Message Board - Part 2
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Part 1 of this Message Board covering the period from 2002/04/16 to 2004/09/15 is here

Real Democracy (Direct Democracy)

http://pantelicgr.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/democracy-feasible-implementation/
http://pantelicgr.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/democracy-feasible-implementation/ Real Democracy (Direct Democracy)
      Pantelis Papadopoulos, pantelicgr at gmail . com, Greece, 2014/8/16

A site dedicated to issues of Democracy

www.democracycrisis.com
Please check on our site www.democracycrisis.com dedicated to issues of democracy
      Serafeim Makris, smakri60 at yahoo . com, Greece, 2012/1/5

correction to DD Meeting Place

I agree with Martin,"NOMOCRACY" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomocracy does not fit with DD principles and should also be removed from DD Meeting Place
      bruce.eggum at gmail . com, 2010/10/15
--- To make things faster, I add my comments right here:
1. NOMOCRACY is not mentioned on DD Meeting Place at all, the link to Fred's page is listed as "Fred Blomson's DD blog" (This claim must have looked like a big blunder because NOMOCRACY is indeed mentioned 3 posts down. What I meant was that it was not mentioned on the "official" DD Meeting Place Links page. Since then Fred has deleted his blog anyway, and I will try to clean up everything related soon. mk, July 28, 2013)
2. Have you actually checked this blog (http://fredblomson.spaces.live.com/) out?
  I do not see there anything that contradicts DD principles. On the contrary, it contains many interesting ideas
  that people should be thinking about. E.g., the section on the "good global DD-NETWORK".
3. NOMOCRACY = rule of law, i.e., without exceptions for everybody;
  by itself it's a neutral notion not suggesting anything about how the laws are being created;
  Fred actually advocates "Direct Democratic Nomocracy", meaning that the
  laws are created by electronic voting of all the citizens of the whole world.
4. He thinks that the notion "democracy" is too tainted by being understood by
  most as a synonym of "representative democracy", to be used alone.
  His solution, to improve it by adding "nomocracy", does not seem ideal either because as we can see, some people
  consider the notion of "nomocracy" also tainted by being understood by others as a synonym of "divine nomocracy".
  (My suggestion: do not rely too much on short labels, describe or check in detail what is behind them.)
          Mirek, 2010/10/16

Making the links more relevant.

http://aktivdemokrati.se
I will now give you some more relevant links from Sweden and to make it easy for you: You can all other irrelevant links under Swedish links for DD. I will explain further down.
Aktiv Demokrati - Swedens Direct democratic party Texts in Swedish, English, Chinese, Spanish, French and German.
Aktiv Demokrati - Direct democratic blog in Swedish
A local direct democratic party of Vallentuna with political power. Texts in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese
A local direct democratic party of Knivsta with political power. Texts in Swedish
Papers on Grassroots Parties' e-Participation Systems in Sweden. Written in English
Positive and normative aspects of direct democracy - the case of Sweden in a general context. Written in English
--- My opinion:
--- 1/ The personal blog "Direct Democratic Nomocracy" should be removed. That is a personal blog that can be considered bad by many as a first impression for direct democracy. Fred is part of many of these parties, but should maybe not be overly promoted. He should defenitly have his space and place as one member of any of these parties, but not too much.
"NOMOCRACY" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomocracy , apparently an Islamic form of "devine law", should also be separated from the concept.
--- 2/ Erase http://www.vivarto.com/ because it does not really have to do with direct democracy in Sweden at all. He never participated in Aktiv Demokrati activley. But please do put him into the list again if he actually delivers something of interest.
--- 3/ Erase "The Direct Democracy Party" of Sweden because it is IN FACT Aktiv Demokrati and not "Direktdemokraterna" that is the actual direct democratic party of sweden. "Direktdemokraterna" is IN FACT ruled undemocratically by one individual. It is not an organization ruled by its members. If it was I would not send this message to you, but simply enter it as a member.
Best regards Martin
      Martin, martinvaxjo at yahoo . com, Sweden, 2010/6/25

dead link

Hello For Belgium the link http://www.ping.be/jvwit/directdemocracynow.html is now http://democratie.nu Kind regards and a happy new year Paul
      Paul Nollen, paul.nollen at skynet . be, Belgium, 2010/1/1

