Direct Online citizen law-making
Online technology could make citizen-initiated referendums much easier, and change the way we make law and govern ourselves.
While ancient Greek democracy did not permit women or slaves to vote, in one way their democracy was still in advance of ours: their system provided for each voter to be able to vote on each proposed law, which ours does not.
When you think about it, if it were practical for the entire electorate to vote on any given law, what would justify the continued existence of politicians or parliaments? Their whole justification is, or was, that they are needed to ‘represent’ the people in law-making. But Parliament itself is a kind of information-processing system, albeit a very clunky one, and prone to the institutionalised miscarrying of the people’s will. It is a system developed when the only practical way of getting input from people spread out over the countryside, was for one of them to physically get on his horse and go to some central place, and represent the others of his district.
Of course, this voting through delegates introduces all sorts of problems. The main problem is that an elector cannot distinguish a proposed law he wants from one he doesn’t want. .
Governments routinely claim a right to make any and every law they want ‘on behalf of’ the people, when it seems possible, and even probable that most people do not know about, care about, or want very many of the laws that are made. Politicians routinely get a majority by cobbling together a rag-bag of minority interests. The voter is taken to consent to all laws, thus importing great moral incoherence into the whole system. Given that their money is going to be taken whether they consent or not, people then take to habitually crying for government to give them something in return, and we are then on the slippery slope to larger and larger government.
Of course with modern technology that can deliver a single, secure and secret vote, it is now practical for the people to vote on any given law. Such technology is already widely in use in government, banking, and e-commerce. It is the same kind of technology that the tax office uses to administer taking the people’s money. It is similar to common online polls.
It may not be perfect, but neither is our existing electoral process. Any system only needs to be within a certain tolerance of error.
Senator Barnaby Joyce said a while ago he didn’t think he should have to go to Parliament: he can just vote from home online. Well bully for him! It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that the rest of us can too.
Assuming the necessary technology is feasible, it is interesting to do a thought experiment on what a different kind of political landscape might be made possible by direct online citizen initiated referendums on every act of law-making.
The new constitution of the polity might look something like this:
• To start with, people could vote from their personal computers. Or government could provide permanent online public voting facilities, for example at post offices.
• Any elector could suggest, change, or vote on any proposed law, as well as give reasons and evidence for and against.
• The form of the process could be something like newsgroups, or group email: individual posts, with nested threads following under. A law could be complex and sectioned, like today’s Acts of Parliament; or just a single sentence.
• As soon as a suggested law gets fifty percent of the vote, it becomes law.
• For a law to be changed requires at least the same number, or proportion, of votes as it got when it passed, so if it got, say 75 percent of the vote, it would require 75 percent to change it.
• Voting would be voluntary. This would follow from liberal democratic principle, but also because no one person could attend to all the different fields of law-making – just as no one politician can do so now.
• Each person would probably vote only on those matters which interest him. This would greatly reduce the number and volume of laws that are passed; a major libertarian benefit. If it is thought that this would reduce the number of laws being passed, the thought experiment goes to show that we already know that government is not being representative in passing those laws.
• The ability of minority groups to use the ‘representative’ process to force unrepresentative laws on the majority would be gone.
• The new system might be gradually phased in, and Parliament might be phased out or down, by agreed benchmarks over say a ten-year period.
• The executive and judicial branches of government might remain unaffected. Or they might be made subject to greater public supervision.
• A government department would still have a Minister, and the Minister would still be a member of Cabinet. But Cabinet would continue only in its executive, not in its legislative capacity. This would remove the major flaw from the Westminster system, by which the tail wags the dog: the executive – government departments – tends to dictate the laws to the legislature. So, surprise surprise, the government departments get bigger and more powerful. This further separation of powers would be another great libertarian benefit.
• It would enable, but not require, the abolition of the position of the Queen and Governor-General.
• It would enable, but not require, the abolition of the royal assent, the royal prerogative, and the reserve powers. If abolished, all these would merge in the sovereignty of the people. If retained, the people might decide to have a Head of State position specifically to exercise a supervision over the machinery of government.
• Responding quickly and flexibly to emergencies is an executive, not a legislative function, so the ability to respond to emergencies would remain unaffected. In case of emergency, the executive branch of government would continue to function as they do now.
• It would enable but not require the abolition of the States. Or the same reform could be brought in at the state and local levels of government too. Perhaps start at the local level, and work on up.
