(PLEASE NOTE: The below essays are copied directly from the Voter Directed Democracy book.)
Implementation and Feasibility
True implementation of Voter Directed Democracy is possible by leveraging our modern technological innovations and the ability to share information and ideas rapidly and collectively. The highest possible success for this political theory for any nation is fully implementing Voter Directed Democracy across all levels of government. The federal and state levels of government in most nations are clearly defined; however, the specifics of local governance are more complex and diverse across various nations. Nevertheless, Voter Directed Democracy can and should be used in essentially all types of local government structures that include, but are not limited to: school boards, county governments, city governments, and other structures. Wherever there is a republic of elected officials entrusted with representing the Will of the People, there is the potential for a Voter Directed democratic republic.
We also believe implementation of Voter Directed Democracy is incredibly feasible in the current political environment. Voter Directed Democracy is completely compatible with all current constitutionally created democratic republics in the United States and most democracies around the world. We also do not need nor are we advocating for a constitutional amendment, legislative bill, executive order, or judicial decision of any kind to implement this type of evolved political system. Voter Directed Democracies will exist in the United States whenever voters in any constituency choose it. Thus a universally and equally accessible political system with minimal corruption that values all voters equally and empowers all voters to make all political decisions at all levels of government can be achieved through Direct Implementation and Indirect Implementation.
Direct Implementation of Voter Directed Democracy occurs when any currently empowered elected official at any level of government joins Voter Directed Network, becomes an Independent, and declares that they will uphold, support, and implement Voter Directed Democracy as their political philosophy to determine the Will of the People and implement the results of Voter Directed Democracy votes as the Public Agenda to the best of their ability. Thus, after any individual voter joins Voter Directed Network and embraces Voter Directed Democracy, they should also contact all of their elected officials at all levels of government and invite all of them to modernize and evolve their constituency by becoming a Voter Directed Elected Official.
Wonderfully, some currently empowered elected officials will accept this invitation to modernize and evolve. Some currently empowered elected officials are great elected officials. Some currently empowered elected officials do care about their constituents and work hard to learn and implement the Will of the People but are severely limited by party driven democracy. Some currently empowered elected officials truly believe in the values and principles of democracy. Some currently empowered elected officials are logical and intelligent human beings and also want a better, advanced, modern, honest, and transparent democracy. These forward-thinking elected officials are our true and honest leaders of democracy and we should be proud to have them as our elected officials. There are many currently empowered elected officials in the United States of America and around the world that will enthusiastically embrace this new and innovative idea for a modern and evolved democracy once they learn about it and hear voter support for it. This is particularly true for elected officials at local levels of government. Thus, please invite all of your elected officials to modernize and evolve democracy as many times as you want. It will never hurt to invite them or invite them again.
Sadly, many currently empowered elected officials will not accept this invitation to modernize, evolve, and join Voter Directed Network. Those currently empowered elected officials are refusing to become Voter Directed Elected Officials. Those currently empowered elected officials benefit greatly from flawed, broken, and corrupt party driven politics and/or do not yet understand the immense benefits of evolving and modernizing our democratic republics. Thus your constituency has an uncooperative elected official. Indirect Implementation is needed.
Indirect Implementation of Voter Directed Democracy occurs when voters of any constituency at any level of government join Voter Directed Network, declare themselves supporters of Voter Directed Democracy, and do their best to hold elected officials accountable to the Will of the People and other results produced by voting in a Voter Directed Democracy. Voters with uncooperative elected officials refusing to modernize and evolve must also work together to get other voters in their constituency to join Voter Directed Network.
Start with your neighbors. This is the essential grassroots part of the indirect implementation of this political philosophy. Your literal neighbors and others in your community likely are part of your same school district, county district, state house district, state senate district, and congressional district. Ask your neighbors and other voters in your community to join us on Voter Directed Network. Invite them in person and through technology to join us on Voter Directed Network. Be friendly, be kind, stay positive, and respect all political opinions you encounter. Getting any neighbor to join you on Voter Directed Network gets all of your constituencies at all levels of government closer to getting a Voter Directed Elected Official.
Your goal is to get about 50% of the registered voters in any constituency at any level of government on Voter Directed Network. Once 50% of registered voters of any constituency at any level of government agree to participate in a Voter Directed Democracy this is an incredibly clear indication that Voter Directed Democracy is how the constituency wants to be represented and make political decisions. This is another great opportunity to invite your elected official to join Voter Directed Network and become a Voter Directed Elected Official. Sadly, many corrupt party driven elected officials will still refuse this invitation to modernize and evolve. However, with 50% of registered voters on Voter Directed Network a Voter Directed Elected Official candidate can be easily identified and voted into office for this constituency during the next election.