DEMOCRATIC NOMOCRACY

www.fredblomson.spaces.live.com
NOMOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY, UNITED HUMANS UHU About e-democracy, e-nomocracy and global e-governing UHU is a better and righter name than UNO. The nations, the unions, the religions, the languages, the national flags, the conservative traditions and similar, belong to the history. Let us use the word “global” instead of “international”. We United Humans support simple rules that every human understand and agree with. It is no idea to give our vote to representatives, politicians, delegates, secretaries and leaders of any kind to rule over our heads! We United Humans give our vote only to create basic e-laws (one human one vote). We United Humans accept only our e-law as the only leader and owner of everything. The rule of law (e Nomocracy), is the only right global e Governing ever! In Latin LEX REX (the law is the king). Representative democracy is a kind of elected dictatorship and today belongs to the trash. Give you your vote to parties and to leaders? Or you refrain and demand global e-laws and e-nomocratic e governing? To give the political vote to other than to create global e-laws to govern the world, is the most not democratic and the dampest one can do in the time of a flowering Information and Communication Technology, ICT. Article 1. (The universal declaration of human rights) • All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Bla, bla, bla… please make it reality now!!! “There is no salvation for civilization, or even the human race, other than the creation of a world government” Albert Einstein. “I am not Greek, I am not Athenian! I am a world citizen”. Sokrates Here presents extremely important truths that everyday doesn’t talk about, the potentates and the mass media. Simple thoughts based on common sense and logical thinking. When and who will be the first to start seriously to talk about basic global e-laws and to practice e-nomocracy, e-democracy and global e-governing? Which will be the first political party to apply e-democracy and e-nomocracy inside the party and to make e-nomocracy and e-governing the goal nr 1 for the party to be introduced in the society? Politicians, journalists and scientists please leave the mendacious diplomacy by side! Ask your consciousness and your common sense and tell the truth to all. Dear world citizens United Humans protect the environment and support the humanity, keep the basic global e-law in your own hands. Become sure that e-nomocracy, e-democracy and global e-governing, is the only right solution to all the global socio-economical problems and to all global problems ever. fred.blomson@hotmail.com www.facebook.com/fredblomson www.groupsgoogle.com/group/nomocracy www.fredbloson.spaces.live.com
      Fred Blomson, fred.blomson at hotmail . com, Sweden, 2009/8/9

Leadership in a Self-Organizing World

http://selforganizingworld.org/
A gathering in Leavenworth, WA, May 14-17, 2009, Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat
What does it mean to organize and what does it mean to lead when everything is self-organizing?
Many Transition Town folks are being recruited to attend, along with governance process people.
      DeAnna, deanna at wisedemocracy . org, USA, 2009/4/3

Chances for DD with UK parties

http://www.iniref.org/latest.html

Citizens and Direct Democracy: What chance of reform do the major UK political parties offer?

EXTRACT

http://www.iniref.org/latest.html

The countries of the british isles and the UK as a whole are near the bottom of the league table in citizens' (direct) democracy CDD (see Table, ...). Way, way ahead of the UK are countries of the Baltic, several east-european countries since 1990, Italy, Ireland and Lands of the Federal Republic of Germany. The headings in the Table clearly indicate what is meant by CDD (see also definition, 1).

Now that an early general election has been fought off and we find ourselves in the continuing mid-life crisis of a third consecutive Labour Party government, it is time to take our magnifying glass in order to search the utterances of opposition, government, and their thinker-gurus, for serious proposals of democracy reform. Owing to lack of resources and staff (please see our I
      Michael Macpherson, info at iniref . org, GB and N. Ireland, 2007/12/21

Book Review

I've been writing a book on how to achieve direct democracy for large scale populations. Its been a process that has taken quite a bit time. Book reviews to see where I went wrong or where I need to clarify. This is my voice against the world of republics so that one day the dawn will come for real democracy. I need your help. I don't know how else to say it. For those who are willing my email address is pure_democracy@yahoo.com Thank you all.
      Michael Stansfield, pure_democracy at yahoo . com, United States, 2007/12/16

