Direct Democracy and the Internet – Voteocracy.com
Democracy, at its purest form means a system of governance which allows the people to decide their own fate. This is done through choice of representatives but this method can run into issues such as the principal agent problem or corruption. The opposite stance is direct democracy where literally everyone participates in deciding every issue. This one, however, is costly and not all people want to concern themselves with all matters of politics. The dawn of the internet age brings an exciting new opportunity for direct democracy. The costs are lower, both in time and money, and it is instant, finally making pure direct democracy possible. Take a look at this site votetocracy.com. It is a site which tracks and displays bills in Congress and allows users to vote on them. These amount to nothing more than polls, but the information is very direct and useful indicators of public opinion to legislators.
“What if 10million Americans voted no on a bill and Congress voted yes” – “Its time for a new mode of civic engagement”
“Votetocracy was created by regular citizens who decided it was time for Americans to have a better, actionable and measurable way to interact with Congress. This is not just a blog with commenting forums. We are about action. By providing Americans the ability to vote on bills in Congress we create a measurable repository of citizens sentiment towards each bill. That’s good for all Americans and good for Congress. Truth is – Congress wants to hear from you.”
This website is cool. No doubt about it. It allows you to feel as if you are actually making a contribution to politics. There’s even a scoreboard which shows how well the American government conforms to public opinion, http://www.votetocracy.com/scoreboard.html
If sites like this were launched with official legislative intent, then direct democracy would be achieved. As of right now, the American government is performing pretty poorly compared to the people’s preferences (perhaps choosing corporate ones instead), but sites like this highlight this fact and push for a change.
March 8th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
This is great!
The only concern I can bring up is that there must still be thousands of Americans without even the most minimal forms of internet access (yes, it must be a small figure).
March 8th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
theres more participation on American Idol than American Politics. hooray social media, bring it to democracy!
March 11th, 2012 at 11:59 am
Wow the site is very professional.
My concern is that because the site is now self-funded and is looking for funding from “investors”, there may be the danger that it will align its interests with the investors’ and become less neutral in future.
March 13th, 2012 at 9:49 pm
no i like this. But remember what Aristotle says about direct democracy, it is mob rule. The media already manipulates people enough on issues, we dont need any more of that. I would love this program if people actually took the time of day to inform themselves on what they will be voting.