Rant: Governance

[whyBish]

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"But then how much deciding do you think it's plausible for the masses to do?"

No idea. I'm not argueing for direct indivdual representation, just stating that central govenance seems strange (and individual governance may be stranger?)

But here's a thought, in N.Z at least, there is a huge number of people that don't vote, which essentially counts their vote as proportional to those that do vote. So I'm definately not saying that everyone would need to vote on every issue under individual representation. And the case that some people don't have the ability to decide on all issues is the same in central government: is the best party really being voted for by the masses (when most don't understand economics/politics/health/education/foreign policy/security/policing etc.)

There is the possibility of a lack of cohesive vision (strategy) without delegation for a period of time.

"Besides, delegation works after a fashion. We've delegated the task to making the decisions to people who are actually willing to sit down and debate the situations at length to collectively hammer out a plan."

This brings up another issue I was thinking about this morning:
Trust:
Do you trust your representative to vote according to what you expected when they were elected. Current systems have no penalty (other than the threat of not being re-elected) for politions that don't keep, or break, promises.

"Oh, and don't forget referendums. ;) "

... you mean those things (in NZ) we get to 'vote' on that aren't legally binding, and that politicians have a track record of ignoring (e.g. the vague 'harsher sentencing') ;)

"I don't really see a point to having to go through the election process more than once every three years if the incumbant government is statistically likely to sit in power for at least 6 years."

But it does limit what you are voting on, you are voting on a "lump of issues" and you may not even agree with everything that a party is promising (even if they keep it ;) ).
It also potentially introduces artificial cycles (not neccessarily a bad thing) such as large budget spending in the election year to fade memories of unpopular decisions/broken promises made after election.

"It could be worse. We could have FPP again!"
America still does? and FPP means that essentially if you did not vote for the winner then your vote does not count, same as in proportional representation though if you happened for an 'opposition' party, except that if the largest party is not a sole majority you may get a slight say when their coalition parners will not support them.

"There would also be issues how much time you want the country's workforce not actually being productive, but sitting and analysing the data"
True, but do people actually do that now before the election (I really don't think so) although there definately is the issue of 'idiot votes' like those that vote for the legalise cannibis(sp?) party or McGillicuddy Serious.

"WTF??? That's news to me. I wonder how they'd pull that off. Hello security loophole expoit!"
A quick search brought up how they would pull it off:
http://www.eucybervote.org/Reports/KUL-WP2...4V1-v1.0-02.htm
NZ for local elections:
"New Zealand is discussing legislation to allow for electronic voting to be used in local elections." http://www.paris-conference-2001.org/eng/c...ix_contrib.html
NZ for general election:
"The world's first national electronic voting trial is scheduled
for testing in New Zealand, in December, with around 21,000 volunteers
from across the country - about 1 per cent of the voting population."http://www.mtn.org/edem-elect/archive/msg01457.html
Funnily enough I couldn't find a mention at the first site I visited www.election.govt.nz