[LINK] E-Democracy

[Tom Worthington]

At 09:48 PM 11/28/2006, Stephen Loosley wrote:
>At 11:02 AM 27/11/2006, Tom Worthington wrote:
> >So why don't you suggest it to the members of Parliament?
>
>Good grief .. what on earth makes you think I haven't? ...

Where on the web can we read your proposal?

>It's a bit insulting to the public to suggest parliamentary 
>librarians are across every issue better than say Linkers whom have 
>shown they are expert in respective fields ...

I have found the Parliamentary Library briefing documents very good 
and they do use material from the Linkers. But they were not keen on 
my suggestion for high speed sheep ships 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/2003/hsst.html>.  ;-)

>E-democracy need not be rocket science, Tom ...

No, democracy is much harder than rocket science.

>Whatever, there's no doubt that a "public-discussion" format of 
>e-democracy is unlikely to be accepted .. much too threatening to 
>their power ...

The approach I suggest to government organizations is to get someone 
else to do the consultation. That way you can ignore the comments you 
don't like. Also the nuts can argue with each other rather than 
wasting the time of useful people. Much the way Link works.  ;-)

>... individual form-like, and hence essentially private, responses 
>are much more likely to be introduced. If all the public responses 
>are made public, it's fairly obvious that many responses will be 
>much less candid, and hence helpful, than private submissions. ...

If a submission is public, that imposes some discipline on the 
author. They have to make some sort of sense, or everyone else will 
attack them.

>In regards to some junk-mail-responses .. well, so what?

The junk mail wastes resources.

>... just like the Victorian government and e-voting .. hey, give it 
>a go .. and then, if it needs refining ...

I have already voted electronically twice in the ACT elections using 
Australian technology, which worked fine. The Victorian system is a 
step backwards using poorer imported technology 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/10/electronic-voting-in-australia-for.html>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml