One of my favorite ways to procrastinate is by reading the comments at the end of an article. In my experience, usually one of three things happens in these comment sections:
1. No one responds. The boring option.
2. People respond. These people also happen to be strongly opinionated and turn the comments section into an open screaming match.
3. People respond. They respect each other and discuss the topic like grown ups. Then they leave.
The second way is a fun option to read. But the third way is the really interesting one. The third way is where you get exposed to new ideas and perceptions. A comment section of the third kind adds to the experience of reading the article. It’s a pretty rare find.
Imagine my excitement when I scrolled to the comment section on this article. (If you ever feel like giving yourself a mini existential crises, look up futurists for a while.) Not only was it a great article, but there were actual rational people talking about it! It was within this comment section that I came upon an interesting idea.
Democracy is way behind the times.
Sure, there’s electronic voting booths and most presidential candidates have figured out how to use social media, but these are just accessories to the system. The system itself is rusty.
Right now, the USA works under representative democracy, meaning that we vote for politicians to vote for us. The politicians we put in place are supposed to represent the majority’s views. However, today’s elections have become more about image crafting than a discussion of what those views are. Added to the influence of lobbies and wealth, it’s no surprise that what we the people really want often gets lost in translation. And because we feel that what we want doesn’t matter to what will wind up happening, citizen participation in government is at a low point.
Representative democracy has been in place since the time of the American Revolution when there was no feasible alternative. There was no way to mass-disseminate information or collect votes from every citizen for every small issue. We live in a radically different world today. Those Revolutionary Era problems are a non-issue. Yet, somehow, our system forgot to evolve with us and now it’s in desperate need of an update. Cue the entrance for digital democracy.
Digital democracy advocates for using the internet to make politics, information and voting more accessible to the public. It’s inspired by direct democracy, in which everything is decided by the people, but can also work as a “mixed system,” where some decisions are made by representatives and others are left to a public, online vote. One of the main problems for digital democracy is going to be figuring out what should be decided by experts and what needs to be out in the open. Like anything new, there are going to be a lot of unknowns. Who will upkeep the system and prevent hacking or vote fraud? How do you know voters are making informed decisions and aren’t just listening to the media? How do you protect minority rights in such a system? Should some things in government be a secret? Will this system even work beyond a local level? Before any of these questions can hope for an answer, the movement needs to gain momentum.
And it’s starting to. Electronic direct democracy (E2D) parties have started forming in many countries, mostly in European countries and closest to the US itself, in Canada. Five years ago, these parties came together to create E2D International, to help organize and spread their ideas. Switzerland is on the forefront of these initiatives. A “mixed system” for a while now, Swiss citizens are part of the checks and balances system for their government- they’re entitled to petition for the creation of new laws and referendums. A new online platform exists for this and, just a few days after it went live, almost 30,000 signatures were collected for their initiatives. As of 2015, Switzerland became one of the first countries to implement e-voting, second to Estonia, and inspiring others to consider the same.
And this is where you can start to see why we really really need digital democracy. Its convenience allows more people to participate and take responsibility for their country’s laws. It lessens the influence of parties that so often leads to pointless gridlock. It’s much more cost-effective, has less room for corruption and can bring back the authentic voice of the people.
In trying to learn more about this topic, I realized that the US is mysteriously absent from discussions about digital democracy. There have been some state movements and quiet initiatives, but no vocal naysayers, no loud proponents. And this is truly dangerous because ideas that aren’t talked about go nowhere fast, even ideas with as much potential for good as a digital democracy. We’re about to enter into our next presidential election when politics is actually something most people pay attention to. If we’re going to start talking about bringing our system into the 21st century, there’s no better time than now.
It’s time to take these ideas out of the comments section and start paying them a little more mind.
