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Australians Running On-Line Poll Based Senators
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:15 AM
from the crowds-are-right-half-the-time dept.
from the crowds-are-right-half-the-time dept.
exeme writes "The 2007 Australian election was recently announced and a new completely on-line based political party is running for election to the Australian Senate. Senator On-Line will give Australian residents eligible to vote a chance to vote in on-line polls for every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. The senator will then blindly vote in accordance with the majority.
The party has no position on anything until it is voted on and has been approved by the Australian Electoral Commission as a legitimate party. The party will be running two candidates in each Australian state." I imagine this could have a huge impact on CowboyNeal related legislation down under.
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Missing Option (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Missing Option (Score:5, Insightful)
A good elected official will take a piece of legislation that has good parts and bad parts, strip out the bad parts, and add more good parts to it. If all you can do is simply vote yes or no, you're losing quite a bit of power there. Would they allow you to vote on a particular bill and say "yes if you strike out this one provision" or "yes as long as we add x, y, or z." What about creating legislation from scratch? If you rely on the other senators to do so, you are really at their mercy in terms of what legislation the "voting mass" ever gets to vote on.
Interesting approach (Score:5, Interesting)
But in all - this seems to be the next step in democracy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, a representative democracy has its advantages. If, and only if, the person who is supposed to represent you does actually represent you. If he's just a slick bastard who gets the lowbrows to vote for him because he promises easy solutions to problems that have none, he's worse than any direct democracy could be.
Now, show me one politician who isn't such a slick bastard (one that actually has some power, not some wannabe, trying to get somewhere), and we'll talk.
A unique concept (Score:5, Interesting)
Australia:
Rest of capitalist, democratic world:
Perhaps a bit of a cynical view?
Re:A unique concept (Score:4, Insightful)
Wisdom of the Mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some non-political example is slashdot versus digg. Moderation is required.
Re:Wisdom of the Mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually that's a pretty good example; it even covers the fact that slashdot, while better than digg, is itself pretty far from perfect.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In case you haven't noticed, the editorial influence of slashdot isn't exactly something to brag about. Di
Good luck (Score:3, Funny)
What a terrible idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But people who can't or shouldn't personally access or assess the information that a Senator is supposed to analyze FOR her constituents will have to make poor judgements, by definition. A Senator may make poor de
What's Next? (Score:4, Funny)
I suppose the next iteration will be text messaging the way you want your senator to vote.
Text "Aye" to 73628 to vote YES.
Text "Nay" to 73628 to vote NO.
(Standard messaging charges apply.)
Superdemocracy is a terrible idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
The United States Beta that was started in the late 1700's had a great idea: let there be a pseudo-democracy at the Federal level, but limit is greatly. Don't let there be an easy way for the majority to steal from the minority. It worked for a while, until the People slowly upset the restrictions provided for in the Constitution. It was a sad day when Lincoln was elected, the first tyrant of many.
The idea of voting en masse online sounds like a good idea. I recall that MajorBBS founder, the late Tim Stryker (a man I knew personally) was a big proponent of a Superdemocracy. Back then I agreed with him, until I started to realize that the failings of a nation/society generally happen because the People want more without giving more.
My own political thought is what I call a Unanimocracy: a law doesn't get passed without unanimous consent. If you can't get it at the National level, try at the State level. Keep going down the ladder of size until you might end up with a law passed only in a home, or even only by an individual who restricts themselves. Sure, it's a grandious idea, but I feel it is the only fair way to set legislation. The Internet is a great Unanimocracy, with individuals deciding what limitations they'll accept, and others forming relationships based on agreeing to those limitation. You could say that the dreaded click-contracts are similar, although they're covered by "laws" rather that voluntary contracts that can be broken by either party.
The only way I'd accept a Democracy of any kind is if there was an agreement that 10% of any voting bloc can veto any legislation they disagree with. Let 50.1% say "We want to tax tall black men to pay for education of short asian women." Let the legislation be unless 10% of the population votes VETO. That's three ways to vote: Yes, I want it. No, but I don't really care. Veto, this is bad. A 10% veto requirement would get me to support government again, because the minority has power to stop a crazy, and theft-prone, majority.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a neat idea, but in practice it couldn't be done. You'd have no one of knowing from location to location what set of laws are in effect. What if say a neighborhood passes a law that makes it illegal to wear blue on Tuesdays, and you go to visit your f
Re:Superdemocracy is a terrible idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
You do understand that absolutely nothing would ever get done, right? I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but if you want your government to ever do anything, your ideas won't really work. No matter how great an idea is, you'd probably find 10% who would be willing to vote "veto".
