My name is Sophie, and I’ve been asked to administer the NVD website. This is an honor that’s taken me quite by surprise. In fact, for the longest time I’ve been uninvolved in community affairs. You might even call me a recluse. I work for myself and live “far from the madding crowd.”

But Daniel asked me if I might consider administering NVD online, and to tell you the truth, I was thrilled. I’m quite sure NVD is the most important thing that has happened in politics since George Washington. I mean that sincerely, and so I’m thoroughly overwhelmed to have this great privilege.

Anyway, I am now your NVD WebMaster. I’ll do everything in my power to help you get the most out of the experience of participating online at the world’s first electronic direct democracy.

Please never hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions. You can reach me at the following email address:

And you can also communicate with me just by making a post or a comment online. I’ll be reading everything published at NDD, and so I’ll be sure to respond to any posts or comments that you direct to me.

Best regards,
Sohpie
NDD WebMaster

Please feel free to write anything you like in this category, Discussion. There are various places at NVD where your communications are welcome. Of course, you may always submit Motions. And on the page that is assigned to every Motion you will find space for comments in which you may try to influence how other voters think about the issue (look for the “Comment Box” below the Motion). But you may also want to enter your posts and comments here on the Discussion Pages. You may use these pages just to express yourself, or to ask questions, or to propose a subject on which you and others may offer comments and replies.

The Motion Pages really ought to be used to comment on the specific individual Motions and the issues related to them (always one page per Motion, with comments listed chronologically in receeding order). But, here on the Discussion pages, you may want to just vent on any old subject, or brainstorm, or tell us all a funny joke - for if we’re not laughing we’re not healthy.

This is a good place to ask questions, if you like. Or to highlight a need that has no clear solution that can be formulated in a Motion. As people discuss it, an idea for a Motion might naturally emerge.

As always, yours truly, your WebMaster (ooh, what a word!), will be reviewing all posts and comments, so don’t worry about stumbling upon anything obscene or abusive. On that point, I’d just like to say that I’m a great believer in free speech, and I’m confident you will be satisfied with my moderation of these forums. But, as should obviously be kept in mind, here at Nevada Vote Direct, I serve in this position at your pleasure. Motions to replace me, your WebMaster, are always in order. And I promise there will be no hard feelings in that event. I simply can’t wait to see all of you taking an active role in NVD, and I will welcome that no matter what.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions, suggestions, or just want to say HI.

To publish your comment, click on “Comments” below. This post will then appear on its own page with a comment box at the bottom.

Best regards,
Sophie
NVD WebMaster

We have a long way to go over the course of next year. But we have already taken the most important first step (in fact, an enormous leap), for we have succeeded in putting the technology in place. And of course the technology itself is going to help us to conduct our campaign and get our candidate elected.

For our great strenth is that we are planning our campaign and carrying it out even now, democratically. Our decisions are facilitated by the software installed at this site. It is the same software that we will be using after the election to vote on specific legislation before Congress. You may begin using this software to help us plan and conduct our campaign just as soon as you register as a member.

Best regards,
Zen Williston

It is interesting, however, to ponder this innovation from another point of view. What can we say about the decisions that the constituents of Nevada’s Second District are likely to make on the issues of the day? Will they reflect a fundamental intelligence and wisdom of conscious and conscientious adults based on their education and experience of living in society? Or will they simply amplify the prejudices and ignorance that are the constant bane of humanity through the ages?

More to the point, how will the decisions of the constituents in our district compare in relative wisdom with the decisions of a chosen representative to whom they would otherwise delegate their authority according to the old system?

A thoughtful and well researched answer to this question is presented in a new book by a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, Mr. James Surowiecki. His book is entitled The Wisdom of Crowds. And his answer may surprise you: “large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.”

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Dear _____,

Thank you very much for your interest in Nevada Vote Direct, and for taking the time to convey your very thoughtful questions. I feel very much in harmony with the spirit of your questions, and I hope you will believe that my entire purpose is to give more power to people, not less.

Let me begin, then, with your fear that Nevada Vote Direct will “exclude people who can’t afford computers or Internet.”

First, please understand that NVD provides a secure voting system on the Internet, AND BY SECURE TELEPHONE CONNECTION to the representative’s office in Washington. Secure telephone voting systems have been tested successfully in several states and countries. Like our NVD Internet system, our telephone voting system will be secure and very easy to use.

