The United States of America is a republic, which means we the people elect representatives from our various locals around the country to travel to Washington, DC and vote on our behalf for varying and important issues. Each locale selects the politician which we deem matches our particular perspective on the issues. We then expect the select representative to vote inline with our agreed upon positions on the issues.
Unfortunately this isn’t always the result of the elected politicians’ behaviour when performing their political duties. As of this writing we have a republican majority on the hill which has largely relinquished its responsibility to govern to the executive branch, that is to say the current person occupying the chair of the presidency, Donald J. Trump. Congress and the Senate, the legislative branch of our government, are co-equal branches with the executive and judicial branches of government. All three branches executive, legislative and judicial are free to provide a check for the other.
If representatives of the legislative branch refuse to pass laws which provide constraints on the executive branch, the president may well attempt to be the sole creator of the policy for the country. Which is what we currently are experiencing with the current person occupying the white house. Our legislative elect officials aren’t performing their duties as checks and balances to the president. As a result we have a billionaire executing uncontrolled influence over our president and who is systematically dissolving federal departments and agencies he deems is unnecessary and/or fraudulent. Not to mention many of the targeted organizations have open investigations into the billionaire’s own businesses! He has fired specific people who are investigating his business dealings and has not had any shame in going after obvious federal departments and agencies which any reasonable observer would deem clearly vindictive revenge on his enemies.
The president and his co-president billionaire execute firings of federal employees with wanton disregard for the duties they perform to keep the nation safe. Proof of this is their firing of federal nuclear engineers not realizing or taking the time required to prudently know the likely results of their actions, if these particular federal workers were removed. As a result of this incompetent move the current executive administration then had to rush to rehire the nuclear engineers. Since locking these engineers out of their federal email accounts they had no means to contact them.
We could go on but because the current administration has taken over the department of treasury and has control over trillions of dollars in payments made by our government. The power of the purse is strictly managed by the legislative branch; however, the person currently occupying the white house has every intention of executing his duties during his second term as a would-be dictator. Suffice it to say we have a long four years ahead of us.
Now given the above situation, would the United State’s public at large benefit from a means to directly, individually and swiftly decide how to weigh in on a federal topic or issue. Rather we would like to see a bill passed or not. Rather a specific expenditure is added to a bill or not. Rather a law is drawn up and presented for a vote that can restrict the billionaire from executing his plutocratic coup? Could a pure democracy keep these types of Constitutional problems from festering.
What if each and every American had the ability to vote on each of these issues? I know, not something we all may want to bother ourselves with, except when things look as bleak as they do now, we may in the future see this responsibility as a minor inconvenience. Obviously we’d need a great deal of education on how to properly perform the duties of our congress and senate, but again we may see this as a minor inconvenience if we unfortunately end up dealing with a dictator for the foreseeable future. If by taking on the responsibility of representing ourselves on the hill for each issue in need of addressing and not relinquishing our civic duties to a politician who may or may not execute our wishes.
Individual Representation On The Hill
I’m not suggesting we remove the politician completely just augmenting his or her duties and responsibilities. The politician will still be elected and represent their district’s constituency only now they will not only know exactly how the people feel about a proposed bill, the bill can only progress if the majority of the people support it.
The people also should have the ability to swiftly remove the politician if they are not performing as they promised or as the people and/or the Constitution requires. Here I believe is the compelling deciding factor for this approach to government management. The elected official not only feels beholden to the people who put them in office but to physically know they can be immediately removed. Not until two or four years for the next election cycle, today. If enough people, two-thirds for instance, get together and decide it is time to impeach a politician, then it can happen as soon as everyone can hit the impeach button on their smartphones.
Qualifying to Vote on the Hill
I completely respect the experience required to perform effectively in congress or senate. First of all I don’t think we should run head first into the implementation of such a system, period. We clearly need to break this problem down to bite sizes and simulate as much as we can to show how such a system improves our democracy.
That being said, I see individuals needing to prove their understanding of a bill’s issues by going through a quiz or certification on the issues contained in the bill. The elected politician’s office would be required to give as complete an overview of the bill issues as possible, again here I’m sure this is easier said than done. Later I offer a technological architecture that may provide an effective solution at scale.
Citizens would not need to qualify to vote on recalling a politician, only on complex bills that require an understanding of the underlying issues to make an informed decision.
