Presentation of Démocratie Réelle

Hi,

For the latest European elections, we (citizens who reclaim of Démocratie Réelle) have submitted lists of candidates in almost every electoral region of France, where people on the lists have been picked at random among a whole set of citizen volunteers (a verifiable random pick). The "political programme" of these lists consists in ONLY ONE THING: candidates promise that if they are elected, for each law proposal which comes to the parliament (only the Commission can make law proposals, not even parliament members, who can only sumbit amendments), they will cast a vote with an internet tool where every citizen could vote, and apply exactly the output of this vote. This is a way to bring direct democracy to the parliament with its current rules.

We had only 0.04% of votes, so no elected MEP, but we will continue the same kind of initiatives for other elections (for example the regional election next december in France). Some of us also tried to create 2-3 lists "just for fun" during the latest local elections.

For more information about our initiative, see the http://democratiereelle.eu/ website and translate it using Google translate.

Looking forward to hear from you !

Hi Quentin,

that sounds very interesting. I will definitely take a look. This movement seems to be gaining a lot of momentum and we should stay in touch and possibly coordinate for future European elections. I am currently running on a similar platform as an Independent candidate in Ireland (some info on www.roslynfuller.com and at https://www.siliconrepublic.com/life/2015/07/07/direct-digital-democracy-ireland-politics-roslyn-fuller). The response on the doorsteps is very supportive, but I am always looking for volunteers, as well as any help with print costs for posters (only possible for Irish citizens or residents).

@quentingrimaud @roslyn
It's so great to hear about this movement picking up pace all over the world. I'm a member of the executive committee of the Online Direct Democracy Party of Australia. We have had similar success to you so far Quentin.

At the moment we are working towards crowd-funding to make an open source direct democracy platform. I think crowd-funding would be far more effect if we collaborate as international movement. If we succeed we all get a fantastic tool to use at the end of it as well as raising awareness of our parties!

Would either of you be interested?

@rorytb @quentingrimaud

I think that we should definitely work towards global support and cooperation in this movement.

As far as crowd-funding for an open source platform is concerned, what is the goal of the new platform?
I.e., would it address an obvious issue that has surfaced with the existing platforms?
Also, considering the security issues that tend to surface around the idea of digital democracy, is open source the best way to go? I can see two sides to this, so am interested in your thoughts.

Well as far as existing platforms, there are a lot of them however they tend to be very basic, rather ugly to look at and not particularly user friendly or in development and seeming to have stalled. If you are aware of a decent existing platform please point me towards it. I personally do not think that a viable platform has yet been developed.

As far as security, the main difference between the two is that open source systems tend to be more robust and if there is a flaw, it's not hidden. With closed software, it tends to be easier to hack and a hacker could abuse it far more secretly.

@rorytb @quentingrimaud

That was a very short sales pitch. The devil is in the detail, most especially when it comes to money.
Absent a significant number of users, Loomio and DemocracyOS seem to be exceeding requirements at the moment, so there would need to be a really good and pressing reason to back a new platform. Why fund a new platform instead of calling on people to donate to one of the existing ones? After all, they have already proven themselves to some extent.

Sure, you could call it that if you want. Democracyos is certainly the most polished I've seen so far and when they do their full release if it does everything required then great. From my exploration of the demo it needs a lot of work done on creating user friendly structure and is missing some important functions for a working platform as it stands.

As far as how to use funding, the brilliant part about open source is there is no need to redo anything thats already done, just copy the code. Just sending funding straight to the Democracyos developers is one possibility. so is using that funding to hire developers have direct input into the design process. I'm sure it's even possible to work with the dem'os developers if we make that connection.

What I'm trying to 'sell' right now is that an international crowd funding campaign as part of an international movement is far more beneficial than working in isolation.

Yes, I agree that we should focus on greater international cooperation and pulling the threads together. We need to reach a critical mass here to avoid continually coming across as a fringe idea.

The web platform will have to match the way that each country or regions political system works. There are many platforms out there already but none are being used to inject direct democracy into the participatory systems.

Here is something I wrote earlier:

The base level of a democratic parliament is an elected representative. They are the tips of the branches but also the roots.

The idea is to have a place in an Internet platform where a person who is willing to run for parliament ( an epolly) can interact with their electorate (voters). Normal, currently sitting, elected members of parliament would recognise this place on the Internet as a duplicate of their position, or a shadow politician. Then, if a person/epolly is to run for parliament from that Internet position, with the promise to adhere to the directions they receive from the Internet platform, any sitting politician knows that the Internet platform is more than a lobby group - it is a threat to their job. This would create a situation where politicians would take note of the platform even without a person being elected as an epolly.

The group structure of the platform would resemble that of parliament. Eg. Country>HousesOfParliament>Electorates/SeatsOfParliament. It will mirror the structure of government with the tips of the branches being the elected position and the people of the electorate.

The tip/epolly-position/subgroup is the place where people live. It is the electorate. It is here that people would get their ‘enrolment’ validated. The 'admin’ of this subgroup would be responsible for checking that the members of this group are registered voters of that electorate, perhaps by sending them a letter to their home address. This is where the Internet becomes real world people. This is where the online media becomes actuated into our political system and effects the process of governance.

Reducing the system to the electorate level also makes it easier to verify the voters because the epolly can be responsible for administering this process.

I have been working on a name for this 'theoretical' process and currently I am calling it “Actuated Digital Direct Democratic Media” or A3DM. There are many aspect of the design to be considered and I think that a lot of the tree like structure can be hidden to avoid perceived complexity. With this structure a person's vote can be counted on a top level, like as the citizen of a country, or they can be counted as a member of a local electorate. The most important level is this tip where the epolly counts the votes of the members of their electorate and takes the outcome into the houses of parliament as an elected member of that parliament.