Therefore, if enough voters within any constituency at any level of government decide they want a Voter Directed Elected Official, one way or another, IT WILL HAPPEN. The corrupt republics and their corrupt allies will try to stop this idea and evolution with misinformation, fearmongering, and other tactics but the decision whether to modernize, evolve, and implement Voter Directed Democracy will always ultimately belong to voters. This is because Voter Directed Democracy is truly a voter driven, voter centric, and voter empowering political philosophy. Implementing Voter Directed Democracy does not rely on the deeply corrupt system to take steps towards improving itself. Therefore, as soon as any elected official that is currently in power joins Voter Directed Network and integrates their political decision-making process with a Voter Directed Democracy system- a Voter Directed Democracy exists for that particular constituency via Direct Implementation. Or as soon as enough voters in any constituency at any level of government within a democratic republic come together on Voter Directed Network and decide they want a Voter Directed Democracy - a Voter Directed Democracy is possible for that constituency via Indirect Implementation. To understand both implementation strategies is to fully understand the immense power and potential of this unprecedented political theory. The real, evolutionary, systemic political change that Voter Directed Democracy creates can literally take place at any level of government in any democratic republic whenever any currently empowered elected official fully embraces it or whenever voters choose it.
Again, it is important to note that Voter Directed Democracy is not advocating for any constitutional or legal structural changes to our current democracies. Most democracies in our world today are democratic republics. In short, a democratic republic is where a country or state’s constitution creates a network of elected officials that come together in various branches of government to make political decisions. Voter Directed Democracy would not change any of that. Voter Directed Democracy is only advocating for a new and modern democratic process where eligible voters at every level of government come together in an open and transparent online forum, discuss all relevant issues, and make decisions for themselves on all matters of importance to determine what the actual Will of the People is and what the corresponding Public Agenda should be.
In other words, Voter Directed Democracy is only advocating for modernizing and evolving the relationship between voters and elected officials. Elected officials will still be performing all their constitutionally granted and republic assigned responsibilities and duties. Voter Directed Democracy simply creates a system of accountability where the Will of the People is determined and voted on publicly by all willing and eligible voters before elected officials formally act to create the Public Agenda.
By empowering voters to make all political decisions at all levels of government Voter Directed Democracy also creates a viable pathway to reduce political corruption. Voter Directed Democracy circumvents and seeks to destroy the political forces that attempt to remove the influence of the voter and disregard the Will of the People. In other words, Voter Directed Democracy creates an incredibly clear feedback system for all elected officials. Unlike current feedback systems that are often ultimately ignored by elected officials like surveys, town halls, letter writing campaigns, and phone calls to offices that place the elected official on a pedestal and presume a position of power and authority; Voter Directed Democracy empowers voters to collaborate together, direct the political discussions, and collectively make all political decisions. Again, there is no advocating here for doing away with the republic or creating pure democracy; instead, Voter Directed Democracy is advocating for evolving our republics and removing as much corruption as possible from the republics by creating a more transparent, collaborative, and accountable democratic political process.
Also, there is truly zero risk in trying a Voter Directed Democratic Republic at any level of government. This is because voters can always choose to pivot back to the corrupt party driven systems and Flawed Democracies that currently exist. Just like the modernization and evolution of other parts of our society, we could have always pivoted back if it made sense. If automobiles in the end were not practical we could have pivoted back to a world where beasts of burden transported us across landscapes. If cellphones and smartphones did not work out we could have chosen to pivot back to a world of only landline phones. Remember, Voter Directed Democracy will not be implemented with any legislative bill, executive order, or judicial decision. Voters can choose to pivot back to flawed and corrupt party driven politics just as easily as they choose to create Voter Directed Democracies. Thus voters risk very, very little and have so much to gain when we courageously choose to modernize and evolve our democracies into more transparent, accountable, honest, and less corrupt Voter Directed Democracies.
