didnt really get the idea...could u explain plz

The basic principle of an OSVS is best described as Digital Democracy. While the concept is far-reaching, it might be more easily understood through a basic "use case" scenario:

1. A new user begins by viewing a local OSVS which pertains to their area. (In this case we'll use the Historical Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio as an example.) A list of current issues would be displayed on the homepage, similar to Digg.com.

2. After a new user registers with their local OSVS, they have the opportunity to participate in the discussions regarding certain issues (such as liquor licenses, private security, and pest control). They may also create new issues to discuss on the website.

3. Once an issue has garnered enough attention (using the Digg.com model as developed by Pligg.com) users may wish to draft a rule, ordinance, or law to deal with these issues in their community. For example, the community may decide that only a certain number of liquor licenses are allowed in the business district.

4. After the ordinance has been approved by the community, the draft goes to a vote. Registered members of the community will have the option of discussing the vote (again, similar to Digg.com), recommending alternative drafts of the ordinance, or simply voting Yes or No.

5. Once an ordinance has been agreed upon by the majority of the community, the ordinance is added to the list of Laws for the community. These laws may subsequently be discussed, challenged, and/or replaced by new laws voted upon by the community.

(I would also like to point out that the above simply describes the basic voting capabilities of the OSVS. In addition to laws and ordinances, the OSVS would be used to vote for candidates of any democratic organization, such as government officials and community organizations.

Furthermore, the OSVS would include the ability to add special interest groups and political parties. Registered users would have the option of joining one or many of these groups, in order to assist them in voting along "party lines."

Ultimately, the goal is to create a platform of unified voices to affect local policy in a region. Many states allow popular votes on certain issues when enough signatures are gathered by the supporters. An OSVS would strengthen these measures, and help create a more modernized Democracy for the 21st Century.)

ok like it! but how can the community make laws?

Once an issue gains enough attention in the community, registered users would have the ability to draft a resolution to the issue at the click of a button (similar to starting a business from a CH.com idea).

The resolution would function like a Wiki, allowing community members to create and revise the terms of the resolution in a Democratic environment. Furthermore, anyone can create their own resolution, and control who has permission to edit it.

After the authors of the resolution agree upon a final draft, the resolution goes to a vote. Once a certain percentage of community members approve a resolution, the laws of their own community (website, neighborhood, state, etc.) come into effect.

For example, 2008 Presidential Candidate Senator Mike Gravel has proposed a National Initiative for Democracy which would allow a system such as the OSVS to push successful resolutions to Congress, giving them the ability to vote the resolution into law.

http://www.ni4d.org/

security and integrity is the imminent question...some similar idea too from previous month.

We're talking about a website that allows people to discuss and vote upon the rules and regulations of their community.

"Raise the number of liquor licenses in your area?" yes/no
"Enact a curfew for minors under the age of 11?" yes/no
"Local anti-terrorist committee funding increase?" yes/no

Currently our state is attempting to ban nude dancers after midnight. Would security and integrity be an issue when drafting resolutions to these issues and promoting the topic to acquire additional signatures?

The answer: No. Security and integrity are simply components of any software project, much like the UI and data components. To stop the debate simply because of these two issues is commonly referred to as a filibuster.

Americans, Take Note!

We're living in a time when our rights as free citizens are seriously under fire. The government spying program is much broader than wire tapping, allowing authorities to seize your property without a court order and throw you into detention camps to be tortured for years without legal representation.

The OSVS is our stand against those who would take our freedoms from us without considering our rights as Americans. While the system may not initially affect the laws which govern our country, the OSVS will unite our voices and allow us to take part in this thing we call "Democracy."

