"Direct Digital Democracy"

By jmitchell27 | Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 12:26

A number of MPs try to engage with their constituents through the internet, but today an independent candidate in Hackney South has announced what appear to be the most ambitious plans for digital democracy yet.

VOTE

Danny de la Haye explains on his website that our representative democracy merely allows us to pick the candidate that is most likely to vote in government issues the way we would want them too. His idea is to allow constituents to vote on each parliamentary issue by voting through online polls. Haye explains how it will work, saying:

"For each vote coming up in Parliament, I will put a poll on this website. Every voter living in Hackney South will have a login for this website, and will be able to vote in the polls using their computer or their mobile phone. Whatever the majority vote is, I will vote that way."

Digital democracy has become very popular recently, and our own MP already does something similar to what Haye is proposing by taking polls via email and asking residents opinions on certain issues. However the key difference here is the promise to vote exactly as the majority of the public wish (with the exception of votes on issues of equality, civil liberties, and electoral reforms), making the politician (in my opinion) more of a middle man than a political representative.

What sort of changes do you think we'd see locally if we had an MP who ran a "direct digital democracy" scheme? Let us know!