One great advantage of such a system is that we would know every single law passed definitely does have the support of a majority, unlike now, when we may suspect that very many laws would not ever have passed if they had had to get a real and voluntary majority to vote for them.
It would enable the people to stop government in any given case from taking money and falsely claiming that in doing so they represent the people. It would bring to public spending some of the same morality and sense that is required in private spending, by which the consent of the person making the payment is required. This in turn would probably reduce the vicious cycle by which the government takes money and the people then cry for more governmental services to try to get something back.
It would probably enormously reduce the production of legislation which constantly goes on under a full-time permanent class of law-makers with every incentive to pander to unrepresentative minorities. It would remove the ability of politicians to misuse the machinery of government to get their own snouts in the trough by aiding and abetting a minority to oppress or dictate to the majority
The great disadvantage of such a system is that it would take the logic of democracy to perhaps its fullest extent. It might be said that this direct democracy would enable a majority to oppress everyone else. But of course there is nothing in the current system preventing a majority from doing that now. Worse, the current system allows a minority to dictate laws to the majority, and in fact it happens all the time.
It would probably also be objected that the plain people do not have the knowledge necessary to govern themselves, and that they need the knowledge and wisom of their betters over and above them to guide them right. Of course this objection has been urged against every democratic reform ever – ‘the mob’ would lead to tyranny. Maybe it’s true! Tax rates were never as high as they are today, nor was government ever so intrusive in trying to control every detail of people’s private actions, in other words, despotism.
But if people were able to stop government’s compulsory takings, perhaps it would enable the tide to be turned.
What do you think would be the advantages and disadvantages of such a reform? Is it worth a try?
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Justin, the old problem strikes again.
I have no idea why the system wont let you use the ‘more’ tag. My problem is that if I see something wrong after I post and go to the edit, it looses its formatting in the process, and drives me mad. Sometimes it looks very different after it is published.
As for your post, I feel that while improving efficiency of the process, it would tend to exacerbate the ‘tyranny of the majority’ aspect.
I think a greater proportion of people who support a proposal will actually vote than those who would probably oppose it if they could be bothered.
It has potential though to be used as a moderating influence on parliament.
You are a complete klutz Justin. I can’t believe your computer is the only one where it won’t work.
There’s a button that says “Split post with More tag”. If your mouse won’t do it, use the keyboard – Alt+Shift+t Just put your cursor where you want the split to appear.
It might be said that this direct democracy would enable a majority to oppress everyone else. But of course there is nothing in the current system preventing a majority from doing that now. Worse, the current system allows a minority to dictate laws to the majority, and in fact it happens all the time.
That’s pretty faint praise. It will stop the minority oppressing the majority, but not vice versa.
The fact is, the majority can be wrong. Or at least highly authoritarian, which is wrong in my book.
For example, after a particularly obnoxious murder it is quite likely a majority would vote in favour of the death penalty. After Port Arthur, a majority was in favour of gun control. In both cases liberty is the casualty.
Perhaps laws that reduce liberty could require a 99% majority.
David;
What about laws that reduce economic liberty or increase taxes?
I hope you are not becoming a left winger.
Justin;
When you post with the more button in place, instead of pressing ’show blog’, go to the bookmark for the site.
On my apple system show blog shows the entire post without the break. Is it that you delete the break after this happens.
This will suffer from the same thing that afflicts Citizen Initiated Referendae- lack of knowledge.
For years, California has been ham-strung by the fact that large portions of its’ Budget are pre-allocated. Many and varied CIRs have been passed, fixing percentages at rated that can’t then be changed, because they are law. Even if it would now make sense to lower or raise some allocations, it would take another referendum to do it.
How much more complex would budgets be, if we all had to directly vote on every item, over the internet? Could each citizen be as informed as one should be, to run a modern state? As a Leonardarian, I think that governments should be small, and composed of volunteers, so laws and budgets would be very small, but most modern states couldn’t work, if the rest of us also had to run our ordinary businesses, and vote on every law!
Lefty though I am, I agree with the general proposition (although I’d love to see the democratic tool of ostracism reintroduced first: but rather than exile the ostracized individual, ban them from seeking elected office for 10 years. I’d want it on a preferential system too).
