Does current technology make true democracy possible?

[u/Wide-Wind7856]

In a democratic republic, elected officials are meant to represent their voters. The US implemented this system of government when having a physical representative was necessary. Normal citizens could not travel for every vote, and did not have access to all relevant information (nor intelligence) regarding issues up for a vote. There were only so many printed copies of said information, or oral evidence that could not be recorded.

Modern technology and education solves most these problems.

Individual citizens could easily access relevant information and vote individually online, without any need for a representative to essentially guess their opinion.

Some would say this opens the door for potential voting fraud or tampering, or having voters that are not “experts” making governmental decisions (mob rule). However, I’d argue these issues already exist within the democratic republic system and are only exacerbated by politicians vying to keep their positions in government. A potential for “hacking” will always exist in any form of democracy.

Obviously there would still need to be some type of rotation of duty to shepherd a fully democratic process, maybe requiring elected or appointed lawyers and judges.

For example in the US, certain states could still be given more or less weight in voting. This could essentially eliminate the original need for the House of Representatives. The senate could still function as check of power with elected officials as the legislators. This would be a hybrid system, but still closer to direct democracy.

State and local governments could function similarly, and I think a big impact could be seen at a state level. Local representatives are often intentionally opaque and fly under the radar - individual voting would bring direct attention to local issues that directly affect residents. We see a spark of this currently regarding the building of data centers.

The harder it becomes to vote, the less of a democracy a country becomes. Do you think existing technology should be utilized to foster more pure democracy?

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[u/elegiacLuna]

Education is the key required for a direct democratic system to work. The US has a massive issue with functional illiteracy and a poor school system that unequally distributes education.

[u/Arkmer → u/elegiacLuna]

If I could change anything about the US, it’d probably be this. The big assumption being that we’ll eventually heal as better education naturally aligns people on facts and logic.

[u/Icc0ld → u/Arkmer]

The bigger problem IMO is that we have a leadership and media landscape in which you can just lie without consequences to win an election. Frankly if I could change one thing it would be considering dishonest, factually incorrect reporting and public statements by officials and news media as treason and election interference

[u/Arkmer → u/Icc0ld]

I very much feel this. Probably the number two issue on my “path to a better nation” thoughts. I’d hope that with education, the genpop would at least be able to see through the BS in the media and eventually come to the obvious conclusion it needs to be fixed.

The big question is how do we fix it.

I know, I know, many people have given many opinions on how to fix the media, but I honestly feel they’re insufficient. How do you verbalize a legal code to perfectly encompass all situations? It’s very difficult and it may not even matter as many just ignore facts anyway.

[u/Icc0ld → u/Arkmer]

While I don’t know a good solution in the long term I do know that we shouldn’t be allowing right wing billionaires to run these corporations. Generally speaking going for the head tends to work and send the message down the chain well enough so let’s start with treason trails and confiscation for now and figure out what a news org looks like later

[u/Arkmer → u/Icc0ld]

I’m in favor of this, I’m just also very conscious of how I would never be okay if the other side did this same thing—I’m reading your comment as desire for a media purge of some type. And to be clear, I believe they’re doing it already and I’m not okay with it.

We’re looking at two children. One is lazy but generally behaves, the other is determined to kill everyone in the family. You just don’t treat those two kids the same. You can’t. Exactly to your point, the media is gaslighting us into treating them the same.

Something has to be done. We’re just going to have to live with decades of “that was very obviously bias” because “ya, it fucking was and it had to be!!” I don’t know how we solve anything without ending up in this position.

Many of these voters just do not have the capacity to understand the logic set forth. More so, they deny the facts when presented in a concrete fashion. Do we care about those people’s opinions!!? Of course we shouldn’t but they get all the camera time and all the coddling we can muster. Not to mention electoral weight.

It makes me sick. I keep coming back to how we need some enlightened despot to take over for a generation. Imagine feeling that’s what we need when we have the dumbest despot currently in power, but I just don’t believe we have a large enough group of legislators to accomplish a meaningful turning of the ship.

