A New Party Dedicated to Implementing Public Voting

[Michael Allan]

Ed Pastore said:
> ... There's no reason for that not to be an open primary such as
> yours, but with all of the above, I think the party is also
> necessary.

I think there is a reason.  It would immediately destroy the party.
If you're not in love with open primaries today, you'll be less in
love after you've invested time and money in building up the party.
You'll become one of the E2D zombies Ed, you'll join the walking dead.

Seriously, I want to help and I think we should work together, but the
parties have no possible future.  Consider what they're up against in
the open primaries:

> > * Open to all electors and nominees regardless of party
> >   affiliation; so it's not torn apart by political tensions
> > 
> > * Open to all voting methods (present and future); so it's not
> >   torn apart by technical tensions
> > 
> > * Public; so it's exciting to participate in, or just to follow
> > 
> > * Runs continuously beginning now, and never stops

Based on the primary results, everyone knows who'll be elected long in
advance of the election.  They know who'll be sitting in the next
assembly.  How can a party possibly survive when candidates are
nominated like this?  What possible purpose can it serve?

I think a different kind of institution is now called for.  Like the
party system, it will be based on primaries - primaries for composing
the content of assemblies, of executive hierarchies, of laws, budgets,
plans and policies - but all radically free and open.  This new
institution will turn the parties inside out, eliminating the closure
on which their power is based.  This is why they are finished.

> There are some surrounding issues that make me want to take both
> approaches. If an organization is conducting activities such as a
> primary, then (at least in the U.S.), I think it must be registered
> as a political party. ...

Maybe for a *party* primary.  The whole point of an *open* primary is
to be unaffiliated with anything, least of all a party.  Freedoms of
speech and association are sufficient safeguards for this and the
courts are required to uphold these freedoms.

> ... More to my concern, I believe that the only way any E2D-like
> movement can see success in the U.S. is through substantial funding
> and therefore publicity. That again requires registration as a party
> (before gathering or spending the first thousand dollars).

We can expect open primaries to destroy all parties, including the E2D
parties.  The reasons are fairly easy to explain.  So we can also
expect investment and other resources to shift in the direction of the
open primaries instead of the E2D parties.

However, if it's necessary to have a party for purposes of marketing
or funding, then we could have one for these purposes.  I'm thinking
of a kind of Un-Party that we use (and abuse) without ever becoming
trapped in it ourselves.  An Un-Party can survive the open primaries
because it's a party only in form.  (The party form is required
wherever they have proportional assemblies in any case, because it's
baked into their constitutions.  So the practice might be somewhat
portable across borders.)

> Additionally, this paradigm requires a good registration process. As
> you know from Metagov, I think governance should be open to whomever
> feels like participating. But with the imperfect hack of E2D (again,
> primarily as a bridge and an eye-opener), there is no way it would
> fly with Americans if foreigners or even people from another
> American locality could participate in any way in their elections or
> even primaries.

The residential registry (e.g. streetwiki) needs work before it can
carry a big load.  But the load itself might become a resource of
labour for this purpose.  A streetwiki is an interesting project in
its own right.  It'll be a newsworthy event when people are running
their own voter registry independent of the government.  They'll put
the work into it, because people take care of their own.

But the only purpose is to ensure that we can view the primary results
filtered to the electors, which is usually what'll interest us for
this type of primary.  The purpose is not to prevent the participation
of others, which is infeasible anyway.  Fortunately only the ideal is
feasible here: freedoms of speech and association are safeguarded for
all, and that means the freedom to participate in all primaries.

> The way I'm looking at it for now is to go ahead with fundraising
> and publicity, and allow self-nomination of candidates (as Rhett is
> doing) up until the point where a primary function can be
> implemented. ...

To be sure, an open primary cannot limit anyone's freedom of choice.
Rhett remains free to stand on the ballot for city council.  The main
purpose of the open primary is to tentatively inform the electors just
who they intend to elect come election day.  Hopefully that will be
Rhett.  In any case, this information is uncovered long in advance of
the election, and long before the ballots are printed.  The current
primary winner may always claim (tentatively) to be nominated by the
electors at large, but this is just a disclosure, not a decision.
Nothing is disallowed by the primary results.  Open primaries are
necessarily 100% freedom and 0% restrictions.

Please take my technical advice, or refute it, and I'll follow you.
My time is yours.  But I can't follow where reason points to failure.

Mike


Ed Pastore said:
> There are some surrounding issues that make me want to take both approaches. If an organization is conducting activities such as a primary, then (at least in the U.S.), I think it must be registered as a political party. More to my concern, I believe that the only way any E2D-like movement can see success in the U.S. is through substantial funding and therefore publicity. That again requires registration as a party (before gathering or spending the first thousand dollars).
> 
> A well-funded, well-thought-out national party can prevent the creation of redundant competitors. Currently there appear to be none in the United States. There is a Pirate Party, but they have no visibility and really the Pirate platform is very different from E2D. For one thing, they have a platform, while E2D is (in my mind) completely neutral on all issues except the meta-issues of corruption and politics.
> 
> Additionally, this paradigm requires a good registration process. As you know from Metagov, I think governance should be open to whomever feels like participating. But with the imperfect hack of E2D (again, primarily as a bridge and an eye-opener), there is no way it would fly with Americans if foreigners or even people from another American locality could participate in any way in their elections or even primaries.
> 
> The way I'm looking at it for now is to go ahead with fundraising and publicity, and allow self-nomination of candidates (as Rhett is doing) up until the point where a primary function can be implemented. There's no reason for that not to be an open primary such as yours, but with all of the above, I think the party is also necessary.
> 
> P.S. It's noteworthy that confidence in the U.S. Congress has dropped to a historically-low and amazingly-low 10%:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/06/13/confidence-in-congress-drops-to-historic-low/
> 
> 
> On Jun 13, 2013, at 4:10 PM, Michael Allan wrote:
> 
> > Rhett said:
> >> For me, at least to begin with, success looks like winning a local
> >> election next year. ...
> > 
> > ... to which Ed agrees.  I suggest you both seek the ballot nomination
> > through a special kind of electoral primary.  I'm thinking of a
> > primary that is:
> > 
> >  * Open to all electors and nominees regardless of party affiliation;
> >    so it's not torn apart by political tensions
> > 
> >  * Open to all voting methods (present and future); so it's not torn
> >    apart by technical tensions
> > 
> >  * Public; so it's exciting to participate in, or just to follow
> > 
> >  * Runs continuously beginning now, and never stops
> > 
> > I suggest we do this instead of organizing a party.  Organizing a
> > party on E2D/DEMOEX lines would bring us into competition with similar
> > parties that are popping up everywhere.  It would be a pointless brawl
> > and a detour because the only outcome would be the open primaries as
> > outlined above, which would finish off the E2D parties.  No party can
> > survive the fact of open primaries.  This is maybe where I can help
> > (for my part), in laying down some of those technical facts.
> > 
> > With the time and money we save (avoiding a battle with the Pirates
> > and other E2D zombies), we could discover a more viable model for an
> > organization.  Or other opportunities.
> > 
> > Mike