The problem as I see it is the immaturity of IT do deliver something that is accurate, anonymous, secure and auditable. The incentive to “hack” is huge. I think most Libertarians would be concerned about the abuses possible with the levels of identification and authentication required. (Have you seen the Australian National Audit Office’s Internet Security in Australian Government Agencies report 23 2005/06 about their inability to get anywhere near the standards of the PSM and ACSI33?? Be afraid!)
I think it is perhaps easier, and having less scope for abuse, to progress through the “half-way” step of allowing for citizen-initiated referenda.
I’d also think we’d need to boost the education budget quite a bit to get thoughtful voting by the masses. Either that, or have a “pre-qualification” process for each bill to show you understand the issues. Ugly compromises of democratic principles here. The tyranny of the majority is only a tyranny if the majority is uneducated.
You are discussing a very important and complex topic. It’s a can of worms, but we must start to open it.
Can you point to such technology? The experts can’t. I wouldn’t trust such a system as far as I can spit.
Don’t listen to me, take it from a man who is probably the world leader on cryptography and secure internet, Bruce Shneier: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0012.html
In general I like our ballot system because it strikes a good balance between efficiency, representativity and tamper-proofing. I am yet to be convinced that Digital Democracy can scale without terrible downsides.
This is one example of where I become a conservative – this is a change so radical that we cannot really know what the outcomes will be. The risk of things going horribly wrong seems high; the advantages nebulous at best.
In other words: interesting idea. You go first.
– Jacques
There’s a Swedish party who seem to have thought this through in considerable detail:
http://wse75376.web16.talkactive.net/ads%20websida/Party%20program.html
Also an Australian mob trying to do something similar: http://www.rulebythepeople.org/
David;
What about laws that reduce economic liberty or increase taxes?
I hope you are not becoming a left winger.
I’m an ex-left winger, so I think I’d recognise it if was happening. I still have a supply of anti-left pills as well, just in case
My point was that the dictatorship of the majority is not avoided by CIR or on-line voting. Safeguards such as entrenched constitutional rights are an option, but depend on the judiciary doing its job. An alternative might be to require an overwhelming majority when the issue involved a decrease in liberty.
I think sunset clauses and using this as a form of rebuke and rejection of laws and regulations or a way to strike down laws or decisions may be good.
It’s a fun thought experiment, but I can see a lot of problems with it. When we talk about democracy in the west, we typically mean a liberal democracy. Essentially we hold
that the individual comes first, with the right to life, liberty and property; that it’s the government’s job to ensure these rights; and, to ensure government is accountable, that they derieve their power from the “consent of the governed”.
It’s worth noting that by the above definition, the people – and not only the government – are bound by the constitution. Furthermore, the last point (ie, democratic elections) is a means to an end (the ends in this case being: ensuring the rights, freedoms and property of the individual).
A majority-rule system which disregards the individual is not necessarily a nice place to live. In Afghanistan for example, they have a new democracy – one which condemns a man to death for converting to Christianity!
Clearly, in Bush’s haste to “spread democracy,” he left out a few of the more important details. In short, this plan is big on democracy, but small on liberty… it celebrates democracy as an ends-unto-itself, instead of a means of ensuring liberty.
You said, “It would enable the people to stop government in any given case from taking money and falsely claiming that in doing so they represent the people.”
I disagree… people will certainly be less likely to vote to give their money, but would be more than happy to take it from others.
Also, with regards to some people being “uninformed” on decisions… this is not simply an argument that people “need the knowledge and wisdom of their betters,” but that people need time to specialise – and consider all aspects properly.
That said, it’s still an interesting idea, and might still work with proper safeguards. If it were to be tried, I would recommend at lower levels of government first.
The only way to secure it is to make it not anonymous… then you could look up the result afterwards and say, “yep – they have me listed as a no vote… that’s what I voted”.
Focus on decentralising political power to create more competition between States for tax bases and decentralising even that, and privatising most govenment property. More privately owned condominiums and gated communities and less of even local government. That’s the best form of governance – freedom of exit between communities. Let’s not add this palarver into the mix, it just makes things harder. Politics inevitably gets taken over by hacks and losers. As libertarians we want politics to have less influence and importance on our lives, not more and this just unnecessarly complicates matters.