I am all for this level of democracy but wonder if the average citizen is educated enough to have this responsibility. By educated I mean in the issues surrounding the vote - for instance, banning nude dancers after midnight might affect all sorts of other businesses that service these clients upon leaving the club (taxis, late-night food joints, etc) A local counselor is likely better informed (educated) in the intricacies and relations that changing laws are likely to effect. Anyway, I do like the idea but I see lots of philosophical problems with democracy at this level.

i agree w/ you, bc. this level of democracy is unique and unexplored in the government sector; however, there are shining examples in the news (digg), media (youtube), and information (wikipedia) sectors which are having a real impact on society.

the opportunity i see is that local counselors cannot be "better informed / educated" than the masses they govern. our cultures consist of more than left and right wings, but include teachers, lawyers, and other educated people as well.

when you look at the "open source" examples i mentioned above, you see a real conversation that simply no longer exists within the community. you see real people contributing, and in all cases, making a difference. think of the youtube debates or the kos convention.

shouldn't we work hard to promote these same ideals in our local communities?!?!

we have the politician to do their job..except you dont want them anymore and let your IDEA be the flatform..i 'll vote for this for saving a lot of moolahs on their salary.. but i have to think again who will decide to deliver the basic services abnd continues development..your site?

i wouldn't imagine the system could directly impact local government from the outset. instead, members of the community would discuss, draft, and vote new laws and regulations which would then be sent to their leaders (along with the signatures of those who support the idea).

looking into my crystal ball i believe this is the first digital step towards a system of popular control (read: democracy and/or socialism) that our world has been headed towards for many, many centuries. we're simply not comfortable with the idea at this point in our evolution.

Just as a philosophical aside, the US is not a democracy and that was an intentional plan. The US (and most other "democracies") is a representative republic, and was designed as such by the founding fathers because they recognized that many times a leader has to make an unpopular decision. The old adage is that pure democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.

Don't take that to mean that I'm opposed to input from the populace. I think this is a great idea for collecting the ideas and opinions of the people. And there are certainly some issues which should be decided directly by the electorate, just as we see now with many referendums, etc. However, the checks-and-balances need to be carefully placed to prevent the majority from running roughshod.

I'm not sure what specific ideas I would suggest in that regard. Maybe an automatic constitutional challenge before any majority-voted rule could become law. The mechanisms we currently have in place handle a lot of that, but the more laws get crafted by the raw majority, the more burden you put on the minority to defend their rights in court and strike down bad laws.

Perhaps I'm being paranoid or alarmist, but I live in a community where the majority would gleefully ignore the First Amendment and shuffle everyone off to bible camp for their own good.

We have Edward Bernays (the nephew of Sigmund Freud and the founding father of Public Relations) to thank for a great many thing, including women smoking as a sign of their independence, the fluoridation of our water supplies, and bacon and eggs as the staple of the American breakfast.

We also have Mr. Bernays to thank for the idea that the vast majority of people are idiots, and that only a select few really know what's going on. Sewing the seeds of mistrust amongst ourselves was necessary to fortify trust in those who we only knew through words as opposed to action.

It's called Propaganda, and was Edward Bernays greatest contribution. It's also a lie. To believe in worst of humanity flies in the face of 10,000 years of evolution and is completely unfounded by anything other than the illusion sold to us by the father of public mind control.

i like it and hopefully if this gets done then governments will take note

this is the first time in the history of our species that humanity can speak with one voice. i, for one, am excited by the prospects. (i just wish the votes this round showed the same enthusiasm!)

Swivel.com calls themselves "YouTube for Data". In one blog post they name a handfull of other data visualization social networks with similar ideas. Gapminder.com made some big strides towards freeing up socio-economic data around the world for the people to use. Visualizing such data for educating the public will help direct democracy to work. It will help your social networks to focus on the relevant issues and govern intelligently. Congrats on your idea.

thanks for the info, summer. those are some stellar sites that I've not heard of before. the swivel site is certainly cool, but I gotta say: the youtube for data?!?!

i may be blind to the realities being as passionate as i am about direct democracy, but seriously: how does data mining attract investors while a voting system meets with stale arguments about privacy and security?

it would certainly help my cause to get some mock-ups online to illustrate my idea. simply selling the "youtube for data" probably didn't win them any CH.com tournaments!

Where to start... is it really "true" democracy... what about the people who don't have computers or internet access? What about people who have both but can't use them very well? Beyond the technology gap, what about the voice of those too young to vote? Can't read English? Aren't citizens? Are criminals? Are disabled (blind, deaf, paralyzed)? Don't have home or mailing address?

Yes it is a way towards a faster process, but I get a little heated when the term "true" democracy (i.e. everyone has a say) is thrown around. It's not everyone. It is merely a different subset of the population. To
use your own words, floating the term "true" democracy is propaganda.