A New Book

Direct Democracy: Arguments and Experiences on the Introduction of Initiative and Referendum by Jos Verhulst and Arjen Nijeboer
Available in six languages (English, German, Danish, Dutch, French, Slovak) for download from democracy-international.org/book-direct-democracy.html.
For a thorough review of this book click here.
      Europe/Belgium, 2007/11/28

A major update from The Atlantica Party

www.atlanticaparty.ca
  The Atlantica Party today released a major update to the party's policy platform including a call for a debate on uniting the four Atlantic Canadian provinces into a single province in Canada.
  "It has been almost forty years since Union has been discussed and we think it is time to re-examine the issue," said Jonathan Dean, leader of the party. "Union is a tangible step forward strengthening Atlantic Canada's present and future."
  In addition to advancing the Union debate the Atlantica Party will also reform the provincial political system to encourage freer debate, better decision making, and establish stricter public oversight of government operations. The Atlantica Party will also institute several direct democracy tools for use by citizens.
  The Atlantica Party will also reform the provincial electoral system to ensure fairer elections, allow more political voices to be heard, encourage citizens to become engaged in elections, and present voters with more electoral choice.
  The Atlantica Party commits to strengthening Atlantic Canada's position within Confederation in order to reverse the neglect of this region by the Federal Government.
  About The Atlantica Party: The Atlantica Party is a new provincial political party based in Atlantic Canada founded by a group of concerned citizens. It is working for the common good of the people of this region. The Atlantica Party is completely independent and has no involvement in the Atlantica free trade zone debate.
  We are currently seeking a few good people to join the party Executive. If you are interested in discussing this please contact us.
  Contact us at info@atlanticaparty.ca. To learn more visit www.atlanticaparty.ca.
Thank you for your time.
      Jonathan Dean, info at atlanticaparty . ca, Atlantic Canada, 2007/10/21

How the first ever Wisdom Council in Canada was organized

http://democracy.mkolar.org/wisedemocracy/
Victoria's Wisdom Council is no longer just an idea. It was held on the last weekend of March 2007.
In the second half of February, a group of volunteers sent letters to approximately 500 Victoria residents, inviting them to make themselves eligible for the draw to become members of the first Wisdom Council. Names were chosen from the phone book, using a random number generator to select page numbers, column numbers, and location within the column. They followed the letter up with phone calls, and last night we selected the first 10 members of the council. A number of other people expressed interest but were unable to attend the selection meeting, and we expect to round out the full complement of 12 members plus 4 alternates within the next few days. This is a great response, compared to most cold mailings. There was at least as good a positive response rate as the initial mailing to potential members of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform. Several people offered strong encouragement although they had to decline because of prior engagements or ill health.
Read more ....
      Mirek, dd at mkolar . org, Canada, 2007/4/2

Consensus building in the New Canada attempt

http://democracy.mkolar.org/newcanada/
an episode in the effort to organize a broader coalition/movement for Direct Democracy. The consensus building using colour card voting system: Rather then voting YES or NO on a motion, the participants are asked to hold up a green card if the motion is acceptable, a yellow card if they have an alternate proposal, or a red card only if passing of the motion is morally or otherwise unacceptable or would require the member to leave the group. Agreement or approval means the membership all held up a green card when asked for their approval or the motion was amended until the entire membership held up a green card.
Read more ....
      Mirek, dd at mkolar . org, Canada, 2007/4/2

