Organizations in support of the voters

[Michael Allan]

Hi xRam,

Sorry about the posting difficulty.  (I'm not too happy with Google
Groups either.  We really should set up a proper mailing list, as you
suggest.)

xram54 wrote:
> [1.1]b. Have you thought about founding a political enterprise to
> support basic democratic structures all over the world from the
> perspective of the "users" a.k.a. the truely democratic subject
> (being it really poor people or even descending middle class
> milieus)? I don't talk about these proposals to build a software
> company run it inside businesses and everywhere and sell services
> (like e.g. echo), but rather a political organisation which purely
> tries to push basis-democratic structures and helps to spread the
> decentral usage of votorola/ld?

It's mostly others who have thought about this, Thomas in particular.
I don't fit easily into organizations so I'm not usually interested in
building them.  But earlier in the year several of us were mooting the
idea of an organization that would take the side of the voters by
pushing technical and political issues in their favour.  The theme was
to be voter accessibility, as expressed in the simple phrase:

  Enabling people to vote

That message would then be elaborated into something more radical and
critical of the status quo:

  * Enabling *all* people to vote, without exception
  * Just as they are
  * Wherever they happen to be located
  * Voting whenever they choose
  * On whatever issues they choose
  * For anybody they choose

And so forth.  The organization would focus exclusively on that
mission.  As long as it did so, then (in theory) it would unstoppable.
The voters would make sure of that.

I think Votorola needs to find another project to enter into some kind
of working relationship with.  It would have to be a project that
could stand on its own (like we do) and deliver.  It could be some
other technical project, or a political organization, as you suggest,
or just about anything.  (It's hard to predict because the technology
touches so much else.)  I'm hopeful we can manage that transition in
the next 6-12 months.

I promise to answer your other questions shortly (they all have
positive answers), but first I wanted to get a sense of your main
interest.  Is it the interface to political action?  Are you mostly
interested in bridging that, e.g. by shepherding the public's bills
into legislatures, and so forth?  Or is it something more general?

Very best,
-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/