Factoid from Wired:
 
 "Polls about Polls Should Frighten the Pols: According to a
  survey conducted by the Verity Group, the Republic should
  just disband and get it over with.  The study found that 57%
  of consumers would rather use interactive TV to vote directly
  on legislative issues than trust their Congressional reps."
 
What do *you* think?

33 responses total.

   It's one of those nice ideas on the surface, but quickly
becomes less attractive to me the more I've thought about it.
There are hundreds of peices of legislation that come up each
year; to have the populace vote on each would make it a part
time job, just keeping up with it all.
   Of course, most people can't vote two or three times a
year, so they'd do this.
   The scary part (to me, at least) is that the groups that
really got their act together (like the religous right)
would really get the vote out on a number issues important
to them.
   I wonder how long abortions would be legal under such a
voting system.

I suppose that those with the resources to have interactive TV in the
first place think that it is a fine idea.  The poor and the illiterate are
supposed to be disenfranchised ever further by this  step toward
democracy, right.  O.K., cool.  Maybe they indigent and homless can use
the sets on display at Montgomery Ward.  No problem, I guess.

One of the fuctions of the legislative branch is deliberate the bills
pending.  Would we (with access) ALL have an allotted time in which to
address the whole assembly?  Either the allotted time will be very, very
small or else we could wait years for a bill to come up for a vote.

Keep the plebiscite for state referendums:  Don't try to make the current
mess in the Federal Legislature worse than it is.

re 1:
        Yes, keeping up on all of it would be a part time job, at least. 
That's why we have professiona full or part time legislatures.

It would be more than a "part time" job. It doesn't hurt to have a
background of study in history, law (and I'd like to add science).
I much prefer a representative legislature to a "hobby" one, although
I think our present legislators are not all as educated and wise,
as I would like. But voting by TV would emphasize the uneducated and
unwise.

(Of course the uneducated and unwise have already found their way to the
polls and voted in Jesse Helms and Phil Gramm.)

The idea needs work, and I don't discount the problems of the religious right
weilding control this way. However, it is a good one. Just as the bad guys
can get their act together, it ought then to be possible for people who love
liberty to defeat the assorted crap.

A solution to the part-time-job problem of interactive voting would be to
simply pass less laws.

You'd still like to pass *good* laws, and that takes study, as well as
a wide range of experience (and thoughtfullness). 

re #6 - The obscene number of laws, rules, regulations, and interpretations
is a major obstacle to representative democracy. No legislator can hope to
keep up and a voter has even less chance. We should not, perhaps, be too
concerned about voters not being informed, when the legislators themselves
are often not totally aware of the issues they pass upon. Well, what should
we do? We could inform our legislators of our positions on issues. This is
the system the "special interests" use to their distinct advantage. But,
in order to do this, and truly help our representatives, we would have to
care, study the legislation, ground ourselves in the facte, and exercise
judgement. When would there be time for Star Trek Generations? <and I 
love all Star Treks)<perplexed>

I agree that for daily legislative business, an interactive national
system would be a terrible mess.  But, for important issues (probably as
defined by our representatives or petition), it would enhance voting.  For
example, an amendment is proposed to do X (ban all foreign aid, say) - and
then the populace votes on it.  Interactive system available to educate
the voters on aspects of the bill in question, and perhaps
commentary/analyses by the pundits.  It could work.

        People would probably filter the incoming legislation to suit their
interests. I.e. people interested in the environment would recieve only
environmental legislation etc.  Ofcourse this would increase the already
prevalent  alienation in this country.
        <This item now linked to cyberpunk.  Type " j cyb" at the next
        Ok: prompt>

One of Perot's recent suggestions is that any tax increase should be 
approved by a direct vote of the People.  Of course a definition of 
"tax increase" could be worked around, but I think the idea of having
direct votes on a few key bills now and then would be good (though
with the dangers STeve mentioned).  I doubt interactive TV will ever
be secure enough for more than public opinion polls, but the idea of
direct votes like the state proposals, regardless of how we vote, has
some appeal.

Authentication would be a big problem with voting via Interactive TV.  There
would be no way to monitor how many times a person voted.

Americans are LAZY - the least physical effort to accomplish something
is the way they/we go. Prolly me too, to some extent, but not voting!
  
The "least physical effort" ought to be assigned permenantly to 
engineering (and spelling .....<g>).

   Actually, authentication issues could be resolved.  Unforunately,
the concept of people who didn't vote being voted "for" them is a
much trickier issue to tackle, and one that would make me leery of
using such a system.

This whole concept keep rehashing the idea of a direct democracy.
A direct democracy is one in which the people vote directly on issues, as
opposed to a representative democracy which we have now.

The reason why direct democracies are not successful is because of public
passion. People's attitudes about issues change drastically, even from
day-t0-day. The result would be bad polcies. The public want ot see OJ killed,
WHAM! bypass the legal process, and he is toast. IN a direct democracy the
minority would have very little rights.

