1. How about a compromise? You can choose to be available for delegation; if available for delegation, your votes are public.
2. Nope, but there are ways of analyzing voting patterns for fraud / tampering after the fact. Especially if some algorithms are used - I'm thinking specifically a form of collaborative filtering. 'For citizens who have a similar voting record..'
3. Definitely. It's a tough nut to crack. A tool like github could actually be part of the answer. What happens when industry trade groups and lobbyists have a closer ear to an individual representative than their constituents do (and they almost always do)? What happens when those groups' interest conflicts with their constituents (see also: the environment; the internet)? You'd hope that the representative/senator would vote in the interest of their constituents, keeping in mind the input of the special interests... But how often is that actually the case? Seeing a commit log laid out with the reasoning behind each change could lead not only to smaller & more comprehensive bills, but to better and more effective citizen input as well.
4. How much do people look into the voting history of their elected official now? Not very often, I'd wager. Something like this might actually be prophylactic to legislators voting in a different manner than people would expect though, if you're alerted when your delegate votes and you have the chance to cast a different one.
5. It's representative democracy except when representative democracy would vote against a person's interest. The more people against whose interest the prevailing representative vote consensus is, the more direct it is. Things that have a wide consensus would be delegated - and things that don't would probably be hammered out more. This isn't about what system would have been best for the 1960s or the 1850s, though, so I'm uncomfortable talking about it in context of the civil rights movements. What new systems of government are enabled by the availability of technology today? Which of those would be better equipped for the digital era than the ones we have available to us now? Which ones would lead to more freedom instead of less?
2. Nope, but there are ways of analyzing voting patterns for fraud / tampering after the fact. Especially if some algorithms are used - I'm thinking specifically a form of collaborative filtering. 'For citizens who have a similar voting record..'
3. Definitely. It's a tough nut to crack. A tool like github could actually be part of the answer. What happens when industry trade groups and lobbyists have a closer ear to an individual representative than their constituents do (and they almost always do)? What happens when those groups' interest conflicts with their constituents (see also: the environment; the internet)? You'd hope that the representative/senator would vote in the interest of their constituents, keeping in mind the input of the special interests... But how often is that actually the case? Seeing a commit log laid out with the reasoning behind each change could lead not only to smaller & more comprehensive bills, but to better and more effective citizen input as well.
4. How much do people look into the voting history of their elected official now? Not very often, I'd wager. Something like this might actually be prophylactic to legislators voting in a different manner than people would expect though, if you're alerted when your delegate votes and you have the chance to cast a different one.
5. It's representative democracy except when representative democracy would vote against a person's interest. The more people against whose interest the prevailing representative vote consensus is, the more direct it is. Things that have a wide consensus would be delegated - and things that don't would probably be hammered out more. This isn't about what system would have been best for the 1960s or the 1850s, though, so I'm uncomfortable talking about it in context of the civil rights movements. What new systems of government are enabled by the availability of technology today? Which of those would be better equipped for the digital era than the ones we have available to us now? Which ones would lead to more freedom instead of less?