Nevada Vote Direct

As you may gather from the pages of Nevada Vote Direct, we believe that the innovation we propose in our political system is the only way to cut through the knot of political corruption by moneyed special interests that threatens to destroy our republican democracy in America.

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.

Recently I received some very thoughtful questions from a Nevada citizen who worries that Nevada Vote Direct will disenfranchise people who are too poor to have Internet service, or who for other reasons have limited access. She also questioned the security of our voting system. My reply follows:

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. And I do not hesitate to say that this applies in particular to poor people, the people who are most disenfranchised by the system as it is. Someone once said, “Blessed are the poor.” And I daresay there’s something to that.

Let me begin, then, with your fear that Nevada Vote Direct will “exclude people who can’t afford computers or Internet.” Like all of your questions, this one involves a very real and undeniable practical problem. But, 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 envision a corp of younger constituents (high school and college students), who may visit people in their homes to help them to participate.

And there are other possible solutions to this particular problem. For example, there is no reason why Internet voting should not be supplemented by secured telephone voting systems. Such a 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 work in weapons development gave it extensive experience and expertise in the field of security.) We should probably 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?” I do not think that this is true. 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 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. 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 to be perfect. (How dull life would be, if ever we could bring it to the summit of perfection)

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, 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? Are we to 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 the participation in our project of someone such as yourself. It is people like you who will make Nevada Vote Direct, if not perfect, at least somewhat closer to that ideal. Were you to join, I would ask if we might post your questions, and the answers that I’ve given here, on the site. For I’m sure that other people will have the same questions, and my answers are by no means the last word on the subject. These are questions that need to be discussed at length by many imaginative people, so that appropriate practical solutions can be found.

Please join us and help us to make our political system more democratic (small “d”), 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

Much as we all dread the rush at election time to read the voter booklet on pending citizen initiatives and propositions, it is important to remember that initiative reform was one of the principal ways in which citizens in the early 20th century curbed the power of big moneyed special interests. Unfortunately, the pendulum has obviously swung back in the opposite direction in our own time. Freedom and democracy are never a finished work. Each generation must fight the good fight.

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.”