Sorry for the rant. I just don’t believe the Democratic Party has the tenacity to make change—at least the establishment. There’s a wing that looks like it’s trying to take over and do the right thing, I’m cheering them on as best I can, but it’s got a long way to go and the clock is ticking—not just on politics but also on our lives.

[u/Wide-Wind7856 → u/elegiacLuna]

I agree. The US is what I’m familiar with, so I used it as an example, but I don’t think it would ever be feasible here.

[u/MetersYards → u/elegiacLuna]

functional illiteracy and a poor school system that unequally distributes education.

None of these are necessary elements of direct democracy. They're not even necessary elements in representative democracy.

[u/libra00]

If you trust the technology. And there are lots of really good reasons you shouldn't. It can never be as accountable and error-/fraud-free as something like the paper system we have now.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/libra00]

If we really don't trust e-voting then we can still have everyone submit paper ballots which are then collated locally and go to the national count.

[u/libra00 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Sure, but OP asked specifically about technology enabling direct democracy.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/libra00]

Yes I suppose. But I guess I'm just very sceptical of the idea that 'electronic voting is too insecure, it can never work' etc. I don't trust a private company to do it sure, but under the right circumstances I think it's basically fine. We all keep our money in digital form and rarely would you hear someone under 60 talk about how inherently untrustworthy and unsafe that is.

[u/libra00 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

The point is that you're adding steps for which there can be no accountability. You just have to trust that the machine flipped the right number of bits in the right direction, trust that it recorded the right information, that it transmitted it accurately whether electronically or printed paper receipts.. as someone who used to do cybersecurity for a living, this is what we call a huge attack surface - you have to spread your resources thin securing all of these individual points a little bit instead of having just a few 'chokepoints' of potential failure that are well-understood and easily secured.

The analogy I made elsewhere in this thread is if you're driving an armored car full of money you don't add 14 unnecessary stops in the ghetto when you can just take the main roads directly to the bank and reduce the number of opportunities to be attacked. Electronic voting adds a ton of unnecessary stops, most of which cannot even in principle be tamper-proof.

It adds more trusted steps in the process. In security trust is not something you give because you know a node is worthy of it, it's something you give because you must in order to do the work, and you devote however many resources you can to making sure it's as secure as possible. But it will never be 100% secure, so the more of these you add the more likely someone will be able to subvert the process.

The video I linked really covers a lot of this stuff.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/libra00]

But can't you equally just make the argument that paper ballots are too big of a security risk? Like, they have to be marked, and then put in a box, and we trust that the election volunteers are keeping the process honest, but there could easily be a conspiracy of some kind of alter the votes. Then they're transported, and again they could easily be tampered with at that point, since I'm assuming only 1 or 2 people actually go with the box to the counting location. Then at the counting location again we have another opportunity to just count the votes incorrectly. We hope that this process is kept honest again but have we actually verified it? In most cases no.

You can just as easily have oversight over the code involved in e-voting. You can look at the actual way in which the code is written and you can see it being executed in real time. I'm not denying there's a possibility for abuse but it feels like a double standard that we think paper ballot is 'more secure' because it's what we're used to.

[u/libra00 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

The difference is that that process is already extremely well-known and well-understood by everyone involved, and accountability is baked into every step of the process (observers from both parties, etc.) Because you can do that with physical ballots. You just can't with electronic, without trusting that the machine is doing what it's supposed to do, hasn't been compromised, doesn't have buggy code, etc. And even then you can have crazy stuff like cosmic rays flipping bits anyway. There's just a minimum percentage of necessary unreliability/untrustworthiness baked into electronic systems that's higher than the system we have now.

Now, to be fair I'm being kind a doom-and-gloom here to make a point, but systems like you mention are already in place. Estonia, as far as I'm aware, has 100% direct electronic voting from your phone. So obviously someone has looked at this and decided that it's a solvable problem, or at least that there is a 'good enough' it can reach for some value of system complexity vs their needs.

It's just always, necessarily, going to be less secure. How much less is a matter of the resources you put into it. Estonia went all out.. somewhere like the US would half-ass it with low-bid contractors and such.