PRESS RELEASE - The Atlantica Party releases its policy platform

http://www.atlanticaparty.ca
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Atlantica Party announces its policy platform HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 11 - The Atlantica Party today released the party's first policy platform articulating political and electoral reform vital for the future of Atlantic Canada. The Atlantica Party will introduce Single Transferable Vote (STV) for provincial elections and ban election contributions from all sources in favor of equal election financing for each candidate. These reforms are needed to ensure fairer elections, allow more political voices to be heard, encourage citizens to become engaged in elections, and present voters with more electoral choice. The Atlantica Party will reform the provincial political system by re-establishing the independence of the Legislature from the Executive. This sharing of powers between the citizen's representatives in the Legislature and the Executive will encourage freer debate, better decision making, and establish stricter public oversight of government operations. The Atlantica Party will also institute in a prudent fashion several direct democracy tools for use by citizens, including Citizen's Initiative and Recall. The Atlantica Party commits to increasing the voice of the region within Confederation in order to reverse the neglect of this region by the Federal Government. About The Atlantica Party The Atlantica Party is a fledgling provincial political party founded by a group of concerned citizens. It is based in the region made up of the provinces of Newfoundland
      Jonathan Dean, info at atlanticaparty . ca, Canada, 2007/2/12

Democrator

http://fredblomson.spaces.live.com
Representative democracy is an self-elected dictatorship; after a long period it has failed to better the society at all the levels and can never better the society, that is why it should be replaced by e-democracy. The representative democracy and the political party system belongs to the history. Not any persons but the e-democratic LAW should govern at all the levels. Employed administrators should administrate the e-democratic will of the world citizens.
      Fred Blomson, fred.blomson at hotmail . com, Sweden, 2007/1/11

Jury (Or Poll) Demovracy

I suggest using the Jury system to implement DD. The number of members in the Jury and the majority needed to aprove (or disaprove) will be calculated to make sure in 99.99% (or more) that the same descision will be made if it will be made by all voters. This will enable to make a vary large number of descions with very little time taken from each voter, but still each voter will have the time and data he needs to make a true vote that is based on facts and real arugments. The current representitive system will be converted to aid voters in there Jury work, and to bring data from all sides to each vote. The same Jury can also be used to oversee the goverment...
      gelrad at yahoo . com, 2006/12/6

"democracy 2.0" image released to Public Domain

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Democracy2-0.gif
Check out the newly released Public Domain image for "democracy 2.0"       Steve Magruder, steve at stevemagruder . com, n/a, 2006/8/27

Direct Action Alerts at the D2 Discussion Zone

http://d2dz.stevemagruder.com
New at the D2 Discussion Zone is a forum named "Direct Action Alerts" that will "direct citizens to take nonpartisan action for enhancing and protecting democracy, defending a free and open Internet, empowering consumers, holding corporations accountable, and encouraging a responsive, transparent government." Check it out! http://d2dz.stevemagruder.com By the way, the D2/DZ currently has 62 citizens. Everyone is welcome to come join in the discussions. Registration is super-easy. :) Best regards, Steve Magruder, D2/DZ Administrator
      Steve Magruder, steve at stevemagruder . com, USA, 2006/6/3

Do you work on democracy-related software or websites?

http://d2dz.stevemagruder.com
For the many technophiles out there interested in democracy-related technology development, Democracy 2.0 has launched a new D2 Discussion Zone board category named "Democratic Technology Consortium". And in this new category, a new forum entitled "Technology Development & Peer Support" has been opened. If you're somebody who provides, builds or configures democratic technologies, I invite you to check it out. Even if you're not interested in discussion about democratic technologies, please feel free check out the other forums as well. D2 Discussion Zone, by the way, is a "place to discuss direct democracy efforts" as well as related topics. (Note that, at this site, "direct democracy" is more about making democracy more direct than about the traditional notions of direct democracy.) This board was actually launched a few years ago, but only since this past November, I've been working hard to build a well-designed, bug-free board and market this unique kind of discussion as far as it can go. Links: Thank you in advance for looking at the board and hopefully participating.
      Steve Magruder, steve at stevemagruder . com, USA, 2006/2/28

