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	The Reality Sculptors "Faq-O-Matic" : "Laws We'd Like To See" : Electronic Voting
	All new laws will be posted in an authenticated electronic forum to be voted on by authenticated voters. After 1 week, the law either passes or is removed. A law passes if a majority of those who vote on it vote YES. A law does not pass if a majority of those who vote on it vote NO. Only a fixed number of laws may be up for vote on a given week. This number shall be small enough the a voter can read, decide, and vote on all laws within one hour a day. This number should be determined by steadilly increasing the number of laws presented each week until more voters take about an hour to read, decide, and vote on them. Discussion for any law can be held in any forum. Laws are submitted elecronically by any registered voter and distributed to the actual list of open laws in the order received. A law may be removed or modified by the writer at any time until it goes into the list of open potential laws for all to vote on. 1999-Aug-03 7:36am skeeter.murphy
	If I understand this, it's an automated form of direct democracy. I don't think Skeeter is badly intentioned, but this is a sufficiently bad idea that it deserves to be squashed, if possible. Athens was a direct democracy. Basically, 1000 citizens were chosen by lot every so often to be the "Assembly." The founders of Athens figured that 1000 people was too many to bribe, and large enough to represent the whole society. They were right on both counts, however, other problems rapidly made an appearance, because these ordinary people were not skilled in running a government. First, orators became the wealthiest people in Athens. A skilled orator would go persuade the Assembly to do something, and then just happen to have cornered the market in the essential ingredient (sculptors... when the Gods needed new statues, etc.). This impoverished the state and enriched the orators. Schools of Oratory sprang up everywhere, and they were very expensive to attend. Second, the Assembly sometimes made VERY bad decisions. The one that persuaded the U.S.'s founding fathers to have a Republic (a representative democracy, i.e. actually run by specialists) was the aftermath of the battle of Mytilene. Everybody in the Athenian military was a volunteer, including the generals. The Athenian navy, best in the world at the time, won the battle of Mytilene, but was trapped in a storm. Many Athenian sailors perished, and were lost in the storm, and could not be properly cremated or buried (a great religious sin at the time). An orator persuaded the Assembly to convict the 5 "responsible" Strategoi (general/admiral) of impiety- which carried a mandatory death penalty. Four were seized and killed at once. One escaped. Less than a day later, the Assembly changed its mind-- too late. There is great speculation that the reason Athens lost the next Spartan war, thirty years later (and was carried off into captivity as slaves), was because the best men no longer wanted to be Strategoi. The same government structure is the one that sentenced Socrates to death. Direct democracy is a Bad idea. Bad. 2002-Nov-30 7:14pm rgvandewalker
	Why don't you use some system of representative democracy i.e. have politicians but allow the citizen to override the politician. for more go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_direct_democracy 2008-Sep-01 4:24am timothy.anderson.1992
	record which representative was voted for by each person and if they vote, subtract 1 from their representatives voting power. For example if I were to vote for John Rep and my friend was to vote for Joe Bloggs, we could still vote and if we did, then our vote would decrease the representatives voting power. Allow as many representatives as wanted. Allow representatives to have representatives. For example, if I were to elect my friend as my representative, but he forgot to vote, then his representative would vote. 2008-Sep-02 3:41am timothy.anderson.1992
	Append to This Answer
	2008-Sep-02 3:41am

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