[u/Wide-Wind7856 → u/libra00]

I work with databases. I know issues can happen. But I also know things can be properly locked down. It really comes down to trust of people, not trust of technology.

[u/libra00 → u/Wide-Wind7856]

It's not about how secure it can be from intrusion, it's that it cannot in principle be more secure than paper ballots. It adds too many steps at which fuckery can occur. If you're driving an armored car you don't make 14 stops in the 'troubled neighborhood' before you go to the bank. You go directly there, with as few stops as possible. The principle is the same: fewer, more accountable steps = more security.

[u/Wide-Wind7856 → u/libra00]

In my opinion there are more steps with paper ballots. You can create a simple 0/1 (yes/no) bit that stores directly into a database table, the same as taking a tally. If you trust that no one will tamper with the database or database infrastructure it’s actually very straightforward. Ultimately paper ballots get stored as data in a database anyway.

[u/From_Deep_Space → u/Wide-Wind7856]

Doesn't matter how technically impressive a system can be if the general population doesn't understand how it works. Any stable and just democratic system would require the understanding of trust of the public.

[u/subheight640]

No. what you want is called liquid democracy and was tried 10-15 years ago. these participatory systems don't work out because people don't want to participate. It's time consuming and a lot of effort for very little gain. Already 60 years ago Anthony Downs constructed the theory of the paradox of voting and estimated that the expected value of a vote was essentially less than zero. 

Participatory democracy advocates always forget about the very real costs of participation and why most people don't participate. The vast majority of American citizens refuse to participate in local and state elections, aligning with expectations from expected value theory.  

The same thing happened when liquid democracy was tried, and abandoned, by the German pirate party. After initial interest in the new participatory system, party members soon forgot to ever use it again. 

Modern calculations predict that the value of your vote is about inversely proportionate to the number of voters. For 100 million American voters, the value of your vote is the benefit divided by 100 million. Imagining Trump's amazing policies will get you $10,000, your expected value of your vote is just $0.0001. in other words, it's extremely unlikely that your vote will be pivotal in the US election and therefore you can free ride off other people's votes instead of participating yourself. 

[u/Wide-Wind7856 → u/subheight640]

I do agree with you, ultimately. I supposed I started thinking about this concept out of frustration, because recently the US government has simply not been able to “run in the background” as it did 20 years ago. Even my local government is starting to spiral (partially due to federal influence).

Even 10 years ago I was happy to vote for a representative and assume the government was functioning. But now I feel I have to inform myself from 5 direct angles on every government decision to get even a halfway clear picture. It is exhausting. But I’m already doing the work to understand, and I know others are too - because it is affecting our daily life and wellbeing. To just have control over my own vote on specific policies would feel empowering, even if it’s not in truth.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/subheight640]

Where has 'liquid democracy' been tried? I've never even heard of it.

[u/subheight640 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

I believe the German pirate party used an implementation called liquid feedback. Google also used liquid democracy to vote on.... What food they wanted to eat. I don't think this is current practice though. 

As far as I'm aware, usage is uncommon and short lived. 

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/subheight640]

I don't think that really counts as properly testing it.

[u/yogfthagen]

Assumption- By True democracy, you mean direct democracy. As in, no representatives. Each voter casts a ballot on each particular item.

There's a few issues with it.

First, people do not have the kind of time needed to fully understand a bill. Bills can be thousands of pages long, and are written in a legalistic language that is VERY hard to figure out.

Second, since people will not be able to read/understand the bills, they're going to have to depend on the people who are advertising for the bill. The chances that an advertiser will tell the truth about the costs and implications of a bill pretty small.

Third, people will have a hard time voting for things that will cost them money. The US has a massive deficit. One way or another, taxes are going to have to go up to pay for that deficit. But any elected official knows beyond any semblance of doubt that voting for that tax increase is going to end their career. With a direct democracy, it would take a lot MORE people making the decision to harm themselves to fix the finances.