New version of D2 Discussion Zone and other goings-on

http://d2dz.stevemagruder.com
Hello folks! Just wanted to let you know about several changes going on in the Democracy 2.0 universe... o The D2 Discussion Zone's peer ratings system has been overhauled. Now, rating a post should now be a lot easier to deal with, as many bugs and design points have been cleaned up. Try out rating a post (up or down) if you haven't already. For details about rating posts, see the "Peer Post Rating Guide" sticky topic in each forum. On on top of ratings system changes, several other bugs and changes were applied. Link: http://d2dz.stevemagruder.com o The first "beta" of the new, improved D2 Public Library was launched on January 27. With this new implementation, you can do more than just review democracy-related links across various categories--you can now submit and/or rate links! I'm still in the process of migrating links from the old library, but roughly half the links are already there, and in my opinion, they are displayed in a much better, more usable format than before. Also note that more changes to the directory software are to come, mostly to improve user experience. Feel free to start submitting all the choicest democracy-related links from your browser's bookmarks, as well as rating the links that are already there. Link: http://d2lib.stevemagruder.com o A first pass release of Democracy 2.0's "Guiding Principles" is now online at the D2 main site. These guiding principles are "declarative statements about democracy and related process ideas that form the basis for guiding the D2 project through ongoing and future developments." Some may compare them to the Worldwide Direct Democracy Movement's mission statement, although D2's comes from a different point of view about democratic participants, deliberation and decision-making. These listed principles may even be the beginning of wiki-based documentation that will outline the entire D2 approach. Note: I'm open to suggestions for additions or revisions to the principles. Link 1: http://d2.stevemagruder.com/hub.php?section=tao&tab=principles Link 2: http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/archive/original_wddm/OriginalFoundingDoc.html I'm very much looking forward to your feedback on these and other goings-on with Democracy 2.0. Enjoy the changes, and have a nice weekend!
      Steve Magruder, steve at stevemagruder . com, USA, 2006/2/18

International Day of Direct Democracy

Hi all, via a member of an e-mail list an info has reached me about an intended/proposed International Day of Direct Democracy - first one should be celebrated on November 11, 2006. The people preparing this yearly event are also involved in the CHance21, a small (political) group. See their website (alas in German only) chance21.ch for contact. Best regards, Vladimir Rott
      Vladimir Rott, d-europe at vjrott . com, Switzerland / Czechia, 2006/2/10

Direct Democracy Portal

http://edemocrazy.sourceforge.net/
Direct Democracy Portal, mixing open source with politics to create a portal for online organisations governed through direct democracy. Using maven2, mysql, hibernate3, spring, struts-tiles, jstl on jboss. Always appreciate any feedback.
      Pether Sorling, pether at users.sourceforge . net, Global, 2006/2/9

D2 Discussion Zone v1.1.8 now available

http://d2dz.stevemagruder.com
A new version of the D2 Discussion Zone was made available today. The biggest change of interest to visitors is that the board's structure was enhanced and streamlined, removing three forums (merging their contents into other ones), taking out the U.S.-centrism (so now talk about worldwide efforts is totally welcome), and revising several of the forum descriptions. The board should appear cleaner and more focused now. Of course, no new significant version would be without some bug fixes and updates to improve aesthetics/usability, security and performance. The D2 Discussion Zone, a place to discuss practical direct democracy efforts can be found at http://d2dz.stevemagruder.com
      Steve Magruder, steve at stevemagruder . com, USA, 2006/1/5

The Third Party

http://3rdParty.org
http://www.politicexchange.org/politicwiki/index.php?title=Collaboration_Political_Platform This web page is an experiment in which anyone may participate in writing a political party platform. The Third Party of America is one of the minor political parties and is sponsoring this Wiki document experiment to have ordinary people write its platform. You can join this experiment and help write the Third Party's Platform. The experiment ends January 27 2006, so there's not much time left for the current project. Hopefully it will be renewed later. You can also go to the Third Party's website, www.3rdParty.org to join its message board. There are boards there where you can criticize the Platform and suggest changes in it. Or you can join the Wiki Platform directly as a contributor by going to the 3rd Party website and click on a link there "Help Build Our Platform". The Wiki page http://www.politicexchange.org/politicwiki/index.php?title=Collaboration_Political_Platform takes you directly to the current 3rd Party Platform which is under construction, so you can read the different sections of it. I don't think there is any other political party, big or small, which allows absolutely anyone to join in the process of writing its Platform. Nothing is imposed "from the top down".
      Leonard Garland, Freetrader at aol . com, USA, 2005/12/30

Voting reform nixed by voters in 2005 but proponents say it's...

