Kathy--
You wrote:
Why not make the idea better yet? Allow all voters to select a
different representative for each issue of interest to the voter, so
that one rep might be tasked to vote on environmental issues, another
on education issues, and perhaps another on foreign trade treaty
issues or on judicial appointments.... A voter could simply select a
person to vote on all issues, or select separate persons for different
issues.
[endquote]
Absolutely. I don't remember if that was in my earlier proposal, but of course
it should be.
One would have a pre-chosen default proxy designation, as I described, but one
would also be
able to designate a proxy on any particular vote.
And a proxy needn't be a political figure, party leader, candidate, or anyone
special.
One's proxy could be _anyone_ whom one wants to vote for hir. (As designated
for a particular
issue-category, or a particular vote, or as pre-chosen default proxy).
It could be a friend, family member, or any kind of public figure or
advocate, etc.
The Proxy Direct Democracy that I proposed could be voted by telephone or
Internet.
As I mentioned, the voter would have an anonymous voter ID number.
That would make voting by telephone or website feasible.
Here's one way that the voter could get that ID number:
The person intending to register to vote writes a random 20 digit number on a
piece
of paper, and folds the paper. In the registration office, s/he drops it into a
drum
of other people's similarly-folded, identical-looking, voter ID number slips,
and turns the drum, to obscure which paper
s/he dropped in.
That number now is an anonymous voter ID number. A voter can use it to vote by
phone, or at
a website. And, additionally, of course, the voter can designate a default
proxy, for any vote in
which that voter doesn't take part.
As You suggested, you could designate a different proxy for various kinds of
issues. But
there could be different opinions on which issues are in which categories,
unless vote issues are
specifically designated by categories. For that reason, it might be necessary
to designate such
special proxies at the time of voting. But maybe not: Maybe, if vote issues are
officially-designated by
category, you could have pre-chosen proxies for different categories of votes.
Of course, in addition, you could designate a special proxy (or a special
ranking of proxies) for
any particular vote too.
So you can vote only on issues that interest you and that you're informed on,
confident that
you've designated someone else to vote on the others for you.
Mike Ossipoff
guess a potential problem with this is that some issues
overlap and Congress would have to stop the horsetrading process of
throwing dozens of unrelated things into the same bill.
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
