Democracy in digital flow

Peter Kopa, May 2017, Prague

In recent years, political voting options have tended to become polarized at the extremes of populism and absenteeism. In the face of the current rejection of the technical operation of voting, a new technique based on the digital processing of frequent voting is emerging strongly as a reaction to this. It is a combination of representative and direct democracy (as in the referendum): the direct vote is made where the citizen prefers to decide himself on some government issue that affects him directly, without prejudice to the indirect vote for general issues where he does not consider himself competent to make decisions. But even in this case, the citizen chooses by digital means the specific person to represent him, not a party.

This innovation arose, among other countries, in Germany, on the occasion of a new political party that was born thanks to a previous digital campaign, some ten years ago. As a result of this successful initiative, the German government began to reflect on what was called ”Fluessige Demokratie” or Democracy in digital flow. In August 2010, the software called “Liquid Feedback” was adapted and since then it has been used mainly in the decision-making processes within political parties.  Thanks to the Blockchain technology it is possible to safeguard the anonymity of the political vote without prejudice to the security of the personal vote.

Spain is in this sense one of the pioneers of this new voting system, specifically in the city of Madrid, where citizens can propose new local laws. Thus, if a bill finds sufficient support in the citizens, the Government of Madrid has the obligation to study its enactment and execution.  Another example is Iceland, where citizens have long since communicated their motions to the government in Rejkiavik, which is responsible for carrying out the fifteen best proposals every month. The turnout is no less than 60% of the citizens entitled to vote.

This process of establishing frequent direct democracy is now possible thanks to the Internet, which has already triggered important incidents on governments through social networks, blogs and so many other mechanisms of digital citizen pronouncement. We are probably facing an irreversible process that points to the gradual disappearance of political parties, which are so often a pandora’s box from which low-profile politicians sometimes jump onto the stage. What consequences will this diametric turn produce in the way of electing the rulers?

In the first place, it would motivate the citizen to become more interested in the management of the common good, which would at the same time lead him to ask himself which people would be best qualified to receive his support. Parties will lose importance and individuals will emerge again, that is, political meritocracy in open competition among personal talents.

The citizen will therefore very often ask the government team and its three independent powers (legislative, executive and judicial) for their preferences, which cannot be ignored.

A strong reciprocal influence will be set in motion among the various states, and, at the same time, computer systems and methods will be studied to ensure that errors and loss of resources are kept to a minimum, as is already the case today in large companies.

It is expected that from the outset many rulers will oppose this type of democratic operation, because it would subject them, much more than now, to controls and scientific and technocratic criteria.  That is why the referendum, as a system and direct influence of the citizen in government affairs, has been rejected time and again by the majority of the rulers in office, under the pretext that in a great nation it is impracticable. But since we entered the digital age, this argument can no longer be sustained. Corruption can be reduced, because systemically more people with high professional and moral profiles will come to occupy government functions. At the same time, the citizen will be able to protest and cut off negative processes more directly and easily.

The effect of “crowd intelligence” would be reached, which would allow introducing in political decisions the enormous pluralism of personal opinions, weighted by statistical criteria. For example, one might ask what would have happened if this new system had been applied in the political vote that brought Hitler to power, supported by only 30% of the votes.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) Source, NZZ, Zurich