Introduction
E-Government: The Democratic System of the Future
The world needs democracy. From the communal meeting of minds that led to the founding document of our great nation to the rise of Rome, democracy has proven itself to be the most effective system of governance yet devised to maintain peace and order within a body of people. However, the major stumbling block to allowing democracy to work on a larger scale than a town meeting has always been two-fold: access to the information by a concerned and politically active public, and the age-old question that plagues every governmental system yet known to man – who polices the police?
We’d like to answer that question with a modern perspective; a new twist on an old idea that is gaining support in many circles as the eventual future system of governance among democratic nations: that of e-Democracy, or an e-Government – a government that is run via the World Wide Web, with referendums initiated and voted upon by regular citizens. We at PolitiVote believe that e-Governance will eventually be possible. We believe that citizens will be able to maintain a universally accessible system free of bureaucratic interference; a system of pure democracy, where every single person will be able to have one voice in the passing of laws and statutes for the benefit of all.
The possibilities of such a system are exciting, but early efforts to implement these systems have encountered some unique challenges, challenges that have impeded their widespread adoption. It has become clear that before an e-Governance system can be fully implemented, each of these issues will need to be addressed. In the following article, we at PolitiVote will examine each of the potential risks in an e-Governance system and identify potential ways to minimize or eliminate these risks to “ensure liberty and justice for all.” We invite your feedback on this story.
Potential Risks of e-Government
We have to think outside the box to solve the issues holding e-Government back.
As identified by Wikipedia in this excellent article, the risks of E-Government are as follows:
- Loss of an “arbiter” (the government) through the process of “disintermediation”
- Impacts on economic, social, and political factors
- Disturbances to the status quo
- Hyper-surveillance
- Cost
- Inaccessibility
- False sense of transparency and accountability
Like Wikipedia, we believe that If these risks can be minimized or eliminated, an e-Democracy will be possible. In the following pages, we wil a) explain each risk as a “problem” to be solved, and b) provide one or more real-world solutions to overcome each one of these risks in succession.
Loss of an independent “arbiter”
“Public happiness, personal liberty, and private property depend essentially upon the able and upright determinations of upright judges.” – James Wilson, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
An arbiter is necessary to preserve peace in a democratic society.
Problem: One of the greatest concerns in the formation of an e-Government is also one of the greatest concerns in any system of pure democracy – the loss of an “arbiter”, or as defined by Merrian-Webster’s Online Dictionary, the loss of “a person or agency whose judgment or opinion is considered authoritative.” By implementing a system of e-Governance, the power of the government is effectively spread among citizens, which is the foundation of democracy. However, when two equal citizens have a dispute, who sits at the trial? Who says that their decision is authoritative? Who enforces that decision? An arbiter helps to decide all of these issues.
Solution: PolitiVote proposes that in an e-Government system, the government would function much as it functions today – with legislative, judicial, and executive branches. Rather than having an e-Government system replace all three of these necessary branches within government, the e-Government system would only complement currently existing legislative and judicial branches. Legislation would be written by elected representatives, voted upon by a common referendum to the people, and only passed when a clear majority is reached. Judges would be decided through a common referendum by the people and evaluated regularly for performance by the people. This system would therefore allow for a Congressional/Judicial arbiter directly elected and monitored by the people, but enforcing laws that the people themselves have, as a whole, agreed to live by.
Impacts on economic, social, and political factors
e-Government will change social, political, and economic structures.
Problem: The impacts on economic, social, and political factors in e-Government are not yet known, but would probably be significant; a change to an e-Government system – as any government change – would affect every aspect of the lives of citizens. Economically, new paradigms would emerge as ideas are freely exchanged. A social revolution of civil activism and “ownership” of one’s government would occur. Politics, as it has been traditionally practiced, would undergo a monumental change, as citizens and officials would reach new levels of accountability. These changes cannot be measured or fully known, and they may have extreme consequences and side-effects when they are implemented.
Solution: This problem is identified whenever a change is proposed – the effects of such a change will not be known until the change is implemented and could be significant. However, we would argue that pure democracy has been successfully tested and proven as a regular governmental model throughout human history; this does not assure that an e-Government system would work, but it does show the possibility that it could work if it had the proper backing. Furthermore, to ease the effects of such a governmental system on the citizenry, it could be implemented over a period of time. First, citizen participation in the political process could be voluntary until participation is sufficient enough to warrant a small, experimental e-Government on a neighborhood/city level. On this small scale, problems could be resolved and processes fine-tuned. Once these organizations have reached significant stability, these processes could slowly be implemented on a larger scale – county e-Governance, state e-Governance, and finally, federal e-Governance. In this way, the impact of such a system could be spread over time to minimize the risks inherent to such a monumental change.
Disturbances to the status quo
e-Government disrupts the status quo.
Problem: The change to e-Government would be a break from tradition and would disrupt the status quo– the “existing state of affairs.” Changes in the status quo can often introduce elements of revolution and anarchy into an otherwise peaceful society.
