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Comment by baremetal | Hacker News Reader

Direct democracy with full vote transparency for every voter.

I don't what you mean by vote transparency, but I definitely do not want to be accountable to my boss for voting against his political opinions.

Point is, whatever option is agreeable wouldn’t require the kind of build out to get us here-wiring up the internet, researching and scaling smartphone tech, etc. direct democracy seems like a pretty obvious max for logistical problems to governance and modern tech would make it possible. So anything below it possible too.

They have direct democracy in Switzerland and they don't need the internet for that.

> Popular votes can be held up to four times a year.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/switzerland-direct-de...

At some point you need technology, otherwise it would just get too expensive.

Many states in the USA have had ballot propositions for over one hundred years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiatives_and_referendums_...

Yes but not once every 4 months. People keeping a check on the actions of their representatives needs to happen more than once per election cycle otherwise once the politician gets in they just do whatever they want.

That's what the USSR had. Didn't work so well. A secret ballot is a major requirement for democracy.

There was one option on the ballot, I think that was more the problem. Having choice and not having someone with a gun escort you to the ballot box are bigger requirements. If there were no repercussions, voting could totally be open, don't you think?

Do you really want the thug in power to know you didn't vote for him?

That's exactly my point, it's a problem because there is a "thug in power". That's the problem, not open voting.

Even the nicest people become thugs when in power. Power corrupts.

Most, perhaps yes! But not always. You seem to often have so binary thoughts xD

Do you work with programming or something?

I don't know, in my experience most governments aren't run by "thugs" but YMMV.

The only reason for open ballots is to hold individuals "accountable" for their votes.

There will always be repercussions. Sweden have been doing public voting for decades by forcing you to pick the ballot out in the open, before going into a booth and putting the public ballot into an envelope. Your family, friends and the whole neighborhood will know whomever voted for the wrong party and will treat you thereafter.

EU and election authorities have demanded change to make it private but the previously ruling party didn't want to. Now we got a new government a few months ago and this was one of their first tasks, so it might be changed in time for the election in 2026.

> There will always be repercussions.

> Your family, friends and the whole neighborhood will know whomever voted for the wrong party and will treat you thereafter.

"Repercussions" from family or neighbours, sure, but not from whoever has the monopoly on violence. I haven't heard of the Swedish government going after people that "voted wrong".

Why do you feel the need to hand over your decision making to someone else?

I've seen no evidence that the democracy model employed across large parts of the western world and elsewhere, is anything other than criminal. Its like watching a punch and judy show where the public get to chose their puppets, but the shadowy puppeteers are lurking in the background, mainly wearing or have worn fancy dress.

what do you suggest?

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