But in so far as this question concerns full participation in NVD via the Internet, this question involves a very real and undeniable practical problem. As such, I believe it has practical solutions. For example, it is certainly possible that many of the people without computers and the Internet could make use of library computers, or school computers. I am also hoping that, far from further isolating people in their homes and in front of their computer screens, Nevada Vote Direct will encourage individuals to open up their homes for neighbors to register their votes on issues that concern them. Ultimately, if I am elected, I promise that I will allocate some of the financial resources of my office to provide cheap computers to people who would agree to make them available in suitable settings to others in their community. (Internet-ready computers that sell for @$100 are already being made for distribution in countries like India and China.) I also envision a corp of younger constituents (high school and college students), who may visit people, with proper supervision, in their homes to help them to participate.

With respect to telephone voting, one such system has been developed by Sandia Laboratories on contract for the state of New Mexico, and has proved very successful in comprehensive testing. (Sandia was chosen because its previous work in weapons development gave it extensive experience and expertise in the field of security.) Other telephone systems have been successfully tested elsewhere.

We can also implement voting by mail, and as we know from absentee ballots used in the current electoral system, it is certainly possible to make such postal systems secure.

Regarding security more specifically, you asked: “If the US Government can’t even secure electronic voting how is it that you can secure a website to get an accurate representation of the intention of voters in Nevada?”

I wonder if the proper word is “can’t.” It seems to me that the problems we have had with government systems are very easy to explain. The Diebold and EMS computer voting machines currently in use, and proliferating, are based on proprietary technology that is not open to inspection. By contrast, the system I have created at Nevada Vote Direct is based on open-source software. And as we state in various places on our web pages, our software is open to inspection by anybody at any time upon request. You asked about someone by the name of Bruce McPherson, and I assure you he is free and welcome to examine our system. We have no secrets at Nevada Vote Direct. In fact, I eagerly invite examination by experts in the field, not because I believe my system to be fool-proof, but precisely because I know that no computer system is fool-proof. Only by involving outside experts can we hope to make our system as close to perfectly secure as humanly possible.

In calling our system secure, as it is, we are simply complying with the definition of the term and the standards of security currently in use. In this regard, I want to point out that we regularly accept the use of computer systems that are not fool-proof in various functions that have become an essential part of living in the modern world. The banking system and our economy would utterly collapse were this not the case. It seems to me that we must, in every instance, carefully estimate the costs of failure in the system, and weigh them against the benefits. (In the case of Diebold and EMS systems, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, I am personally dead set against their implementation.)

You asked, “Too what about rural folks. We’re ranchers and we can’t get high speed internet out here so our internet is dial up and takes forever. I don’t check my email but once a week, so those of us who can’t check our email every five minutes to get an idea about what is going on in Congress and whether we need to cast our vote are also disenfranchised.”

I have designed our site at Nevada Vote Direct to be as economical as possible with respect to “bandwidth.” I don’t think that there will be any substantial time required to bring up our pages on computers using dial-up access. Actually, I haven’t had sufficient feedback as yet with respect to this issue. If there is a problem, we can certainly provide a mirror-site that would not include graphics, so that time online could be kept to an absolute minimum. As for needing to check email every five minutes to keep updated, we can perhaps hope that people may be able to pressure their local newspapers into providing alerts about pending votes. And I have no doubt that people will come up with other ideas that can deal with this problem.

I’m sorry that I must dispute your statement, to wit: “There are hundreds of bills in Congress that pass in a day?”

This is NOT true. (In all of 2005, there were only 657 bills that were voted on by the House of Reperesentatives, and a considerable proportion of these were merely procedural in nature, having to do with the workings of the House (such as when to convene, and when to adjourn). But there is no doubt that, even so, on some rare occasions legislation does happen in a matter of days, the PATRIOT Act being a case in point. And certainly, some legislation is amended at the last minute, the inclusion of the Alaskan arctic drilling amendment with defense legislation being an example.

Let me remind you that Nevada Vote Direct provides a comprehensive system of citizen control over their representative. It allows for registered voters to make binding Motions of any kind. A voter might, for example, put forth a Motion that says, “Any last minute amendment providing for oil drilling in the arctic will disqualify any bill to which it is appended, with the exception of bills providing for military appropriations.” This Motion, if approved, would require me to vote no on any non-military appropriation bill that was so amended.

On the other hand, the registered voters in our district might prefer to leave this matter to my discretion as their representative. In the system at Nevada Vote Direct, this is entirely up to the voters.

And yet, I don’t want to pretend that all contingencies can be provided for. Nor can I, as just one individual, envision all of the circumstances that might develop along these lines. I promise to work closely with citizens to formulate appropriate rules that control my actions in Congress. You have raised a complicated issue that requires extensive consideration and a great deal of intelligent and innovative thinking. And it seems to me that we will have to learn constantly from experience. But this applies to all of the questions that you asked. I hope that I have not conveyed in any way the impression that I believe the system at Nevada Vote Direct is perfect as is.