Solution: As with the potential economic, social, and political problems brought with e-Governance could be minimized over time, so too could this problem be overcome when such a system is implemented over time and in harmony with established institutions of government. We would further suggest that America has disturbed the status quo since its foundation; John Dickinson had a vision of a glorious nation when he drafted the Constitution, Thomas Edison saw a beacon of hope in his “light experiment”, Martin Luther King “had a dream” that he believed was ready to be realized “today”…the list goes on and on. All of these changes have led to a better government for all while disturbing the status quo. We very well may have “nothing to fear, but fear itself.”
Hyper-surveillance
Even in an e-Government, the people in government could be watching you.
Problem: “Increased contact between government and its citizens goes both ways. Once e-government begins to develop and become more sophisticated, citizens will be forced to interact electronically with the government on a larger scale. This could potentially lead to a lack of privacy for civilians as their government obtains more and more information on them. In a worst case scenario, with so much information being passed electronically between government and civilians, a totalitarian-like system could develop. When the government has easy access to countless information on its citizens, personal privacy is lost.” – Wikipedia
This is a very real concern for any system of democracy. For the government to identify each vote as a legitimate vote, voting requirements will have to be met – including name, location, Social Security #, etc. The ideas and referendums proposed will be publicly available, and people could be exploited or terrorized by their own government for submitting their radical ideas in this forum of free information exchange.
Solution: We at PolitiVote believe that the only true solution to this very real problem is simple: the government cannot have control over the voting forum. The voting forum would be maintained independent from government interference as either a non-profit or private institution. Specific information would have to be subpoenaed through a public request, and the people would set limits on what power the government has to know this information.
This model has already been proven successful in protecting the personally identifiable information of visitors to privately-owned websites such as YouTube, search engines, and other interactive websites.
Cost
e-Government would cost less than current bureaucracy.
Problem: “Although ‘a prodigious amount of money has been spent’ on the development and implementation of e-government, some say it has yielded only a mediocre product. The outcomes and effects of trial Internet-based governments are often difficult to gauge or unsatisfactory.” – Wikipedia
Solution: We believe that the costs of an e-Government would be significantly less than the current bureaucratic system that we have now. The current cost of voting machines, forms, voting registration processes, all of which cost $X amount of dollars a year alone would be enough to hire Y security experts, Z network administrators, and to run E amount of web servers. In addition, this number does not take into account the billions of dollars spent by lobbyists in Federal and State-run Congresses, money which could be channeled into public advertising geared towards persuading the new legislative body – the people – into voting for a corporate referendum.
Inaccessibility
e-Government would need to maintain the same accessibility as the present government.
Problem: An e-government site that provides web access and support often does not offer the “potential to reach many users including those who live in remote areas, are homebound, have low English proficiency, exist on poverty line incomes, suffer from chronic illness, are single parents or older adults.” – Wikipedia
Solution: By expanding this idea slowly and on a voluntary basis, it will be possible for actions to get Internet access to every home in America to gain momentum. Additionally, there are exciting breakthroughs already being made in using existing power cables as broadband Internet lines; this would allow any home in America to have Internet access, including those in rural areas, those with poverty line income, and those that may otherwise be homebound. Furthermore, although proficiency in English can be a stumbling block to living in the United States, the language barrier is better overcome when proposals and systems are digitally based; Google Translation is an excellent example of the exciting possibilities in translating text in digital format. Through these actions, e-Government will serve these individuals better or equally well as current voting systems.
False sense of transparency and accountability
Real transparency would need to be maintained in an e-Government.
Problem: “Opponents of e-government argue that online governmental transparency is dubious because it is maintained by the governments themselves. Information can be added or removed from the public eye (i.e. the Internet) with or without public notice. For example, after the World Trade Center in New York City was attacked on September 11, 2001, United States federal officials removed a large amount of government information from its websites in the name of national security. This act went relatively unnoticed by United States citizens. To this day, very few organizations monitor and provide accountability for these modifications. Those that do so, like the United States’ OMBWatch and Government Accountability Project, are often nonprofit volunteers. Even the governments themselves do not always keep track of the information they insert and delete.” – Wikipedia
Solution: This is always an issue in government organizations, and even an e-Government would not be fully transparent (although it would be more transparent than the system we have today). In particular, executive and judicial branches would need to be most closely monitored, and a citizen audit group may need to be formed as a watchdog for government action. These problems, however, can be mediated by allowing the voting system to be a separate, privatized/non-profit organization run by non-government employees. In this way, an independent “auditor” would be maintaining and providing the information to the public rather than the governmental institution.
Benefits and Conclusion
What possibilities/challenges do you see in an e-Government? Let us know below!
There are several benefits to a system of e-Democracy. As outlined in Wikipedia, an e-Democracy would allow the following:
- Greater efficiency
- Improved services
- Transparency
- Accountability
- Democratization
- Environmental bonuses
- Speed
- Convenience
- Greater public approval and participation in government action
The barriers to creating an e-Government system are real, but we believe that by enacting these solutions, it can be possible. If we allow it to be, an e-Government will be the next logical step in the sequence of events that leads the United States further towards true freedom.
We invite your comments on this story. Thank you for your time and interest, and if you’d like to donate to the PolitiVote project, please click here.
Tags: democracy, eDemocracy, eGovernment, free democracy