Of course, the traditional American theory of government is that deadlock is good, government "getting things done" was bad. (Don't believe me? Read the Federalist Papers.) Now that we have a two-party system, that idea has been subverted. You need a 50% vote to get something done, and usually one single political party controls at least 50%. The original Federalist idea was that there would be many different factions, so that reaching 50% would require getting people from different factions to agree. To that end, I think it might be worth considering that we could raise the percentage needed to pass legislation to something like 60%, making it difficult for a single party to force legislation through. But a 10% veto would happen all the time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
An example would be the US right t
Direct Democracy = Tyranny of the Majority (Score:4, Insightful)
A direct-democracy candidate is by definition only and always the representative of the majority, leaving the minority unrepresented. Direct democracy is, both in theory and practice, government by the majority and only the majority. It is therefore arguably the worst possible form of government, as all other forms of tyranny involve a tyranny of a minority, which inherently gives the majority the potential power to forcibly overthrow the tyrants. One cannot overthrow a tyranny of the majority.
Information Overload (Score:4, Insightful)
Voter turnout for everyday things is gonna suck.
Senators do more than just vote, too. They talk about bills, argue them, control things in committees, and introduce bills themselves. How are you going to do that if you are supposed to be a puppet of the people without any ideas of your own?
I wouldn't vote this party in.
Sweet! (Score:3, Funny)
May the bast hacker win!
Today's Tom Sawyer? (Score:4, Interesting)
a) Homogenization of the vote? Any other senator would be wise, in the absence of strong constituency lobbying, to simply vote with the Senator Online. How could you go wrong if the Online vote is a reflection of the public desire?
b) What is the likely demographic of those who would use Senator Online? The hard working middle-class type isn't likely to want the added burden of being a defacto senator added to the existing job, parenting, soccer mom'ing, etc. Maybe the Senator Online would reflect the will of those with time to spare eg. retirees, welfare abusers, other politcal candidates with an agenda to push, Slashdotters wanting to comment on something different?
c) What platform would a Senator Online candidate use? Great to be a candidate if all you do is vote as told. Who could find fault with your performance? A job for life if you could get it. But what's your election platform? "Vote for me. I'll do exactly what you want
Doesn't this almost seem like Tom Sawyer? Get someone else to do the work (assume researchers/collaters are hired), get someone else to take responsibility (the online voters) but you take the perks (and pay). Does this seem like a scam to anyone else?
wtf mate? (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a better title:
New Australian Party Backs Internet Opinion-poll Driven Candidates
Now, internet aside, how is that any different from business as usual?
A couple of quotes for y'all ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Autocracy is based upon the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?
Lazarus Long
Australian Senate != US Senate (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the time it works pretty well(though the current government is sort of suffering quite a bit because in the last election they took the senate too and there's no one there to buffer their own stupidity), but it's not composed of the same sorts of people as the US Senate and an on-line senator would fit in pretty well there.
Add the fact that most politicians tend to just vote the way of the polls anyway.
Re:Nice one... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your Senate never writes any new laws? That's fantastic! If only our Senate worked that way. Also our House of Representatives.
We'd still let them vote to repe
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Before you debate about this, clear up your vocabulary. Democracy is everyone votes on everything. A Republic is where everyone votes to put Senators, Republicans etc, in power and then they vote on the issues
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A Democracy can be direct, as you describe, or representative, as the
As opposed to... (Score:4, Interesting)
more to your point. [imdb.com]
Re:Nice one... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nice one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm...what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice one... (Score:4, Insightful)
Our democracies (I'm from the UK) aren't perfect, but its better than handing the lunatics the keys to the asylum.
Actually, I honestly don't think it is at the moment.