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"No. Security and integrity are simply components of any software project, much like the UI and data components. To stop the debate simply because of these two issues is commonly referred to as a filibuster."

What!!! These are huge issues! This is not just ANY software project. This is a software project with far reaching consequences. You can't just side step it like that and write it off as a filibuster. This is an extremely important thing to think about from the onset.

How will you ensure the uniqueness of the users? IP and email might be one approach, but what about households with multiple registered voters? (which is any couple or place with room mates)

How will you protect the security of voter accounts? Even just distributing the account information is a challenge. If you do online registration, how do you know that the person is who they say they are? What do you do if a voters account gets hacked? Do you not count the votes that were performed while the account was hijacked? If you mail it, how do you ensure that it gets to its destination?

How do you avoid people signing up as deceased persons? How do you ensure that your site won't be brought down by a DoS attack? What do you do if the site goes down while people are voting on an important issue? Do you extend the voting time? How will you prevent defacing of the bills you are writing on the wiki? How are you going to resolve disputes over content of bills? We are not talking about the summary of a Harry Potter book, we are talking about laws that we will be legally bound by and that the powers that be will have to try to fund and enforce.

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"We also have Mr. Bernays to thank for the idea that the vast majority of people are idiots, and that only a select few really know what's going on."

Idiot may be the wrong term, but uninformed certainly fits. Have you heard the latest statistics about how often Americans read? 1 in 4 Americans have not read an entire book in the last year. I am willing to bet that this is not limited to the American populace and similar numbers could be applied to the rest of the world. Here is where I got my data :

http://abcnews.go.co...wireStory?id=3507898

Talk to people and ask them about World politics. Ask them to name 5 presidents or leaders of countries outside of their own. Ask them about their local government representatives. Ask them about how a bill becomes a law. Ask them to discuss a few of the major supreme court cases in the last 10 years. Ask them to discuss 5 amendments besides the 1st, 2nd, 5th.

While everyone is frantically out searching Wikipedia...

I agree that people are not idiots. They can however be uninformed. There is a lot of information in the world. There is no way for a person to process it all, they have to pick and choose and leave the rest to others.

There is so much more I want to say... I too am passionate. I look forward to a response.

What I'm appreciating more and more about the Cambrian House is the ability to refine an idea based of the feedback from a community that is passionate about new ideas. Your comments, ccozad, along with everyone else who has taken part in the discussion, is of enormous help in defining exactly what the OSVS is all about.

Where I believe the concept is least defined is in its intention. While it would be WONDERFUL to have a perfectly functioning Open Democracy (a better choice of words than 'True Democracy') it is unrealistic to assume that the country would even trust such a system. Some of the reasons include security and integrity, which are indeed both valid and huge issues.

The foundation for the OSVS is based on Pligg.com. This would allow individuals to post the laws from their communities and discuss them in an open forum. Users will also have the ability to draft new resolutions to the problems in their community through a Wiki-like interface. Once the resolutions have been agreed up, they go to another vote. Those votes that pass would be sent to their community leaders, similar to OnlinePetition.com.

As I've stated, the OSVS is not [initially] intended to replace our form of Government. Realistically, there wouldn't be an instance where an important vote could be blocked through a DOS attack. High jacking, deceased votes, and any other issue would be dealt with in later improvements, but would be no more relevant [to the initial release] than these issues are to Digg.com or Wikipedia.

The system is intended to inform people on the laws and restrictions that apply to their community, allowing them the ability to educate themselves on those areas that are important to them. It also allows individuals to challenge those laws in an open forum, and connect with others (possibly more educated on the subject) to draft resolutions and submit them to the leaders of their community.

Although this first step towards an Open Democracy may be a small step -- being that it lacks direct control over the laws which govern our lands -- it is a necessary step, just as YouTube was a necessary first step towards Open Media. While YouTube doesn't offer much aside from a bunch of videos, the idea is evolving. The same is true of the OSVS, assuming that we can figure out exactly how to take that first step towards an Open Democracy.

