candidates and what they stand for relying instead on a small letter placed next to their name, is insulting to the concepts of democracy, and insulting to the candidates. It trivializes them and means they're nothing more than a mouthpiece. Of course, if candidates wish to just be a mouthpiece for a national chairman, then they're not a good choice as a candidate anyway. The idea of a candidate is to represent their constituents in the government, with a party providing support and guidance and a basic direction. These days, candidates are representing the major parties to the constituents.
There is nothing wrong with voting for candidates of different parties. If the candidate's position matches your views, then you should vote for them irrespective of their party affiliation. The 1992 Eddie Murphy film The Distinguished Gentleman played on this premise, the “dumb voter” syndrome. Instead of a party though, he went for a name, but it's the same principle. Voters went in without knowledge (or care) and just looked for something vaguely familiar, beit a surname, or a party affiliation.
*sigh*
Taken altogether, it's a sad situation, producing terrible results. It's why we need electoral reform, in order to restore a government that focuses on policies, rather than attacking others because of party identification, and trying to prevent new parties entering and participating on an even keel – that would be too democratic, and upset the status quo.
Before you vote, do your homework, check who your candidates are, and what they stand for, and above all else, please, VOTE BASED ON THE CANDIDATES AND WHAT YOU STAND FOR. This is your government you are electing, it's not American Idol, or some other pointless, inconsequential TV show. It's as real, and as serious as it gets. For all that people go on about illegal immigrants, those who were lucky enough to be born citizens, act as a complete disgrace when they abuse the privilege of citizenship.
The real solution would be to adopt proportional representation in some form. It's considered “too complex” for Americans to understand, yet countries like France and Mexico seem to have no problem with it.
And above all else, don't complain about the government you get, if you voted tactically, dismissed candidates because of their party, chose not to vote, or just voted a straight ticket. It's your fault, and the faultof those that acted like you, and has been since this country wasfounded. Next time, use your brain instead — your country will thank you.
It's your vote, make it count!
Fluid Democracy
William Sims Bainbridge
Worldwide, Internet-based social computing is creating entirely new political realities (Howard 2011*). In Germany, there is much discussion of Liquid Democracy, innovative forms of representation far more flexible than those we have become accustomed to. The phrase “liquid democracy” belongs to the English language, not the German, and it is not uncommon for one language to borrow from another. Often, word meanings are shifted slightly in the process, as for example some Europeans abbreviate software as soft, because they use quite another word for the meaning of the English word soft. The automatic translation website FreeTranslation.com renders Liquid Democracy into German as Flussige Demokratie, and Flussige Demokratie into English as Fluid Democracy. Liquid metaphors are quite common in electronics and computer talk, such as streaming video, electric current, wave. I prefer the term fluid democracy because it makes clear that the fluctuating property of liquids is most salient for the discussion.
This essay is a reconnaissance of the technical means available for revolutionizing the political process, using advanced information technology to develop a new alternative to both representative democracy and direct democracy. In the forms of representative democracy prevalent in post-industrial societies today, all too often the elected representatives become captives of wealthy interest groups, rather than really representing the people, or become frozen into outdated ideological positions. Direct democracy presents the danger that the general public will be deceived about the nature of societal problems, whether by distortions broadcast through mass media or by their own wishful thinking, and make foolish decisions, even impulsively changing course so quickly that no progress is made in any direction. Problems that afflict both extreme forms of system include how to protect the right of minorities, how to incorporate professional expertise in political decision making, and how to find responses to new situations that have yet to be defined for popular opinion.
The point is not to jettison political traditions merely out of fascination with novelty, but to find better ways of satisfying the needs of the public for progressive, responsive government, under conditions of rapid cultural and economic change. It is obvious to everyone that the governments of advanced nations have in fact been functioning poorly, and some kind of major redesign is sorely needed. However, this does not mean that the designers of traditional systems were fools, and in fact there is much to learn from them.
A widely understood example is the difficulty of finding the right balance between stability and rapid response, which, for example, the creators of the national legislatures of the United States basically understood. The House of Representatives is elected every two years, from districts with approximately equal population, and thus responds more directly and more quickly to trends in popular opinion. Senators serve for six years, about a third facing the electorate every two years, but representing geographic areas with unequal populations having their own semi-independent political systems. The point is not that this system is ideal, but that it recognizes the design issue of stability versus rapidity of response. When we develop new Internet systems for achieving what has been called Liquid Democracy, using a very different set of innovative institutions, we still need to face this issue. Thus, one example of a design feature that needs to be built into the new system is a feedback mechanism that carefully speeds up or slows down the rate of change, to achieve a dynamic balance appropriate for the rate of change in external conditions, and for the distance to a social goal that needs to be achieved.
Another example is how to balance privacy with accountability. A classic example is the secret ballot, in which the voters know whom they are voting for, but the politicians do not know how individual citizens voted. In more complex systems, finding the right balance can be a real challenge, for example concerning government employees. How can citizens doing business with the government be assured they are being treated fairly, while respecting a degree of privacy for government employees? How can responsible whistle-blowers call attention to problems without endangering their careers? These questions will become acute as we move toward new political systems, facilitated by modern communication technologies, in which many people are constantly shifting roles, being a common citizen at one point in time, a political leader at a second point in time, and a valued worker carrying a public responsibility at a third point. We cannot establish immutable design principle now for the political systems of the future, but we must constantly consider issues like these as we move forward through a period of innovation and experiment.
A good starting point is the statement by the Liquid Democracy Squad of the Berlin Pirate Party, a group of about two dozen members who discussed the possibilities from September 30, 2009, until March 24, 2010. Their key idea was this:
Each participant can decide how far he wants to shoulder his own interests, or how far he wants to be represented by others. In particular, he may at any time reclaim his delegated voting right, and this does not have to wait until a new election period. This results in a network of delegations that is constantly in flux. [1]
As conceptualized by the Berlin group, an individual has considerable liberty to determine how he or she would be represented. With respect to tax law, the person may select political Party A as the representative, while for environmental policy selecting Party B. Instead of a party, the person may select another individual. And these decisions can be changed at any time.
It is easy to imagine how this could be handled online. Each person would have a private page inside a password-protected governmental database. It would list some moderate number of areas of government decision making, with the option after each to select registered political parties from a drop-down menu, or to insert the name and unique ID number of another individual person. The database would constantly tabulate support for each