Even checks and balacnes would be throughly dusrupted in a system like this.
Congress, as inefficient as they are, have more time to smmoth out the fine
details of a policy.

  I disagree--I think the reason they don't work is because today, the
populace is too large to practice such a system.  Take a town of 10,000
and you might be able to pull it off.  Take a country of 260,000,000 and
you won't get more than 10% voting on any regular basis.
  Why would the minority have less rights under this system than they
have now?  At least under the proposed system they'd be able to make
some small squeak, which is a lot better than if none of the 535 people
in the house / senate take it upon themselves to carry that particular
cause.
  The potentially cool thing about a direct democracy would be that
we'd finally see all the little splinter groups come out of the
woodwork and make their (generally weak) case known to whoever would
listen.

i own three t.v's...does that mean i get three votes?
if that ever worked out, hats off to technology!

 
        Even were it secure enough to ensure accurate voting, I'm concerned
that voting on a national scale would increasingly become a apathocracy -
a government where people did not vote in favour of initiatives, but rather
against those which threatened or offended them in some way.  A technical
democracy at a local level, however, might be more feasible.

        Hell, any form of government at a local level is more feasible.

   Apathocracy--I haven't heard that term before.  I like it.

   Anyway we already have that, don't we?  People were scared
of what Dukakis and the Democrats might do in '88 so voted for
what they saw as the lesser of two evils.  In '92 people were
so PO'd that things hadn't gotten magically better, and Bush got
booted out.  Things still haven't gotten magically better, and
now the backlash against Bill Clinton and the Democrats is
building, as shown last November.  Whether or not Clinton can
withstand the current dis-satisfaction remains to be seen.  I
will not be surprised if the one-term president becomes the
norm.

   For better or worse (I believe worse), we're seeing more of
a reaction to things instead of looking at the longer term
issues.

I don't know..a backlash and dissatisfaction is also building
against those that would replace Clinton. Their "popularity" is
dropping dramatically. Of course, you are right - the public is
reacting against everyone, and hardly anyone has an even view of
the problems and possible solutions.

I'm reminded of a Dr. Who episode (can't remember the name, sorry)
derived from this, in which a society would elect a leader who would
rule for about a month before the people got annoyed that he had not 
managed to solver all their problems so he was put to death by
popular TV-based vote.

I think such a mechanism would serve mainly to increase the influence
of well-organized special interests, while people who work for a living
and don't sit around watching TV would tend to vote less.

After two or three of those Dr. Who elections - where would you 
find candidates?

 ...someone would nominate adbarr, and a vote on the nomination
would be held ... and then ......

   This item has been linked to the "politics" conf.....to join
"Grexing the Vote", type "join politics" or "join campaigns" at any
prompt!

Go on, tsty. What, pray tell, is the "retirement plan"?

Max Headroom.  The society was ruled by the politicians supported by the 
Networks and elected by the Sweeps week based on what station the people
watched.

The general problem with this system appears to be that a) there are several
questions as to the security of this form of voting (just remember, every
system has a way of being cracked) and b) It wouldnt be a true figure of the
total populace, rather it would be the ones that felt strongly enough about
the issue being voted on to bother to vote. Basicaly the way it would work
out is that those that felt strongly on a issue would vote and get it passed
and then somebody else who disaproved of the outcome and hadnt voted in the
first place would come along and vote to repeal the vote. This has another
possible outcome as well. picture this, you feel very strongly about a issue
so you hire a hacker (assuming your not one already) to digitaly stuff the
ballet box in favor of your side.

Plus, ppl w/o access to TV would be shut out, and then the question of
notification would arise.  Does everyone have to watch the voting channell
every night, so they can find out what is to be voted upon?  or every week?
what if you want to go on vacation, do you have to interrupt it, or be kept
from your vote on whatever issues come up, by default?

Way, way, WAY too many problems.

I am always in favor of a more democratic system.  In truth, most of the
law in this country is really excessive, and worse, unfair.  It is often
pork, or policies to make the governement overstep its place in the
country.  Making people vote on everything is a good way to prevent big
government, and also a good way to make it easier to keep up with
governement, keeping an eye on Uncle Sam.  Keep law simple and it will
be followed and understood.  Kill all the lawyers.  And a fate worse
than death for the big money politics.

Laws are complex though, because problems are complex.  For example C02
from a coal fired power plant that causes acid rain a 1,000 miles away
(and maybe in another country like Canada).  I understand your frustration
and have gut instincts towards anarchy myself, however it's not going
to happen in our complex interconnected world, or least not happen
without without total corpoate domination IMO.

May  I remind you that "kill all the lawyers" was the rallying cry, not for
legitimate revolutionsists, but for the anarchists.  Lawyers are the ones that
have made sure that ppl other than white property-owning males have civil
rights.  That means most of the ppl on this system, I would imagine.

Hey -- if he wants to align himself with Jack Cade and Dick the Butcher,
who are we to try to stop him.

I just wanted to make sure that ppl know with whom they are aligning
themselves when they take that position -- and against whom they are standing.

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