No offence to David Bath who sounds like an open-minded, sensible guy but the fact that the only left winger on this thread is the only one enthusiastic about the idea suggests something …
Instead of making referendums to decide how EVERYONE’s money is spent, it would be better just to give citizens a drop-down list choice which decides how their own personal taxes are spent.
Something tells me a lot of the government’s more useless projects would quickly drop to zero overnight. Hawks could send all their taxes to the ADF, lefties could send all theirs to the one-legged lesbian muslim aboriginal fund, and everyone would be a lot happier.
the one-legged lesbian muslim aboriginal fund
Which is of course established to promote the consumption of organic whale meat.
There are systems that are secure, auditable and anonymous but they all require authentication. So does this proposal require that we all carry a universal government issued ID card? No system is imune to fraud but the current system is hardly robust. I can’t confirm that my vote was counted correctly whilst some electronic options do allow for personal audits.
If we were going to go with such direct democracy I would suggest that it replace the senate as a means of legislative review. So the executive may still decide what laws get proposed but the people would have a right of veto.
Whether this system would lead to better outcomes is hard to say. No doubt the “majority” will think so because it empowers the “majority”.
Because such a reform is radical and because of the possibility of adverse effects the conservative approach would be to implement it within a small community. You might start doing it within a given trade union or amoungst corporate shareholders. If that works out you might try it out with a given local government level. The point would be to build an empiracle case for such a reform.
At the end of the day the idea is dependent on electronic voting and we have not yet warmed to electronic voting so we are several steps away from such a thing. Maybe an easy place to start is an electronic form of postal voting. That would get the ball rolling.
p.s. If personal votes can be personally audited then there becomes a market for vote buying. If I can prove that I voted for X then I can sell my vote. I’m not convinced this is a bad thing but it does open a pandoras box.
Jason Soon:
Hmmmm. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one with a home on a non-righty site. As a lefty, I’m also ready to tip my hat to folks like Andrew Norton of the CIS, a righty think tank. But… in many ways I think /humane/ folks of the right and left can be allies. The thing is to focus on human outcomes and see which mix of economic models in what sectors do best. (As The Economist said, with praise, “Fancy a Swedish model?”)
Yobbo:
Hypothecated taxes within a moderate percentage (somewhere between 15% and 50%) make a lot of sense: we might get more on things that make the economy more productive (health, education) rather than weapons that you spend money on only to blow up. Personally, I’d hypothecate a fair bit of mine to ANAO, which would lead to much increased efficiency and competence (I’m sure libertarians don’t want governments wasting money). If you think it’s a good idea, just wait until a committee comes up on tax issues… and comment.
All:
Getting back on topic: Justin advocated an increasingly participatory democracy. Grand idea, but there are significant hurdles: festina lente. What I’m saying is the first step is not to congratulate yourselves on your own wisdom within a friendly circle, but to advocate where it matters: just before a bill goes through another reading, on the public record where it cannot be “silenced”, and with parliamentary privilege. I’m not telling you what to say, I’m just arguing that your freedoms can be curtailed if you don’t speak in the place with the greatest influence.
Dave, one word of advice- libertarians tend to be neither left nor right, nor central, but De-Centralisers. I don’t think of myself as right-wing; I am more inclined to vote Liberal, solely because the Liberals used to stand for limited governments. This is a blog for limited government enthusiasts.
Both left and right wings tend to favour strong governments, so they can use the strength for their own causes. (Right-wingers favour strong police powers to enforce morality on people, whilst the left wants to regulate economic activity. The Democrats don’t seem to know what they stand for, except honesty in Government.)
[...] pretty sure that a call for participatory democracy at the Australian Libertarian Society prompted the visits to Balneus by libertarians. It’s worth noting that such [...]
Nicholas:
“This is a blog for limited government enthusiasts.”
A self identifying Libertarian Lefty, I’m also big on limiting the role of governments in peoples lives, and put my “libertarian hat” on when visiting this site.
I’d have thought the ALS would welcome a comment from a self-identifying lefty that supported the general proposition of an ALS blog member. The post proposed constraints on the executive by a greater emphasis on participatory democracy. My only objection was that technology is not up to the specific task proposed, and I tried to show a “workaround” that would (in part) provide Justin with another means to his objectives, and provided a link to evidence that supported my worries about his detailed implementation.
Remember, I’m the lefty that says other lefties should read some libertarian blogs (e.g. Andrew Norton is your own blogroll), as noted in a recent Club Troppo Missing Link, and I’ve just given your “Quotes” page a 90%-supportive plug.