Lastly, please be aware that evolution of any human-created system has always taken time to be fully realized. This evolution of our political system is no different. Evolving from Flawed Democracy and corrupt party driven democracy to Voter Directed Democracy is a significant paradigm shift. Similar to our evolution from beasts of burden to automobiles or from landlines to cellphones to smartphones, this evolution will take time. However, implementation of Voter Directed Democracy only requires an evolution of thought and philosophy. Those other systemic evolutions that humanity has experienced were driven by and required the evolution of various technologies. However, since the ubiquity of smartphone technology, the modern world has been technologically ready for the political evolution from Flawed Democracy to Voter Directed Democracy. The ubiquity of smartphone technology has also given humanity an astounding rate of communication. Considering this wonderful ability to rapidly share ideas and the ability to have ideas go viral, this philosophical evolution might not take a lot of time. Nevertheless, on this journey to improve democracy I strongly encourage everyone to always choose courage. In your many discussions about Voter Directed Democracy, lean into the positive, evolutionary, uplifting, unifying, and exciting parts of this idea. Try to leave the past political frustrations, manufactured divisions, and ugliness created by party driven democracy in the past as much as possible. Keep your mind and heart fixated on our collective goal of systemic modernization and evolution of our democratic republics and one day at a time we will get there.
The Corrupt Republics
Voter Directed Democracy is specifically designed to prevent two types of corruption that plague modern democratic republics and are perpetuated through party driven politics. Most of the world’s Full Democracies and all of the Flawed Democracies are overwhelmed with Financial Corruption of the political system as well as Agenda Corruption. Broadly speaking, financial corruption occurs when money, goods, services, or some other benefit is given to an elected official from individuals, corporations, or other political organizations in exchange for a desired political decision, action, or inaction. Financial corruption of democratic republics can be legal or illegal. There are a few well-documented instances of political bribery and other types of illegal financial corruption that make national headlines every year in the United States. Unfortunately, however, the majority of the financial corruption that occurs in any Flawed Democracy is legal financial corruption. In other words, there are currently many ways that our democratic republics become financially corrupted and majority of this corruption rarely makes headlines and is never prosecuted because it is currently legal.
Financial corruption is destructive to our democratic republics and, in turn, societies for many reasons. Most notably a financially corrupt political system essentially puts a price tag on political freedom and action. If the individuals or organizations are able to pay the requested price then the political decision or action they desire will happen. This is not democracy. This is not elected officials making decisions that are representative of the Will of the People. This is “pay-to-play” politics and this type of corruption often directly leads to most of the systemic social, political, and economic problems we have today. Sadly, this type of corruption is actually legal in many democratic countries. For example, in the United States of America lobbying and the use of Super PACs are types of legal financial corruption. It is also important to note that even when the money, goods, and other benefits are exchanged in order to secure a political decision or action that is clearly desired by the voters, this process is still financially corrupt. In an honest and transparent democracy, money or any type of personal or financial benefit should NEVER influence any elected official’s political decision, action, or inaction. Giving money or benefits to an elected official has nothing to do with voters coming together, discussing problems, determining what they want for their community, and having it implemented. The democratic process can and should always occur without the influence of money or any other benefit. Yes, again, there have been examples of money helping ensure that the Will of the People becomes the Public Agenda, but this is still corruption and perpetuates a system where money and not voters hold true political power.
Similarly, agenda corruption is also terrible for our democracies. Agenda corruption occurs when elected officials, for whatever reason, ignore the Will of the People and implement a Public Agenda that is not supported by a democratically derived consensus. Agenda corruption can be purposeful or accidental. Financial corruption often leads directly to purposeful agenda corruption but this is not always the case. Sometimes elected officials purposefully ignore the Will of the People for reasons that have nothing to do with receiving money, goods, services, or any other benefit. Sometimes purposeful agenda corruption happens because someone within the elected official’s inner circle- a close friend, business associate, or relative- will stand to benefit from their particular political decision or the elected official believes that they know better than what the voters have determined to be the Will of the People. Other times, however, the agenda corruption is accidental and simply the result of the elected official not having the modern tools they need to efficiently, effectively, and transparently determine the Will of the People for their constituency. In either case, creating and implementing a Voter Directed Democracy at all levels of government and using Voter Directed Network to objectively and transparently determine the Will of the People will go a long way to free our political systems from financial and agenda corruption. Also, to eradicate the most corruption from our republics, we must address the organizations that perpetuate these authoritarian cycles of financial and agenda political corruption… political parties.
