User:Narc/Government Notes

Here are some notes on a possible model of a "digital government", one that attempts to make use of the advantages of computers and the Internet to create something closer to a direct democracy than was previously possible, while trying to mitigate the unwanted side-effects of direct democracy (e.g. tyranny of the majority).

This is primarily a thought experiment at this point, and I'm looking for discussions on show-stoppers that I won't have considered yet -- major issues that make this worse than [your favorite government style here]. Most importantly, I'm looking for possible solutions to these show-stoppers, assuming solutions can be crafted, to allow this thought experiment to produce a credible form of (at least the legislative branch of) government.

I will be using italics to mark less formal thoughts, uncertainties, and points of contention or clarification that occur to me as I write this. Skip the italics if you don't wish to read what are essentially my margin notes.

Legislature
The legislative branch of this government model is formed of two houses, herein named the House of Lords (herein, The Lords) and the House of Representatives (herein, The Reps).

The House of Lords is intended to act as a control over The Reps, mitigating excesses of zeal caused by mass influences in demonstrably bad directions. The Lords is not intended as a law-crafting body, though due to the organization of The Reps (see below at ), laws can be proposed by members of The Lords (though they are not acting as members of the House of Lords when doing so).

House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is meant to be a formal gathering of the most influential voters (see below for ), but all voting-age citizens of the country are understood to be members of The Reps (including members of the Lords).

The organization of the House of Representatives comes from the assumption that face-to-face discussions are inherently more valuable than online discussions, for some measure of value. Therefore, those who are noted as the "most representative" voters are encouraged (at taxpayer expense) to spend 5 days per month (most likely the second week of the month) in session together at a suitable location, where they can argue in person about aspects of proposed legislature in order to flesh it out better and expose possible flaws.

Members of the House of Lords are explicitly disallowed from participating in these discussions, however, even if they qualify for membership in The Reps. Members of The Lords wishing to participate in sessions of The Reps must withdraw from The Lords for a period no less than four years, and are not allowed to participate in sessions of The Reps for six months after withdrawing from The Lords and for six months before the expiration of their withdrawal. This is intended to minimize influence between the two Houses. ''But what happens if a Lord has a very influential friend in The Reps? Influence is very fluid. Maybe scrap this?''

Voter Influence
The core tenet of the organization of The Reps is that any person of voting age may vote on any proposed law, and may comment non-bindingly on any part of proposed legislature with possible improvements thereto. ''Think of something like the OPEN act writ large. Or, and I hate to use the term, but you may understand it as "crowdsourcing".''

But this is only half of the proposition. The other half is that any person of voting age may also assign their vote to another person of voting age (for up to three months at a time (should this be more? less?)), at which point that other person will be casting both votes, rather than only their own single vote, when making a decision. Furthermore, that person can assign their two votes to yet another person, creating a chain of proxies with increasingly more voting influence.

It is the (unsupported) belief of the author that this will lead to a concentration of votes in the hands of a (small-ish) number of very influential representatives, who will be the people who actually gather in sessions of the House of Representatives.

''I'm uncertain what the criteria for picking the membership of The Reps should be (i.e. fixed number of Reps or a minimal voting power, possibly a percentage-based minimum? Or something else?). Remember that The Reps only special feature is they get gathered together in one venue for face-to-face discussions, so sticking to the top 768 most influential, for instance, isn't really a big deal. Also remember the taxpayer is paying to transport these people, paying for their venue, and, if necessary, also paying for their room and board. Keeping the number down may be beneficial (on the other hand, how expensive is it going to be to have a small fleet of buses to move people around, assuming they don't have their own transport, and to pay for fuel for the ones who do?).''

Proposing Laws
Writing law is understood to be a highly skilled operation (law is like programming for human beings). Equally understood is that legalese can be cumbersome and opaque to the average voter at times. The ideal of the lawmaking process is that any person of voting age should be able to propose a change or a new law, but since (as explained), not any person of voting age can write law, it is proposed that the text of any law that is put to a vote (the part that actually goes into the code of law) must be written by people with lawmaking experience.

Furthermore, for an informed decision on the part of voters, it is proposed that any law must also be translatable from legalese to plain speak (with the understood caveat that the translation will be approximate -- which must be made plain in the translation itself) at the request of a voter, and that a law cannot be voted on unless the legalese and plain text versions agree.

So, while any person may propose a law (or changes to an existing law), the proposition must be seen by an experienced lawmaker and translated to (and from) legalese (presumably at taxpayer expense again).

Voting Process
Once a proposed law has been translated to legalese, it is open for discussion by all interested voters, who may suggest changes, point out issues, etc. in the text itself or any part thereof. The proposition remains in discussion mode until a call for voting is made by at least some number (needs calibration) of either individual voters (not counting proxy votes), or votes including proxies (or a combination thereof, e.g. at least 50 individual people with at least 1500 summed influence), or until some duration from the time of the latest edit.

While in discussion mode, a proposition may be edited by lawmakers in response to comments.

At the end of the discussion period, the proposition is added to the voting agenda (alternatively, we could just skip the whole discussion "mode" and just throw all propositions into voting from the start). Voters may decide at any time to cast their own votes (including proxy votes) to express a Pass, Fail or Don't care. Voting ends when at least 75% (should this be less?) of active votes (active votes == votes which have been expressed in the last three months) have been cast on one of the three choices. Final results are counted as follows:


 * more Pass than Fail: the law is passed in the current form. It enters the legal code and will be interpreted and enforced by the judicial branch of government.
 * more Fail than Pass: the law fails completely. It cannot be resubmitted in the current form, but if changes are made can be resubmitted in the modified version. Does this need a some quantitative requirement of changes, to stop something like introducing or removing a typo from making the thing show up again? Or should we just not care?
 * more Don't care than both Pass and Fail (i.e. over 50% who voted on the proposition said they didn't care one way or the other): the law is held from entering code, but its vote record is saved and can be advisory in judicial matters.

More to come later, I'm seriously tired now.