Mission

To bring direct democracy to municipalities (probably starting off in Canada or France).

What is direct democracy? : A democracy in which constituents are able to vote on every issue, law and strategy that the government (the people) deem important.

The unique twist with this version is that the process maximizes participation. Problems, laws and strategies are brought to the "voting sphere", deliberated upon in the forums, digested and edited by a compioptionist (compiler of options) into understandable terms. The general public can then vote on the issues. Also exceptional in this version, is the transparency without creating an expensive verification system and the fact people can participate in person, via the internet or over the telephone in a swift "no hassle" way over a period of time that best suits them.

Bipartisan implementation of a participatory, fair and transparent democratic system via a not for profit association of concerned citizens.

Research on various democratic systems. Many years of development on a possible direct democratic structure and its inner workings due to Community Earths needs. Initial development on a strategic plan to propel such a system into existence by conventional means on a municipal level.

0 - 1 year - Research to understand the best demographics of the political landscape in order to best choose which ridings are ripe for direct democracy thereby choosing 3 municipalities to work in. Create the open source program that will enable secure and transparent forums and voting to proceed.

1 - 2 years - Finding the people who are outspoken, popular and who we can convince to run with this mandate in their riding. Begin publicity to educate the general public on the concept of these democracies.

2 - 3 years - Help committed runner ups to gain community acceptance by providing the tools, the information we have been collecting, and some publicity for them. Coach the door to door campaign strategy to all their volunteers and help out when elections are happening.

3 - 4 years - Help the elected officials who wish to implement direct democracy to invariably do so by providing the knowledge for implementing the transition (as short as 4 months) and providing the tools (programs and networks) to do so.

$10,000 maximum for the one time program creation and subsequent tweaking fees for the first year of operation.

$25,000 per municipal campaign should be more than reasonable

Donations and political donations. Once elected, operational funds will come from the municipal tax base which should prove to be cheaper due to slashed administration costs (no deputies, less paperwork, etc...).

Media could mire the process by bad publicity to an ill-informed public. It would be best to keep the details out of media attention and low key until a municipal election is 3 months away. Dialogue with each constituent would be beneficial to dispel fears and misinformation.

Creating the democratic process so that bilingualism works. Translation tools would help enormously but there would need to be trial runs of the process to see how best to integrate both languages.

There are similar systems already operational in some European nations (many referendums) but these are more costly and does not deal with all the issues. There have been some representatives in the United States that get their constituents to help decide the outcomes of bills but direct democracy goes further, empowering the population by stripping the powers away from the representatives.

It is about time that we mesh the technology of the last 30 years with the concept of democracy in a non-representative sort of way. This will be the real democracy of a better world because lobbyists will find it nearly impossible to affect change where the majorities have a say. This will foster greater participation in politics and allow people who feel disenfranchised to at least express their opinions and have an equal say.

Photo by: Ivan Tattoli (1999)