Political Parties Perpetuate Corruption
Almost all political parties help perpetuate political corruption and are virtually useless to the modern voter. Political parties were, arguably, at one point in history a useful tool that helped voters communicate with each other and determine the Will of the People; however, given the extraordinary rate of modern communication and our incredible access to this technology, modern humans have evolved beyond needing political parties. There are quite simply many methods of technology-driven communication that are infinitely better for helping individual voters come together, discuss current issues, and articulate their ideas than having voters align themselves with a singular political organization. Our specific idea for what kind of online platform and technology democracies and voters need to be able to share information, discuss current challenges, develop consensus, and identify the Will of the People by voting every day at all levels of government is called Voter Directed Network. The specific details of this online platform are discussed in Part Two of this book. Given our ubiquitous access to these ever-improving methods of online communication, it is clear that political parties have outlived their usefulness and should be dissolved.
Furthermore, most political parties have three inherent authoritarian flaws that negatively impact democracy and perpetuate financial and agenda corruption. These three flaws are inescapable and can be applied universally to virtually all modern political parties:
1. Political parties are inherently limiting and thus not representative of the diverse opinions of their constituents or the Will of the People in general. All political parties have their agenda. They often plant their flags where their donors allow them to across the political spectrums on various social, political, and economic issues. It is then quite difficult for individual elected officials within a political party to deviate from the established boundaries set by their respective party. For example, we often see headlines like “Representative touting popular policy is facing resistance from more moderate members of the party.” This type of intra-party agenda corruption happens regularly to elected officials in both major parties in the United States. This notion that elected officials must follow the boundaries set forth by the party donors and/or oligarchs and/or party “leaders” is severely limiting, terribly antidemocratic, and undeniably authoritarian. Honest democracy and true representation should obviously allow elected officials to always act in accordance with their constituents’ demands and preferences at all times. This party driven system also forces voters to align themselves with an institution that they may agree with on a handful of issues but then disagree with on other issues. There is no political party that can represent all of an individual voter’s unique constellation of opinions. Therefore, in our current flawed party driven political systems the vast majority of voters are forced to vote against their best interests and values to some extent. A more representative and flexible system that allows voters to articulate their unique opinions to their elected officials about every issue that arises would be a much more democratic and helpful system. In a true democracy, there should be no party driven limits on any elected official’s ability to implement the Will of the People.
2. Political parties are easily corruptible. This is because individuals who wield a disproportionately large amount of political power operate political parties and, historically, disproportionately powerful individuals in any type of government have been easy targets for political corruption. In other words, it does not take a lot of influence and/or corruptive resources to bring financial and agenda corruption to a political party. Hypothetically, an aspiring oligarch or other agent of authoritarian corruption only has to financially corrupt or influence a few high-ranking and disproportionately powerful members of a political party in order to get their agenda implemented as part of the political party’s platform. We see this repeatedly at all levels of government in Flawed Democracies. Those who desire to have a disproportionately higher amount of political power in our societies focus their influence on a few members of major political parties in order to find success. As long as a relationship between political parties and financial resources exists this antidemocratic, destructive, and corruptive authoritarian dynamic will continue. Thus, to protect the Public Agenda from corruption we should step away from the idea of political parties and create a modern, honest, and transparent political system that truly values all voters equally in relation to all political decisions.
3. Political parties centralize and consolidate political power. This is their base function. This is literally what political parties exist to do and what they promise voters they will do. Political parties promise voters that if enough of their elected official candidates are empowered they will implement the party’s articulated agenda. By centralizing and consolidating political power in this way the two major political parties in the US and other corrupt party driven democracies effectively have complete authoritarian control over the Public Agenda. As a result, political parties become obvious targets for and perpetrators of political corruption. Also, by centralizing and consolidating political power within two equally corrupt political organizations many popular and well-supported political decisions never become the Public Agenda and many unpopular political decisions are made instead.
Furthermore, if the dominant political parties in any democracy agree on something (perpetually tabling comprehensive campaign finance reform even though it is an incredibly popular idea, for example) it will happen. This dynamic is also the manifestation of the Illusion of Choice that occurs in a two-party, three-party, four-party, or any party driven political system. For example, for any particular social, political, or economic issue that arises within a two-party based system, voters are often presented with only two options; however, in reality there are often hundreds of potential choices and solutions that we- as creative, rational, compassionate, and intelligent human beings living collectively in a democratic civil society- can pursue to solve our many social, political, and economic problems. Humanity has all the knowledge we collectively need to make better political decisions and reduce human suffering. We just need a new, improved, advanced, and modernized political system that gives voters real access to all of these potential choices and allows us to implement all of our knowledge and compassionate instincts. We can do better than corrupt and flawed party driven democracy. We can build better democratic republics that create better systems for all voters that are truly representative of the Will of the People and reflective of our collective knowledge and values. We can do this with Voter Directed Democratic Republics on Voter Directed Network.