Tag Archives: voting blocs

Overcoming Systemic Voter Disempowerment with a System Changing Technology

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Joe Firestone | 9 comments

By Nancy Bordier and Joseph M. Firestone

Most governments claim they are democracies because they hold popular elections. A large majority of their citizens who cast votes also think their governments are democracies.

But there are other criteria besides elections for determining whether or not a country has a functioning democracy — or a failing democracy.

A major criterion, possibly the most important one, is whether voters actually control elections and their legislative consequences.

– Can voters decide who runs for office and set the priorities for the legislation their elected representatives pass if they are elected?

– Can voters freely run their own candidates? Or must they vote for candidates run by intermediaries like political parties or special interests?

– Do institutions like the U.S. electoral college and election authorities place limitations on voters’ ability to run their own candidates by imposing requirements voters find it difficult or impossible to fulfill, such as collecting massive numbers of signatures, paying unaffordable fees, etc.?

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Posted in Joe Firestone, Uncategorized

Tagged campaign finance laws, electoral coalitions, failing democracy, filibusters, gerrymandering, interactive voter choice system, IVCS, lack of agenda setting mechanisms, political parties, reinventdemocracy, systemic voter disempowerment, technology fix for democracy, transnational voting blocs, transpartisan voting blocs, vote suppression laws, voting blocs, winner take all single member districts

A Technological Fix for Failing Democracies

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Joe Firestone | 5 comments

Dysfunctional democracies are provoking anger, confrontations, crises and conflicts for the following reasons:

In many cases, the citizens of dysfunctional democracies are unable to decide who runs for office, who gets elected and what laws are passed because of obstacles erected to prevent them from doing so.
Several of these obstacles, for example election laws in the U.S., result in the election of lawmakers, such as those who control the U.S. Congress, who represent only a minority of eligible voters and pass legislation that rarely represents the will of a majority of voters.
According to extensive research, special interests, wealthy individuals, corporations and financial institutions tend to exert greater influence than voters over lawmakers’ legislative actions because they finance lawmakers’ electoral campaigns.
Rogue lawmakers whose actions are not controlled by their constituents but by influential groups and wealthy campaign funders are contributing to the creation of increasing inequalities of wealth that enable a small percent of the population to acquire most of their nation’s wealth, while the rest of the population has little or no wealth and few if any opportunities to create wealth.
Undemocratic political parties that control electoral machinery and do not allow competitive parties to take root prevent voters from setting party agendas and nominating and electing candidates of their choice, increasing the legislative disconnect between voters’ and lawmakers’ priorities.

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged interactive voter choice system, IVCS, reinventdemocracy, technology fix for democracy, transpartisan voting blocs, voting blocs

The Technology Solution to the Democracy Crisis

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 12 comments

By Joe Firestone

The spectacular intrusion of special interests into the passage of the $1.1 trillion government spending bill on December 13, 2014 was breathtaking as bankers and lobbyists whipped the vote by calling Congressional representatives directly to demand a host of special interest provisions, including the following:

Repealing the Dodd-Frank prohibition on locating derivatives trading activities in the same bank subsidiary company as their depositories containing checking, savings, and other accounts insured by the FDIC.
Raising individual campaign contribution limits by roughly 10 times the present limit.
Allowing businesses to default by as much as 1/3 of their private pension obligations.
Preventing the EPA from introducing new climate protections.

So it is now abundantly clear that what we have is government by minority rule in which special interests reign supreme. Clearly, this cannot continue. It is for this reason that we are sharing the post below describing the only solution to the democracy crisis of which we are aware that can be implemented in the near future. It is long and we do not expect many readers to get through it in one sitting, or even at all. But if it piques your interest, you can re-locate it here at a more opportune time.

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