Getavote.org is a fascinating experiment in digital democracy that's going on in Hackney. With a General Election a few weeks away one candidate is standing as an independent for Hackney South and Shoreditch on a "direct digital democracy" platform - promising, if elected, to vote on each issue however the electorate in that constituency tell him to.
Candidate Denny de la Haye explains. "How will it work? For each vote coming up in Parliament, I will put a poll on this website. Every voter living in Hackney South will have a login for this website, and will be able to vote in the polls using their computer or their mobile phone. Whatever the majority vote is, I will vote that way."
I hope he wins. I really do. If we're going to keep pretending to have a democracy let's at least try to do it properly and put each issue to a vote.
You can support the campaign here.
(Disclosure: I know the candidate personally, a bit)
interesting idea but pretty ironic that his site has no way of interacting with him :-), or making your voice heard: no comments, no discussion boards, no polls even!
I am not quite sure he 'gets' his own platform.
The three excecptions seem rather wide-ranging and open to interpretation.
I would be interested to see a list of the last - say - 30 votes in parliament and see which which ones he would declare fall under his three exceptions (and therefore he makes up his own mind) and which are constituent votes.
For instance the digital economy bill....
Posted by: botogol | 17 March 2010 at 16:54
I'm writing the code for the example pollbooths now! In-between answering my emails and blog comments! :)
I've written a list of exception examples here, not quite on the basis you mention but hopefully interesting anyway:
http://getavote.org/pages/other/exception-examples
Posted by: Denny | 18 March 2010 at 23:27
This will be fascinating if he wins. If he wins, will he "campaign" to his constituents with his opinion on how they should vote?
Posted by: Paul Grayson | 19 March 2010 at 09:14