Estonia eGov
Estonia is a much smaller country than the United States. A population of around a million people to the US’ three hundred forty million. Estonia’s eGov system enables the country to perform many tasks via the Internet while expediting services to its citizens. Citizens can use the e-Residency portal to apply for a digital ID card, which can be used to access a variety of government services. They can also use the portal to register a business, file taxes, and vote in elections. Citizens can perform many of these tasks without having to go to offices in person.
Estonia uses blockchain technology for security and enables various government agencies to communicate with each other efficiently and securely. The use of blockchain technology also improves transparency.
You can read further details of Estonia’s eGov at this blog post on Estonia’s eGov: A Model for Digital Governance.
eGov Technology
Of course here I’m simply trying to initiate the conversation and hopefully inspire citizens to think of how we can improve and strengthen our democracy using technology. The United State’s Constitution is known as a living document because it can be amended. My ultimate proposal is to bring the Constitution to the twenty-first century and make it a software based contract. Using blockchain technology, which enables us to track unique transactions using encryption keys. Blockchain technology includes an apparatus called a smart contract. These smart contracts contain rules that are to be followed after an XYZ transaction occurs. In other words, like a legally binding paper contract, if an ABC event happens then XYZ action is to be taken.
I’m greatly simplifying blockchain technology in order to give the reader enough information to think about how such a mechanism would manage our government. The Constitution wouldn’t only have to be obeyed by the people in office, there could be constraints on who can, say enter an elected officials office because electronically they would have to provide personal biometrics for the person who we all voted for. In the case of the white house, if someone has violated the Constitution’s smart contract rules, they couldn’t enter into the presidential race, because a judge has ruled they participated in an insurrection against the country.
Of course as with the paper Constitution the electric Constitution would be updatable and amendable, but we would have a much more effective way to uphold the laws it defines. Using smart contracts throughout the government would greatly improve government efficiency, reduce fraud and waste also being that transactions on the blockchain are transparent and easily audited.
Security
As of this writing a number of members of the legislative branch have received death threats. The FBI has assessed these threats credible and informed the members as such. The legislative branch is now dealing with the current occupant of the white house only needing to make a negative remark about a legislative branch member and death threats come pouring in to that specific member. The member is then afraid to vote against the president’s approved position on a candidate cabinet member or bill.
In a pure democracy the responsibility for voting wouldn’t strictly lie on the elected politicians shoulders. All of his or her constituency, however many thousands or tens of thousands or more there are in total will vote yea or nay on a candidate or bill.
If someone wants to threaten a specific member of the legislative branch they’d need to threaten all of the people represented by the member’s constituency.
Even if something actually unfortunate happens to the member, the people would still have the ability to uphold their collective position on an issue. This would be a real pure democracy. And the strength in the numbers would serve as reinforcement for each member of the legislative branch.
Blockchain technology also provides a mechanism to monitor data that has changed since its original creation, as well as ongoing changes. Blockchain transactions are decentralized and distributed also meaning multiple agencies throughout the government all possess and maintain the complete number of transactions that occur throughout the government. If one agency has a security breach to their system there are multiple different locations the original data is stored and can be audited alerting the proper officers of the breach.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other proper names used to describe the above description of a “pure democracy”. A “direct democracy” and “semi-direct democracy” are terms used in discussing different types of democracies.
A direct democracy provides the citizens with fine grained control of the state’s activities. As you can imagine, attempting this type of democracy is very difficult and complex. Although today we have the best technology humans have ever created resting in our pockets. So although I haven’t suggested this type of democracy, I do think if we worked at it we could likely succeed at it.
No, I have proposed the second form of a semi-direct democracy, in which we still elect representatives, but we augment their duties with citizens participation in voting on bills and other political issues. I acknowledge the complexity of such a system and have also suggested we use technology to greatly streamline and reduce the complexities of such an e-governmental system.
In a later post I will look to address using artificial intelligence to streamline the complexities of such a system even more.
An electronic Constitution would have a smart contract to enforce its rules. The section of the Constitution that addresses the disqualification of insurrectionists from holding office is Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment would be encoded into the smart contract’s rules to access the appropriate judicial smart contracting rules to determine if a ruling has been adjudicated against the proposed presidential candidate. If the judicial smart contracts returns that the presidential candidate has been ruled an insurrectionist, then no governmental access would be granted to this presidential candidate. Unless as outlined in the Constitution, congress has removed such a disability by a vote of two thirds of each house.
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), would have to physically provide biometric information for validation by the legislative branch’s smart contracts. Only employees the legislative branch has previously approved and have provided biometric identification data would be allowed to access the department of treasury and other congressionally created agencies.