Subject: Voting reform nixed by voters in 2005 but proponents say it's... Source: CP [The Canadian Press] Voting reform nixed by voters in 2005 but proponents say it's inevitable (YEAR-Electoral-Reform) By Chris Morris FREDERICTON (CP) _ Few Canadians understand it, many politicians are leery of it and voters have yet to endorse it, but the disciples of electoral reform say proportional representation is coming to Canada. Voters in two provinces _ British Columbia and Prince Edward Island _ had the opportunity in 2005 to pioneer new voting systems designed to make elections more democratic. But in both provinces, the ``yes'' votes for proportional representation failed to reach required thresholds: P.E.I. by a wide margin and British Columbia by a whisker. Nevertheless, the less-than-enthusiastic response by voters to proportional representation has not discouraged its promoters. Larry Gordon of Toronto-based Fair Vote Canada, a lobby group dedicated to electoral reform, says it's just a matter of time before proportional voting systems are up and running in Canada. ``I still fully expect that within the next couple of years, we will see the first province move to a proportional representation voting system and, after that, other provinces will start to move,'' Gordon says. ``I don't think there is any question of whether there will be reform in Canada. I think it's just a matter of where it will start.'' Gordon says he was disappointed the votes failed in British Colmbia and Prince Edward Island. ``There was a lot of sentimental support for P.E.I. _ the birthplace of Confederation,'' he says. The two provinces were voting on different forms of proportional representation, but in both provinces many people said they did not fully grasp the idea. Simply put, proportional representation involves a voting system that gives parties seats in proportion to their total vote count. It's estimated there are roughly 300 variations on the proportional representation theme. It could partially or completely replace Canada's current first-past-the-post elections in which candidates with the greatest number of votes win their ridings. The traditional voting system has frequently created lopsided results. In P.E.I.'s last general election, for example, only 54 per cent voted Conservative, yet the party took 85 per cent of the legislative assembly's 27 seats. Two years ago, many British Columbians told a provincial citizens group studying the issue that they were disturbed by the lopsided provincial election results of 1996 and 2001. ``I think Canadians are angry with what is happening in the political arena,'' Gordon says. ``Once there is a breakthrough in one province, that will nurture a belief among Canadians that good change really is possible. If people see change is possible, then I think there will be a groundswell of support for moving on electoral reform and other democratic reforms.'' At least four provinces are considering voting reform. It's still alive in British Columbia, w
      Charlie McDougall, mcdougallcharlie at yahoo . ca, Canada, 2005/12/20

DD Politics

The American Coalition For Direct Democracy emerging in 2006-2008 will not be an actual labeled group, but an association of millions of individuals and hundreds of smaller groups involved in recreating politics and replacing the partial dictatorship that we have with scientific and compassionate government. It is important not to attempt to foster'professional' democracy or direct democracy by trying to create tiny third parties, this is a self defeating concession to an obselete, money bought system. The power of ideas and solutions themselves must engage citizens at large and draw them outside of their partisan lines. Shadow governments and imcompetent oligarchies cannot be defeated on their own turf, instead we must create or recreate movements that are too fast for the self serving insider; rebirth not reformation; an entirely new way of government by the enlightened, participating citizens where ideas succeed by merit over propaganda. It is too difficult to move a massive herd of disinformed citizens from a small corral to a bigger one; the nuclear group of direct democracy advocates must already be in the new corral telling the herd how good it is; even cattle know how to find the better grass once the barbed wire of ignorance is torn down.
      Doug Johnson, otbdoug at hotmail . com, United States, 2005/4/18

WDDMnet

http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/
Please note, that the WDDMnet home page has been considerably re-written. Based on various inputs received, it now has clearly stated initial rules that could make WDDMnet a viable organization/society devoted to the world-wide dissemination of information about the Direct Democracy.
      WDDMnet webmaster, webmst at world-wide-democracy . net, World, 2005/3/30

BC-STV To Break Party Dominance

http://talkon.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1207
Below is something that I believe will have an impact on establishing a good bridgehead of direct(er) democracy into the BC Govenment.

