Re: Users need to be able to speak for themselves(Was: Re:Position of SOs)

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

At 03:57 3/12/98 -0500, Jay Fenello wrote to Ronda:

>
>Actually, you and Esther are not far apart on this one.
>
>Esther Dyson also wrote:
>
>http://www.ibm.com/services/newmark/mature.html
>
>The Net's long-run impact on democracy, I believe, won't be one of
>propaganda or information dissemination; CNN and the various national
>broadcasters (private and public) do a fine job of that. The real impact,
>if it works, will be to encourage citizen participation, to make people
>feel that they can influence the discussion. Instead of choosing from
>what's on offer, they can actually make suggestions and arguments of their
>own. If you think a politician is brain dead, you can say why instead of
>just giving your vote to someone slightly more alive. People want to
>contribute their ideas as well as their votes. 
>
>++++
And this is what Lou Gerstner  thinks of cyber democracy:

USA TODAY * MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1998  15A

       THE FORUM

       Next time, let us boldly vote as no democracy has before

       By Louis V. Gerstner

	The number of eligible American voters who took time to go to their
local polling places and cast a ballot this month was predictably
anemic.  At 34%, the turnout marks a 50-year low, ranking the U.S. at or
near the bottom of the world democracies in voter participation.

	Once again, our national post-election dialogue is punctuated by
laments over what we, by rote, label "voter apathy."  But while it's
easy to lay the blame for poor voter turnout on an uninterested
electorate, or perhaps the politics of meanness, or television, one
simple truth is that the act of voting is antiquated, inconvenient and
just too hard.

	It's time to harness technology to the service of democracy.

	Most Americans are working longer hours, struggling harder to balance
work and family, and the process of voting is turning people off.  We
trek to a polling location in a school or firehouse, stand in line, wait
to be authenticated and then finally cast our ballot (an interesting, if
intimidating, exercise in chart-reading, lever-pulling, switch-flipping
and, in some precincts, poking pinholes in paper).

	All this in a day when information technology--especially the
Internet--is in the process of transforming everything from how we
design cars to the way we buy them.  We can pay our bills, secure a
mortgage, renew a driver's license or trade a stock from our den or
office.

	We've improved the speed, efficiency and convenience of many of the
daily patterns of American life, with more to come.

	Yet the vote--the defining ritual and central task of American
democracy--stands stiller than a mastodon entombed in the tarry pits of
La Brea.

	It's time to ask how this technology might improve participation in our
national elections.  It's time we acknowledge that the process of voting
is at least an equal partner in this problem, and we have to commit to
make it easier, faster and more convenient.

	Oregon has stepped up to this by promoting mail-in balloting.  State
residents like the system so much, they voted last week to make the mail
the state's preferred voting method, replacing polling places.

	The message is clear:  We either improve convenience or resign
ourselves to the status quo.  I don't believe the latter choice is
acceptable--not when the technology exists to allow us to cast a ballot
over the Internet from the comfort of our home, or with the convenience
of an ATM-like kiosk at work or at a traditional polling location.  The
technology is here today.

	In rethinking the process of voting, it's inevitable that we'll have to
confront human nature and institutional inertia.  We'll have to answer
questions about security and privacy.  American citizens will have to
know that the confidentiality of their votes will be maintained.  We'll
all want to be assured about the integrity of our system of one person,
one vote.

	The combination of large-scale computing behind the scenes of our
government infrastructures and technologies such as smart cards
biometrics for digital identification will deliver all the security we
take for granted in the current process:  that any individual is, in
fact, entitled to vote; that they are who they say they are; that only
official vote counters can see their ballots; that it can't be changed,
and you can't later deny you cast it.

	The technology exists today to do all this.  Much of it is at work
every time you go to the Net to transmit a confidential document or buy
a book. We know these questions will come because similar questions have
already been asked and answered across a variety of industries and
inside thousands of institutions that are embracing the Net to become
"e-businesses" and make fundamental changes to existing processes.

	Perhaps more important, we'll have to address concerns about whether we
can make Net-based voting possible for all our citizens or only those
fortunate enough to have a PC at home.  Only about 20% of Americans use
the Net today.  While that number is increasing at a galloping
pace--more than 50,000 people come on line every day--the net won't be
in every American home for the foreseeable future.

	Obviously any system, including the current one, is more convenient for
some than for others, but this challenge can be addressed by making if
possible for people to vote using computers at work or at walk-up kiosks
in public buildings and places.

	Bear in mind that no one is suggesting that Net-based voting will
supplant the traditional physical process.  They'll exist in parallel,
with the Net as a complementary option for some who will choose it--and
I believe, for many who will choose it over their current practice of
abstaining on Election Day.  This effort would augment other initiatives
that occasionally bubble up, such as creating a two-week voting window,
or holding elections on Saturday.

	Finally, let's go down this road with open eyes.  Applying the
available technology is not insurance against knaves or fools in high
office. That's always the great gamble of democracy and what caused
Winston Churchill to say, famously, that "Democracy is the worst form of
government--except for all those other forms that have been tried from
time to time."  Increasing voter participation must continue to be a
priority for democracies because, in the aftermath of the midterm
elections of 1998, this much is certain:  The approach we've tried for
so long simply doesn't work.  We should confront the fact that there's
more to the problem of low voter turnout than complacency or a bored
resignation over the rate and pace of change in state, local or federal
government.

	Having demonstrated that cajoling, lecturing and even trying to shame
people to the polls isn't the solution, we owe it to ourselves and our
country to try something new.

Louis V. Gerstner is chairman and CEO of IBM.

------------------------------
Joop Teernstra LL.M.  
Democratic Association of  Domain  Name  Owners
http://www.democracy.org.nz