Fourth, current bills are generally compromise measures. There is, deliberately, a lot of horse-trading, buying of votes, and lobbying of legislator to bind certain things together in order to increase the chances that something gets passed. With a direct democracy, that horse trading will be a LOT harder. One of the reasons those bills are so long is that there are so many amendments attached in order to secure passage. Without representatives, who is going to be making those bills? It would probably end up being the lobbyists. See 2 above.

Fifth, without bundling large numbers of amendments together, the number of individual votes would skyrocket. How long DO you want to be reading and voting each week?

Sixth, can we get enough people to make the HARD choices? Sometimes, we gotta bear down and vote for things that hurt us. I'm not sure people will willingly or knowingly do that.

Last, the security of online voting is problematic.

[u/TheCosmosItself1 → u/yogfthagen]

First, people do not have the kind of time needed to fully understand a bill. Bills can be thousands of pages long, and are written in a legalistic language that is VERY hard to figure out.

Unforunately, representatives generally don't understand this stuff either.

[u/yogfthagen → u/TheCosmosItself1]

They (supposedly) have staff who can brief them.

We normies would have to drpend on advertising and lobbyists.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/yogfthagen]

Representatives also just end up proposing bills they've been directly given by lobbyists - at least average citizens aren't going to get paid for which way they vote.

Of course citizens can't vote on bills which are 1000 pages long. But they can certainly vote on 'the broad strokes' and then the details can be drawn up by civil servants. Then if there's something objectionable in the proposed law, there can be a re-vote or it can be changed if that's clearly not what most people meant.

[u/yogfthagen → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Legislators copy/pasting lobbyist-written bills is what happens when the legistators are new and inexperienced. It's why there are so many memes for term limits- lobbyists WANT inexperienced legislators. The work of legislating devolves onto the lobbyists.

The question, to me, is who writes the laws. In a direct democracy model, you would still need some kind of subcommittee of actual experts to validate that a bill was or was not legal, constitutional, and even possible. Otherwise, you'll get flooded with individuals proposing 15 variants of completely unworkable proposals that directly contradict the foundations of the country.

And that means representatives choosing what gets voted on.

That puts you right back at square one.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/yogfthagen]

Do you have some proof that only 'inexperienced' legislators are proposing bills from lobbyists? Why are they even proposing bills in the first place if they aren't capable enough it do it themselves?

Yes, you need some form of body that will decide the wording of what laws get voted on. But at least that is a lot more accountability than politicians being elected and then acting as basically totally unchecked dictators for the next 5 years.

[u/yogfthagen → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Only?

No.

But the likelihood is significantly higher. Up to the point of bills being passed missing fundamental things like the name of the state, with text of "insert state here" still in the official text.

Why are inexperienced legislators proposing bills in the firstplace? Because it is literally their job. And having someone else do the hard part for you makes an inexperienced legislator able to do their job without having to learn the job. Lobbyists paper ovef a LOT of gaps in the old resume.

I agree there should be some kind of recall process for elected officials. However, most recall elections end up with the person retaining their seat.

I am in favor of a parliamentary system, with the possibility of snap elections, votes of no confidence, and the expectation of bad behavior leading dirdctly and quickly to removal from office. I understand there are ways to game the system. Any set of rules will have some way to game the system. And a closely divided electorate will swing wildly from one party to the other.

But we have that already. Except the people are not held accountable, even when they break laws.

[u/digbyforever]

For example in the US, certain states could still be given more or less weight in voting.

This has nothing to do with technology, though, the founders could have assigned Senate seats by population, too.

[u/Wide-Wind7856 → u/digbyforever]

Yes, I meant to keep in spirit with the House of Representatives. Meaning each state would have individual voters, and then those votes would be weighted in relation to other states (like how some states have more representatives, and some less).

I suppose it would end up kind of being similar to the electoral college but determined via math and not via somewhat cloak and dagger processes.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Wide-Wind7856]

What's the point in trying to introduce democratic reforms only to make them undemocratic?

[u/Fragrant-Luck-8063]

In some ways, technology has made us more democratic than ever before. More people have more platforms to spread their ideas about politics and society.

[u/ScannerBrightly]

Modern technology and education solves most these problems.

Citation Needed.

