Replace ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY with DIGITAL DIRECT DEMOCRACY.

Electoral Democracy is failing miserably. It may have been the best way to engage citizens in public affairs in the 20th century, but it should follow the destiny of the 8-track cassette!

Into the trash heap of history it must go.

Electoral Democracy has become little more than political theatre acted out on a mass media stage.  It has survived long past its ‘before before date’. Few citizens are buying it for this reason.

Each election is a sham. It’s a tax-funded event lavishly and expertly choreographed to showcase a select group of actors from a select group of tax-funded political parties. Elibible voters are told the myth that their single vote, cast once every four years during each biased “election season”, has the power to establish the priorities of the institutions that govern them - municipal, provincial and federal.

Declining voter interest. Ironically, while election information has become infinitely more accessible and voluminous, voter turnout has dropped from ~70% range prior to the 1970s for federal elections to ~50% today. The decline was gradual as advanced computer and communications technologies increasingly flooded Canadian culture.

Question: Has “electoral democracy” faltered because the information revolution has revealed many unsavory truths about “how the sausage is made” in politics and public institutions?

“Bully politics” prevails needlessly.

Every election produces a “majority rule” outcome.

I will never forget when Kathleen Wynne, Ontario Liberal Leader, won her election to form a majority government. Only 20% of elible voters chose her and her slate of Liberal candidates: 80% did not. What kind of “majority” representation is that!? (Go to Elections Ontario to view the election results for the 2018 general election on  GeneralElectionsStatisticsfromtheRecords_2024-Jul-09.pdf. )

Yet, Premier Wynne held all the cards of political power for several subsequent years until her Liberals were so severely trounced by the Conservatives that the Liberal official party status was in jeopardy.

Is a political storm gaining headwind?

Declining voter turnout is surely a direct consequence of the public’s eroding faith and trust in politics and our “instutions of democracy”. It’s an omen for things to come.

Covid released the perfect conditions to set a political storm in motion. The use of communications technology proved very strategic for enforcing unpopular mandates on citizens who opposed them. In the wrong hands, tech can produce harmful outcomes, yet we also know that it has been used in endless ways to make our lives better.

In modern digital commerce, no one questions the usefulness, efficiency and reliability of online banking today. Whether you purchase goods or services online or in person at a retail outlet, you can count on debit or credit transactions to access your digital money accounts to make payments securely and instantly.

These transactions are all voluntary under the current paradigm of Digital Direct Banking.

The liberty “To buy, or not to buy” is every shopper's right in a competitive, freedom-of-choice economy.

Why does this right not exist for government programs and services?

Many modern shoppers intuitively understand that our mechanisms of “electoral democracy” are relics of the past which can and should be replaced. The public energy is building to demand a rethink what “democracy” actually means across every sphere of Canadian life. The Statement of Principles was written buoyed by that very public energy shared by many concerned Canadians. The Stronach Foundation for Economic Rights is another recent manifestation of this energy from one of Canada’s greatest entrepreneurs.

Technology innovators will do what they have always done: SOLVE PROBLEMS using technology.

There is every reason to use today’s technology to make more solutions to common problems available to every citizen every day of the year.

It only takes a little imagination, some capital and a lot of political will to make the advantages of Digital Direct Democracy a reality.

Imagine.

OPT IN and OPT OUT scenarios for individuals like you.

Example 1: Suppose you work in a government position that requires you to be a member of a public sector labour union and pay annual dues. Certain labour laws exist in Ontario that back this requirement. If you could register your preference to be exempt from those laws and also protect the privacy of your personal information from those collective bargaining organizations, would you agree to this?

The technology exists today to create a secure and private online Citizen’s Preferences Database to enable every union member to OPT OUT of those existing employment obligations is preferred. First, the appropriate laws and regulations would need to be amended to legally allow citizens to exercise those democratic ( i.e. freedom of informed choice) rights.

Example 2. Let’s suppose that, like most Canadians, you oppose the carbon tax. You know with certainly that it contributes to the rising cost of living that you and your family face daily. If you could OPT OUT of paying carbon taxes for all of your energy purchases which are specifically related to your transportation, home heating, grid-supplied electicity and solar generation costs, would you do so?

Likewise, this is entirely possible today if each citizen was able to register this OPT OUT choice within the Citizens Preference Database. The network architecture proposed on the Digital Direct Democracy ebook will ensure that no carbon taxes would be remitted on any payment transactions.

Example 3. If your child or grandchild attends a non-government school ( such as Montessori or a private school) for which you pay directly, what if you could OPT OUT of all tax and regulatory obligations for the government Education system and apply those tax savings and greater freedoms of choice to compensate the non-governmental provider of your choice. A competitive Education sector would certainly emerge to serve the non-government market needs. Would you like this choice and use it?

Extensive possibilities.

Above are just a few ways to apply the ideas expressed in the original Digital Direct Democracy ebook (2023) and recent Substack series of ten episodes. Those, and many more, can combine to gradually replace the need for our legacy systems of Electoral Democracy either entirely or, at least, in large part.

Ultimately, many existing public sector services and programs will shrink in accordance to market demand. This is the iron law of ECONOMICS.

TRUE ACCOUNTABILITY in GOVERNMENT

The combination of transparency and accountability in government has been “a holy grail” that has forever remained elusive. It will result from the ability by every Canadian to “vote with his or her pocketbook” using the Citizen’s Preferences Database to OPT OUT of many government programs. This will inevitably shrink the footprint of the public sector to a size that all citizens can afford according on their individual circumstances and the resulting levels of collective demand.

Our dependency on autocratic and monopolistic public institutions has gone on for far too long. The end is in sight, finally!

If Digital Direct Banking can exist,

so can Digital Direct Democracy.