Today, we have a Prime Minister, complete with new Cabinet, who has never been voted into that office by the electorate, and indeed who just backed down from holding an election to get a mandate. (Anyone who is about to bleat about a party political system where the Labour Party was elected would do well to remember that they were elected after Blair said he would serve a full third term. There is no rational way you can argue that the Brown administration has a mandate based on party politics. And even if they had been elected without that promise, our first-past-the-post system is so broken that you could hardly call it representative.)
Many of the less popular acts of government in our country are now coming down from above. At national level, we have the unelected European Commission running the show, despite the presence of the directly elected European Parliament, and imposing legislation on national governments. I find it sadly ironic that the government is desperately trying to wriggle out of a referendum on the big European treaty on the basis that it has certain key safeguards for national sovereignty in place, when those "safeguards" basically mean they can ignore the few bits of European law that actually serve the interests of the people: human rights, protection for workers, etc. Meanwhile, the government imposes all sorts of unpopular nonsense on the basis that Europe told it that it had to. Remember that our own European Commissioner is serial ministerial resigner and locally politically uncredible screw-up Peter Mandelson — so when they say "Europe told us to", this is the sort of person they're taking orders from!
This happens at more local levels, too. I live in Cambridge, where right now our County Council are pretty obviously setting up a hugely unpopular congestion charge in the city. This is being done despite widespread opposition among city residents and their elected City Council, who aren't even being shown the models from the consultants. It's also being done by much the same crowd who are already screwing up local transport because of a pet scheme of theirs, which can't possibly be enough to solve the problems they claim we're going to have a few years down the line even according to their own laughably physics-defying models, yet which is being implemented right now at vast cost in both taxpayers' money and disruption to local residents and businesses, even after thousands of local residents opposed the scheme and basically no-one without a vested interest supported it.
In other words, right now the basic decisions that are going to affect me as an everyday guy, at local, national and international levels, are all being made by people I have had no chance to vote for or against. And a great many of the big decisions they are making are in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, which would probably be enough not just to get rid of the legislation but to outright finish political careers in some cases if any remotely democratic form of voting were in place.
I do not believe in a 100% "one adult, one vote" type of system for every little decision, for the simple, pragmatic reason that no-one has enough time to consider all the issues deeply enough to make a sensible, informed choice. I believe in a representative government elected according to the basic principles of the people, where those in the civil service can do the detailed investigation where appropriate and decisions are made by the elected representatives on the basis of the information and any expert advice available to them. I also believe in checks and balances, and in particular that if interest in a particular issue is sufficiently widespread, it should be possible for the people to override the government on that specific issue immediately, rather than waiting for anothe
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
By sucking around for unwise votes in response to well-groomed populist or alarmist nonsense. If all it takes is a mouseclick to "agree" with a position that's been slickly presented to you in a nice Flash-based web site that you just visited while reading your e-mail at home and having your fourth beer, then this makes matters worse, not better. If you can get a Nobel Peace Price for slickly packaging semi-truthy rhetoric, you can certainly get your pet legislation passed that way too - and even more quickly using this new bots-using-Senatorial-bots method. You want less corruption? Elect people with integrity and good judgement. Is that just too much work, compared to complaining? Then quit complaining.
Re:Democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would. I really would. I'm serious, I would.
If I just could.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because everyone does it doesn't make it right. The reverse conclusion is equally valid, btw.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you. People often forget, that the Democracy — in its original, direct-governing fashion — is what condemned Socrates to death.
However, it is possible, that the described system can be perfected. For example, to cut out the "on-t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the point — it will not be different from today. But today's politicians don't promise to obey the electorate's wishes literally, they all use their own judgement (for better or worse) — nothing to enforce here.
These new guys in Australia, however, promise to hold no position of their own and to vote purely as the electorate wants them to.
There is no way to legally hold them to that specific promise. For example, their voters will not be able to access their web-servers' logs in real-time... There may also be a situation of "Yes, our voters wanted A, but B was obviously superiour, so we voted for B anyway."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A
Re:Democracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I read a good article [torontosun.com] on this just today; a major point of the article is that any country that is drowning in media cannot get the best people to run for office because the best people all have skeletons in their closets.
Digital Divide (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Harder than showing up at a precinct and voting?
Exactly, no it isn't.