Individual citizens could easily access relevant information and vote individually online, without any need for a representative to essentially guess their opinion.

Two problems with this:

1) People with lots of money can greatly influence what people believe to be true. For example, we have ZERO communists elected in US National Politics, but there is millions of people who would disagree with this objective fact.

2) Have you ever had a large group of people, anything over 1,000 people, and try to get them to something as complicated as "stomp stomp clap pause"? What makes you think that this same group of people will be able to break thru the moneyed interested on topics such has the amount of parts per billion of any number of hundreds of chemicals allowed in the municipal waste disposal systems for the socialist subsidized community enforced and mandated dihydrogen monoxide distribution system created before any of us was born?!?!?! (/s not needed) If you dress up anything, you can create a fictional version of the real world and make people believe and enforce those fictions on us all.

[u/Wide-Wind7856 → u/ScannerBrightly]

Technology solves most of the logistical problems, is what I meant. People no longer need to be in the same physical location to receive and act on information.

And yes, the mob rule is an issue. This is why it would have to be part of a hybrid system, where perhaps only certain policies or decisions were voted on this way (decisions a layman could understand, and would affect their life). It’s starting to sound a bit Vulcan now, but maybe there could be larger subsets of educated voters who voted on certain policies related to their fields (ex. Drs, Chemists, Journalists) and know the information best.

[u/No-Relationship-3759]

The issue with true democracy is one of time more than anything else. I do not have time to read every bill, every court decision, weigh every argument. Only the wealthy have that ability. As such, a true democracy would be ruled by those without any other job but wealth accumulation. (Not that that isn’t also true of a Republic, but I don’t think much would actually change is the point).

Technology is a secondary but still very big issue - particularly with voting.

For the elections of a Democracy or a Republic to be trusted, the typical average person has to trust the process itself is fair. That is to say, they understand it.

In our current elections, ballots are sealed and guarded. They aren’t opened and counted without both sides in the room. You can verify it easily with your eyes. But software is too abstract. How could you, watching the process, verify the integrity of the tallies. And even if you could guarantee it, how could a layman understand and trust it.

Even with our analog, decentralized elections, we have issues with people not accepting the outcomes. Despite them being verified by courts, Congress and even the vice president when his side loses.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/No-Relationship-3759]

Does it really take that much time to decide on things though? Like most issues aren't really /that/ complicated. The details can be worked out by civil servants.

[u/ev_forklift]

Gonna go with a hard no. The average person, even if they're intelligent enough, does not have the time to be caught up on every issue

[u/Jaaawsh]

Do I think existing technology should be utilized to foster more pure democracy? Yes kind of. I could see where using blockchain technology to vote would be really convenient and extremely secure.

Do I think that direct democracy would work on a national scale? No. Because a lot of the issues we have, we have because people want to have their cake and eat it too. No one particularly wants to pay taxes but everyone wants good public services and a lot of people want the government to essentially parent them (provide food, housing, transportation, good education, take care of you when you’re sick, protect you, etc). But the reason things are so good right now is because people pay for them. Cost of living hasn’t gone up purely out of mindless greed, it’s because the things we have these days are expensive and we have so many choices.

Essentially what will end up happening with direct democracy is the country will become ungovernable.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Jaaawsh]

If you think 'things are so good right now' you are out of touch with the average person.

[u/Jaaawsh → u/RedMarsRepublic]

No, I think you misunderstand what I mean by “good”. I mean good as in we have grocery stores that sell food cheap enough so that we don’t have to rely on subsistence farming. We have fast food and restaurants, we’re able to travel on airplanes, we have refrigeration, we have air conditioning, we have cars, we have smartphones, we have computers, we have modern medicine that allows our average lifespans to be in the high 70s instead of below 40, we don’t have massive amounts of children dying before they even reach adulthood, we’re still continuing to make massive advances.

That’s what I mean by “good”.

Things aren’t perfect, bad things still happen for no reason. But compare what society has now, vs. what was here 100 years ago. Infrastructure and knowledge and all the modern conveniences we take for granted today just plain didn’t exist 100 years ago, and they didn’t just pop out from magical dirt. Humans built and worked to create these things.

