rbc@cuuxb.ATT.COM (~XT6561210~Rick Clark~C24~H15~6011~) (11/01/90)
In article <779@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> mccoy@ils.nwu.edu writes: >In article <faustus.656783393@tartarus.uchicago.edu>, faustus@tartarus.uchicago.edu (Kurt Ackermann) writes: >|> In <1990Oct20.224407.23367@world.std.com> lains@world.std.com (Layne L Ainsworth) writes: >|> >|> >In article <1990Oct04.001804.18056@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts) writes: >|> >|> [comments regarding constitution and "community standards"] Especially when >|> >the majority of people would vote for repression of a small group. . . . >|> Imagine if ALL ELIGIBLE NET-FOLK voted in the next election for a >|> presidential candidate who had a proven track record of support for >|> computer networks . . . . . . >|> 10 million voices, in light of the current apathy among the rest >|> of the voting public, would certainly cause politicos to stand up and >|> take notice...) >|> >Possible, but I do not think that it could be done. It is hard to get >a group like the net together with any sort of cohesive >group-identity. We are an interest group that spans the country, but >our concerns seem to be more oriented towards positions that are >elected within small regions (president is about the only one we could >all vote for, and I don't think that there would be a chance to get >everyone voting based just upon support for computer networks. >jim One feature of the electronic frontier is we now could have much more flexibility to express democratic principles. For example, it is now logistically possible for almost everyone in the country to vote on every individual piece of legislation if they choose to. One thing I would like to see changed is touched upon above. Each member of the house of representatives represents a predetermined geographic area. The result is that minority interests have little or no representation in congress. I don't just mean racial minorities. For instance even 1 million persons strongly interested in the extension of civil liberties to electronic media certainly deserve a representative or two, but will never get one because we don't all live in the same district. What I would like to see is the ability to give your vote to anyone you want. People all over the country could give their votes to the president of the Sierra Club, the chairman of the Democratic or Republican party, Jesse Jackson, a representative of the right to life or freedom of choice movements, or the head of EFF. As long as a candidate collected a minimum number of votes, they would be in. If they came up short, they could forward their votes to someone close to their political platform who did make the minimum. Voting power of a representative would be proportional to the number of votes they acquired. Think of the advantages! 1) "Your" candidate never loses. At worst he comes up short of the minimum and forwards your vote to someone s/he believes will still sort of represent what is important to you. 2) Elections will suddenly become clean! Candidates will have nothing to gain by slinging mud at each other, because it is no longer two or three people duking it out, winner take all. 3) Elections will be much cheaper, because candidates would be reaching voters through media tailored to their platform, rather than by trying to saturate everyone at once. 4) We would have fewer congressmen to pay (and listen to in full session), because some would hold more than one person's worth of votes. 5) You would probably be voting for someone (or some issue) you really care about, or at least know something about. 6) Congress will become much more interesting, filled with a wide variety of colorful persons. 7) Hopefully, legislation will improve with the varied interests of the nation more accurately represented, and with the importance of big money and political party machines reduced as a factor in getting elected. This would be a real bitch to make happen though, because the current congress would never go for it. Most of them are too faceless to hope to keep their jobs under such a system. -- =Richard B. Clark Lisle, IL ...!{att,lll-crg}!cuuxb!rbc OR cuuxb!rbc@arpa.att.com