And this raises a question that, with your permission, I should like to ask you. If all of the reservations you have about Nevada Vote Direct could not be addressed intelligently with practical solutions (and I am sure that this is not true), would it not even so be preferable to the system currently in place, which in my judgment has almost completely disenfranchised nearly all of us. Is there any doubt left that the current system is entirely controlled by big money and special interests? Would a system that enfranchises many thousands not be better than one that excludes all but an elite few? If we concede that Nevada Vote Direct is not a perfect system, is it not preferable to the status quo? Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good!

Once again, thank you. I so much appreciate your questions and the spirit in which you asked them. Naturally, I hope that I have allayed some of your concerns, for I would so happily welcome your participation in our project. It is people like you who will make Nevada Vote Direct, if not perfect, at least somewhat closer to that ideal.

Please join us and help us to make our political system more democratic, and in this way to make our world a little better. It is possible. We can do it!

Sincerely,
Daniel Rosen
Candidate for Congress 2006
http://www.NevadaVoteDirect.org

Many people today are disturbed by the influence of big money on the initiative process. And recently, a sociologist at Lake Tahoe Community College suggested that special interests might be able to influence voters at Nevada Vote Direct, so as to compromise our own purpose and goal. Consider then the research study by Elisabeth R. Gerber, detailed in her book, “The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Legislation.” This is how her publisher, Princeton Press summarizes her conclusions:

“Do small but wealthy interest groups influence referendums, ballot initiatives, and other forms of direct legislation at the expense of the broader public interest? Many observers argue that they do, often lamenting that direct legislation has, paradoxically, been captured by the very same wealthy interests whose power it was designed to curb. Elisabeth Gerber, however, challenges that argument. In this first systematic study of how money and interest group power actually affect direct legislation, she reveals that big spending does not necessarily mean big influence.

“Gerber bases her findings on extensive surveys of the activities and motivations of interest groups and on close examination of campaign finance records from 168 direct legislation campaigns in eight states. Her research confirms what such wealthy interests as the insurance industry, trial lawyer associations, and tobacco companies have learned by defeats at the ballot box: if citizens do not like a proposed new law, even an expensive, high-profile campaign will not make them change their mind. She demonstrates, however, that these economic interest groups have considerable success in using direct legislation to block initiatives that others are proposing and to exert pressure on politicians. By contrast, citizen interest groups with broad-based support and significant organizational resources have proven to be extremely effective in using direct legislation to pass new laws. Clearly written and argued, this is a major theoretical and empirical contribution to our understanding of the role of citizens and organized interests in the American legislative process.”

- Boehner recently characterized Hastert’s plan to ban privately funded travel as “childish” and dismissed the need for a ban on gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress. “If some members’ vote can be bought for a $20 lunch, they don’t need to be here,” he said. Later, Boehner backed away from his characterization of the travel ban as “childish,” but not the sentiment underlying his remark.

- Boehner’s political action committee collected nearly $300,000 from private student lending companies and for-profit academic institutions from 2003-2004. Boehner has used his chairmanship of the Education and the Workforce Committee to promote their pet causes - legislation that would make it more difficult to cut the fees on government student loans, which would cut into the private lenders market share, and legislation that would provide millions in subsidies to for-profit colleges and trade schools. (For more details on this, see a report in the Washington Post of January 28, 2006.)

- Boehner has taken more than $157,000 in free trips, placing him seventh among 638 current and former members of Congress, including senators, in the value of privately funded travel accepted between 2000 and 2005, according to American Radioworks. These included a $4,869 trip to Scotland in 2000 and a $9,050 trip to Rome in 2001, both of which were sponsored by the Ripon Educational Fund, a nonprofit group largely run by business lobbyists. Family members traveled with him for free on both trips.

- An exceptional number - at least 24 - former Boehner staff members have passed through the revolving door from government service to find work in the private sector as lobbyists or corporate public affairs specialists. (For more details on this, see a report in The Hill newspaper of February 1, 2006.)

- Boehner preceded indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as the head of the “K Street Operation,” the Republicans’ efforts to coordinate policy and fundraising with well-heeled lobbyists, which since has been dubbed the “K Street Project.” But the Ohioan lost the job to DeLay in 1998 after he was voted out as head of the Republican Conference. (For more details on this, see a report in the Baltimore Sun of December 21, 1998.)

- Boehner caught a large amount of flack for handing out checks to his colleagues from tobacco company PACs on the floor of Congress in 1995. Although not illegal, it certainly showed poor judgment but was consistent with his role at the time as the party’s chief liaison with K Street. (For more details on this, see a report in the New York
Times of May 10, 1996.)