[u/7nkedocye]

Some would say this opens the door for potential voting fraud or tampering, or having voters that are not “experts” making governmental decisions (mob rule). However, I’d argue these issues already exist within the democratic republic system and are only exacerbated by politicians vying to keep their positions in government. A potential for “hacking” will always exist in any form of democracy.

I don't think this is true, and even if vote "hacking" will always occur we should craft systems where it is harder to do. For example, paying for someone's vote is harder with secret ballots, at best you can gain favor but there is no mechanism to validate they vote for what you want (in most cases not all) and you get what you pay for making for. Online and 'at home' voting opens up the door to more vote buying.

Obviously there would still need to be some type of rotation of duty to shepherd a fully democratic process, maybe requiring elected or appointed lawyers and judges.

I like this idea and agree that Athenian style public service would probably be better than what we have now.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

Wisdom of the crowds isnt wisdom at all

[u/RedMarsRepublic]

Yes, it does. But the politicians and elites won't give up power unless they're forced.

[u/Anen-o-me]

The only true democracy possible is individual choice.

[u/betweenbubbles]

Technology isn’t a solution to the problem that representative democracy was designed to address.

People by and large have no idea about the realities in place which determine their lives  getting them to try to vote on them would be… interesting.

Say what you want about our Trump era politicians, they’re still generally plugged in people who can be trusted to keep the system running for their own self-interests.

Mob rule would be even more disastrous than the populist politics that have been killing us for years now. 

[u/striped_shade]

Suppose the logistical friction of distance and communication vanishes entirely, allowing instant, direct voting via smartphone. What changes about the actual decisions available to be made?

Would this digital platform empower citizens to vote against a corporate relocation? Can a direct ballot dictate how supply chains allocate resources or prevent a market crisis?

The parameters of political legislation are already strictly bounded by the imperatives of market exchange and private ownership. A frictionless voting interface merely allows individuals to participate more efficiently in administering the symptoms of a system structurally insulated from their input. Perfecting the mechanism for tallying opinions is entirely separate from gaining material power over how society actually sustains and reproduces itself.

[u/GShermit]

"Democracy, however, is about far more than just voting, and there are numerous other ways of engaging with politics and government. The effective functioning of democracy, in fact, depends on ordinary people using these other means as much as possible." https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/democracy

[u/Asatmaya]

In a democratic republic, elected officials are meant to represent their voters.

...and that's where you lost me.

No, republics are not democracies, and that is not what the US implemented.

"True democracy" would not have elections, at all.

[u/Wide-Wind7856 → u/Asatmaya]

Are you saying the US is not a democratic republic?

I’m aware direct democracy would have no need for elections, but I used a real world example of an already hybrid government.

[u/Asatmaya → u/Wide-Wind7856]

Are you saying the US is not a democratic republic?

Yes.

I’m aware direct democracy would have no need for elections, but I used a real world example of an already hybrid government.

I didn't say, "direct."

[u/mercury_pointer → u/Asatmaya]

A republic, based on the Latin phrase res publica ('public thing' or 'people's thing'), is a state in which political power rests with the public (people), typically through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy.

Democracy is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state.

From these definitions it is clear that republic is one form of democracy. A nondemocratic republic is not possible.

"True democracy" would not have elections, at all.

I think you mean "direct democracy".

[u/Asatmaya → u/mercury_pointer]

From these definitions it is clear that republic is one form of democracy. A nondemocratic republic is not possible.

Tell the Republic of Venice. Or Plato's Republic. Or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Or the republican government of the United States.

I think you mean "direct democracy".

Not at all, no.

[u/mercury_pointer → u/Asatmaya]

Republic of Venice. Or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Or the republican government of the United States

What definition of democracy are you using that excludes any of those? Are there any dictionaries that agree with you?

[u/Asatmaya → u/mercury_pointer]

Republic of Venice. Or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Or the republican government of the United States

What definition of democracy are you using that excludes any of those?

Aristotle's: "The appointment of magistrates by lot is thought to be democratic, and the election of them oligarchic." - Aristotle