(Moderator, I know this is a bit off topic, so if you like, forward it to Nicholas and delete this comment)
Dave
I don’t think nicholas was saying you shouldn’t comment here, what he meant was that most people on this blog don’t identify as either left or right but as limited govt enthusiasts and that is how you should address them as.
Again, can you point to such a system? I can’t. If you look at the link I posted, you’ll see that it would be the first such system ever devised. Remember that this claim is made by the man who quite literally wrote the book on cryptography.
It’s also impossible to ensure anonymity in a distributed vote. We can’t prevent standover tactics or cheats – husbands coercing wives, children sneaking in with their parents’ votes etc etc.
The current system is very robust, actually. Every elector is marked off, every box is accounted for, every seal on every box is accounted for, electoral officials are required to be non-partisan and the process of adversarial scrutineering means that almost any irregularity is picked up. Add to that the fact that it is broken down into small units, isolating any pockets of corruption, and that exit polls are performed in many seats, and you have a pretty darn robust system.
There has never been a single case of vote-rigging under our current system, either suspect or proved. It simply cannot be gamed to the level required to tip an election without someone breaking it.
But they do not allow adversarial scrutineering, do not secure the physical ballot from tampering, do not enforce anonymity, cannot be supervised by trusted parties etc etc. The current system works well and doesn’t need to be replaced.
This is an example of a high-hanging fruit. Fascinating to debate but ultimately a distraction from the work the LDP should focus on.
Someone wrote a letter to the Australian which talked about shires and counties favourably. Perhaps Direct Voting is only possible in such units.
Dave, a question- What do you call your own brand of politics? Is it idiosyncratic, or are you a member of a group? We welcome honest differences of opinion.
Jacques, this is not the LDP blog. Members of the LDP who comment here do so in their individual capacity.
Which provides me with a perfect opportunity to advise that the LDP has a new name. Go to the official LDP blog and find out all about it.
http://ldpblog.wordpress.com/
[...] a thought experiment on what a different kind of political landscape might be made possible by direct online citizen initiated referendums on every act of law-making, while Robert Merkel is in two minds about a proposal to enfranchise [...]
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David;
Thanks for the reminder. I do sometimes get the two mixed up in the rush to comment.
–Jacques.
jchester – I think some of our difference of opinion hinges on an interpretation of anonymous. To me anonymous means nobody knows how I voted if I don’t show them how I voted. For some people anonymous means that I can’t even show people how I voted.
Auditable means I can validate that my votes was counted a certain way. Obviously auditable is incompatible with the latter interpretation of anonymous.
p.s. Perhaps what I meant is better described as privacy not anonymity.
Nicholas Grey: My placement on political spectra is here.
Terje: There are two issues: (1) Privacy, (2) Auditable, which is equivalent to the job scrutineers do when the votes are counted and recounted. The technology is just not up to it yet, and the project managers in government agencies want to cut corners big time. The hacking incentive is particularly great on individual bills because the “sample size” will probably be so small.
>> The problem as I see it is the immaturity of IT do deliver
>> something that is accurate, anonymous, secure and
>> auditable.
My Bank allows me to transfer any amount of money I want to
(up to the piddling small amount I have in the account anyway)
based on a password and a little LCD display thingy I carry
on my key ring. Admittedly this doesn’t satisfy the requirement of _anonymous_, but it satisfies all the others.
The amount of money sloshing around in some people’s bank accounts is considerably more valuable than one vote, but
the bank clearly considers the risks small compared to the
convenience.
Are we suggesting that the government can’t do equally well?
A damning reflection on government competence indeed.
Or are some our elites just afraid of genuine democracy?
“My Bank”…
Yeah. Ask someone with 10 to 20 years in IT security about any time they’ve had working for banks. Get ready to yell “dead puppies!! dead puppies!!” to stop them giggling themselves to death. Seriously, some quite professional friends of mine won’t work for banks anymore because they know it will do their heads in. They won’t work for government any more for the same reasons.
The banks are bad enough. And yes, most government agencies are worse than the banks. And government business enterprises are worse than full government agencies. Don’t take my word. Read through some of ANAO’s reports.
Or better yet, start reading The Daily WTF to see how many organisations handle IT. Including banks and governments.