How familiar are you with the body of work on secure voting? I don't want to be pedantic by citing a bunch of links you already know inside out, but there is a vast amount of research on how to handle security, privacy and authentication in voting systems. Even smart, well-meaning people can make critical mistakes in designing these systems if they haven't taken the time to study all the various ways they can fail. Being a good system designer is not enough to make you qualified to handle these issues correctly, and I think laying out a framework for how these issues will be handled is so fundamental to this project that it should be done now, in the early conceptual stage.

Dismissing security as a non-issue either means you have Bruce Schneier and Ari Rubin in your pocket and these considerations are well in hand, or it means your hopelessly naive. Either way, we should discuss it now without being dismissed as a filibuster.

my role in this idea is two-fold: one, as an information architect, and two, as an advocate for Open Democracy. the former qualifies me to design a system which represents the data in such a way that is easily understood by its users. the latter inspires me to move forward with an idea that could help solve many of the problems facing Democracy today.

i am naive when it comes to the some of the issues surrounding the security of such a system; however, the first step towards an open source voting system would enable the public to fully develop and test these issues before moving forward with a National Initiative to modify the voting methods for a particular country.

this is why I hope to clarify the idea by illustrating the first step as a means to an end. the end is no where in sight simply because we have failed to take that first step towards an open democracy. allow me to reiterate by saying that security is imperative to the success of the system, but more important is our resolve to move forward with these ideals.

i would also like to add a point on the security of today's voting system. like any system (software or bureaucratic) there are bound to be flaws; flaws which can be corrected given the politic will to do so. unfortunately, the system has been corrupted by greed. this leads individuals to focus on their financial well-being as opposed to focusing resources to resolve the issue.

the issue isn't simply greed. the issue is quite evident in the debates surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. while the news has more than covered the allegations as to whether the firing of several US attorneys was politically motivated, there has nearly been NO MENTION as to what "politically movitaved" Gonzales to fire these attorneys.

The political motivation was simple enough: they wouldn't support the actions of certain Republicans who mailed out a bunch of letters to verify the voter's status. these letters were mailed to hundreds of thousands of individuals resulting in many states simply denying voter access to the poles.

In Short:

The security of our current voting system has been compromised. Our only course of action is to develop and Open Voting System which can be checked and balanced by WE THE PEOPLE. We need to start developing this system now in order to call a popular vote before the 2008 elections. Even though it won't put the person we actually voted for in office, it will show the world the benefits of an Open Democracy.

I agree with all your rhetoric. Please do not take my comments as negative when I mean them as constructive criticism. I'm only harping on the security aspects because in order to be done right, they must be done first, not bolted on as an afterthought.

If you build this site based on standard web techniques, you'll have nothing more than yet another online survey site. Everyone will ignore it because online surveys are so easy to compromise that their results are meaningless. If you build this site taking into account all the research that's been done to design good voting systems, you'll at least have a chance. The security, privacy and authentication bits are just tools, a means to an end, but without considering them at every step of the process the end will be useless for your purposes.

I don't think this is an onerous burden that will stall your development. I'm not claiming to be an expert myself, but when I've read some of the papers written by experts, I've noticed that the difference between doing it "right" and doing it "wrong" can be very small. It's a matter of attention to detail in designing protocols, etc., not a matter of doing it right being massively more difficult.

your point on security is well taken. i believe that our disagreement lies in the "first step" towards developing an open democracy. in the process of developing such a system, I would like to see security taken into consideration right from the start. pligg would presumably require a few million experts to examine how the data is delivered to the server, as I can only imagine this being a very low priority for them currently.

my point differs by degrees simply because i do not believe the majority of individuals consider open democracy as a solution to our current problems. when discussing the framework of an open democracy, most people disagree right from the start simply because its different than what we currently have. developing a working model of open democracy goes far in illustrating the benefits of an open source system.

my first step is to clarify the utility of an open democracy. once development begins i would hope that first step includes the security of an OSVS.

to the developers in the audience: if not pligg, then what?

