by
> all details within. They have to open the forum and take a look themselves
> at the things they are interested in and delegate other issues to people and
> organizations they trust. Getting e-mails about every descision in all
> issues would be considered spam, unless you really prefer to manipulate
> everything through e-mail.

It would only have to be size-limited if issues were *pushed* at
people (e.g. by email) as you suggest.  But Votorola does not push
anything at people, so there is no question of spam.  People will see
which elections are taking place.  There will be numerous channels for
them to use, in order to discover this info.  If they are interested
in a particular election, they can cast a vote in it, on their own
time.  So, in principle, the design imposes no limit on the numbers
participating -- anyone in the jurisdiction can participate.  (And
there is no size limit to the jurisdiction: town, region, state, ...)
 
> They can however directly see in their voting account what happened with
> their mandate and what is about to happen and directly manipulate it if they
> wish.

Yes, they can always see the various candidates or positions (the
voting options they have), and the latest election results (size of
consensus that has formed on each option).  They can also see where
their own vote fits, in the big picture.  And they can shift their
vote at any time, of course.

> e-mail for voting is not to safe either. I guess some kind of system that
> the banks use would be more appropriate. Downloading certificates using,
> limited time codes and similar.

In terms of sender authentication, Votorola will initially support any
of these methods:

    a) challenge/response email (default method)

    b) signed email (digital signing certificate, as you say)

    c) Web, with encrypted transmission of password on login screen

Other options can be added, as necessary.

-- 
Michael Allan

http://zelea.com/