Notes on re-imagining democracy

There's this very deeply embedded idea that democracy (the rule of the people) can only be possible with elements such as simple majority (50 + 1), representation (a proxy represents a sub-group) and partisanship (democrats vs republicans).

Simple majority, since you only need half of the voters at most to win, creates a very polarized discussion while leading to the passage of still widely (often close to 50%) unpopular laws. Partisanship leads to too many qui pro quo (I help you pass this law if you help me pass this one) and favors groupthink. Representatives often largely frustrate their voters and tend to create compromises based on geographically defined subgroups instead of abstract ideals. The whole mess leads to contradictory and complex laws with very many unrelated items that very few persons of "the people" can understand (and that "representatives" don't really read or understand anyway).

Looking at the often terribly messy, porky, corporate-influenced systems such as the United States various legislatures, most will give up and say "it's politics"...

However, it's important to get this right as many non-democracies tend to point at these less than ideal systems and say "see! democracy doesn't work as well as our dictatorship / repressive regime / centrally planned system!". Fist fights in parliaments don't help either...

However, there are many forms of democracy out there. For example, Nunavut has a non-partisan consensus government while Switzerland requires a double majority on constitutional matters.

With the advent of modern technology, such as instantaneous multi-point communication and ability to track in real-time billions of pieces of data we can implement many new and possibly better alternatives that could address some of the downsides of most established democracies.

If I were to try to imagine an ideal democracy, I would start by making it direct but with a very high threshold for passing new laws.

Issues could be raised with a simple majority supporting discussion on a neutral presentation of a subject/issue.

There would be no permanent representatives to discuss the issues but instead, on each individual issue raised, freelance "thinkers" (with hopefully some expert credential) that would explain in public forums their initial position and recruit supporters from the voter pool.

The most popular thinkers (selected on the basis of the supporters) on a particular issue would then be remunerated by the state to meet for a fixed duration and come to a possible consensus on a proposal that would finally be submitted to referendum with an high threshold (75%) to demonstrate wide consensus.

Wash and repeat for the numerous issues (and hopefully less of the non-issues) facing legislators.

The process would be highly automated and electronic, open (no hidden lobbies here) and easily accessible.

Of course, the idea is not that I have the perfect proposal yet but the hope is to encourage alternative thinking to come to a solution that is effective at creating the minimal set of reasonable and well thought out laws to make a political entity run well while maximizing voters interest and participation in the legislative process. Think "Wikipedia for bills"!

It would probably be best to fine tune this system on a small scale first, maybe by creating a "virtual government-in-waiting" somewhere to experiment while waiting for most constituencies to catch up on a certain political awareness and ease with modern electronic tools.

Researchable questions:

• How would issues to be considered (subjects of discussion) could be submitted?
• How well does the Nunavut system work in practice?
• How do we ensure that all citizens have access to discussions and voting mechanism?
• How do we make the participation system safe and secure?
• What kind of social values would be necessary to be make this work?