Sir, prior to crowdsourcing there was the power of the pen ( my father thaught me) he said its a power 4rth in political ranking. Public opinion is the greatest thing the last century improved next to medical wonders. Unfortunately legislation is a different thingand i will let my elders and leaders do it for me.

i think this is a great example of the "first step" debate.

thanks to microsoft we see an example of legislation (read: the operating system which governs your pc) which is decided by their elders and leaders. what we've learned is that our leaders consider themselves first (as do all living beings) and act according to their own personal needs.

bill gates has provided us with the same problematic, greed-driven operating system that george bush offers in the form of "democracy." the will of the people has created an open source alternative -- that is, their own legislation, their own code -- which is free and open to all.

our first step is to combat this idea that "my elders and leaders" will do it for me. after hundreds of years of colonial expansionism in the name of "freedom," it is time we wrote our own code of laws. allow your leaders the responsibility to enact them, but do not give them the power to change them.

that is the responsibility of an open government.

correction: we must build upon the ideas handed down to us from our forefathers. this is the "first step" towards an open government.

"this is the first time in the history of our species that humanity can speak with one voice. i, for one, am excited by the prospects. (i just wish the votes this round showed the same enthusiasm!)"

...better join Rizal's Peace community then, they're still accepting members! =)

"Open-source politics is the idea that social networking and participatory technologies will revolutionize our ability to follow, support, and influence political campaigns. Forget party bosses in smoky backroomsâ€"netroots evangelists and web consultants predict a wave of popular democracy as fundraisers meet on MySpace, YouTubers crank out attack ads, bloggers do oppo research, and cell-phone-activated flash mobs hold miniconventions in Second Life."

http://www.motherjon...fight_different.html

The problem with this idea is that true democracy requires EVERYONE to have a vote. I can see this working for online communities, for example, but never for neighbourhoods - not unless you can get every single person online and interested in your site.

The challenge would require such a service include to tools which connect to the real world. Even though the "off liners" wouldn't have the opportunity to review the laws which currently affect their community, or be able to recommend new laws to replace them, individuals seeking support could print the information and go door-to-door in search of additional signatures.

Sounds good, all of the closed source systems are full of bugs. People constantly manipulate votes. One thing I was thinking about was what made physical paper ballots so bad?

I think there should simply be a punch card system with redundant holes (making a simple pattern). With a counting machine for the cards.
The machine counts the cards and sort them, you have the physical card, the hole pattern could be quickly matched to check for mistakes, and you can simply use a test stack to check the machines.

I don't think voting should ever be done online, for one you can't verify the identity of the voter as a real person.

Kevin_Cox: I don't think voting should ever be done online, for one you can't verify the identity of the voter as a real person.

I wouldn't say it should "never" be done online, but I agree with you in principle. It is much harder to do it right online than it is with a physical ballot. The problem, especially in the US, is the focus on immediate poll results. Many European countries use physical ballots and manual counts. Results may take several days, but they are accurate and auditable. In the US, we have sacrificed both accuracy and audit-ability for the sake of instant results. Thank the media and the zero-attention-span populace.

I'll need to hit the drawing board on this to answer some of the questions that have been raised. I believe the problem was in my initial trajectory as I was aiming for an open source voting system to discuss and create rules and laws used in all types of communities.

Being that the conversation focused mainly on the laws within our local community, I believe we're a long ways off from affecting government policy directly through our computers. We don't trust the security of online voting, or the responsibility of those who would have access to such a system, or anything (in general) which contradicts the "old way" of doing things.

What I would like to do is look at the "old way" of doing newspapers and see how Digg has enhanced our interaction with the media. I see the same arguments being applied: people will hack digg to get their story on the front page, digital media is less trustworthy than the solid journalism in traditional media, etc. We're obviously well on our way to debunking these myths surrounding "old media," and I believe we can do the same for "Digital Democracy."

I don't think anyone believes that old media is not "hackable". It's always been subject to behind-the-scenes influence in what gets reported and how it's slanted. New media like Digg is just more egalitarian in that any old joe can manipulate digg but you had to have an inside track to manipulate Fox News.

In the same way, democracy has always been hackable. Look at the 2000 vote in Florida for example, where ballots and voter lists were manipulated to slant the vote. Putting the vote online just opens it up to manipulation by the millions rather than the select few who are biasing it now. That in itself doesn't argue against moving votes online, but given the opportunity to do it right and make it less hackable, it seems irresponsible not to. I hate to see the electronic voting and online voting initiatives whose main goal is to be no worse than traditional systems.