Citizen’s Assembly of BC Recommends New Electoral Process

The Citizen’s Assembly of BC, the body appointed to review election processes in BC, has recommended a new electoral process called BC-STV. The electoral changes as proposed by the Citizen’s Assembly will be put to referendum in the upcoming Provincial Elections, to be held on May 17th, 2005. The new process for electing members to the Legislative Assembly in B.C. intends to make the outcomes of an election more proportional to the will of the people, if adopted. Other benefits include shifting the political influence on politicians from the parties to the people of their local constituencies as well as giving the voter a greater choice of candidates.

The three values expressed to the Citizens’ Assembly by the people of BC during the fact finding mission were local representation, fairness of representation (or proportionality) and voter choice. After reviewing the different systems available the Citizen’s Assembly created a unique system to meet the specific needs expressed by the people of BC. That system is BC-STV, British Columbia’s unique single transferable vote electoral system.

Change in our electoral system has been on the minds of British Columbians for some time now. The last election is clearly indicative of a system that is not working.. The winning party in the 2001 election won 77 of the 79 seats in the Provincial Legislature (97%) while only receiving 57.62% of the popular vote. Less than a third of those elected in the 2001 election had the majority of support in their own riding.

Many in favor of “First Past the Post” system (plurality), which is currently used in B.C., claim that it creates a strong and decisive government. They assert that the BC-STV will make weak governments based on minority coalitions. While this is true in some Countries that use proportional representation it is not true in all cases. Germany has had only one single-party majority government since 1949. Many also believe that governments responsive to the needs of the people are less apt to make sweeping changing that can appear detrimental to the populace as demonstrated by the pendulum political environment currently in full swing in BC.

The Citizen’s Assembly who has recommended the electoral changes was an independent, non-partisan assembly of 160 randomly selected British Columbians. Their mandate was to review the current electoral system to see if changes would be preferable and if so what changes would be best given the needs expressed by the people of B.C.. For more information on the recommendations we encourage everyone to go to citizensassembly.bc.ca so that they can make an informed choice for all of B.C..
Reference link

Mock Up BC-STV Ballo
      Scott Etches, msgboard at etches . net, Canada, 2005/2/6

AFOVIC DIRECT DEMOCRACY PROSPERITY !

 We all deserve to smile and enjoy peaceful life 
 in   s m a l l,  h u m a n,  d i r e c t   d e m o c r a t i c   t o w n s 
 with regular general assemblies 
 and one year service authorities from one list, 
 to prevent divisions and corruption. 
 With clean energy, autarky orchards and multicultivation 
 without GMOs – nuclears – pollution – toxic competition - drugs – criminality, 
 breaking the vicious circle of addiction to cortisol > fear > hate > war. 
 With frequent popular merrymaking, STARTING WITH FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORHOODS
 of joint songs – dances – theatre, 
 to leave the best heritage to the coming generations: 
	DIRECT DEMOCRACY AFOVIA !
	SUFFICIENT REST AND JUNKETING:
	THE WAY TO COLLECTIVE HAPPINESS !
	PRIORITY THE PURGE FROM FATIGUE ADDICTION, 
	MAIN CAUSE OF DISEASES, ACCIDENTS AND WAR
 "Every human's death before its 100 years old is violent": 
	Mechnikof, the biologist researcher of Caucasus' centenarians.
Little by little becomes well known that "mother" hormone melatonin, not only prepares us for good sleep, if we are in bed at the right time, until 9pm the kids and 10pm the others, and a pleasant wake up always smiling, before dawn, but melatonin also strengthens immune, cardiovascular, antioxidant, mood, appetite and temperature systems. That is why, since the beginning of wars (due to overpopulation, see R.C. Kelly, below), the addiction to cortisol/fatigue > fear > hate > war, now for the vast majority of humans, needs urgent action for prevention and cure, before it drives mankind to a Titanic shipwreck … 
	EARLY NIGHTS AND MUTUAL AID, 
	THE BEST HERITAGE FOR THE COMING GENERATIONS!
"The archaeological record supports the conclusion that the transition from peace to war occurred after 10.000 b.p. This is sufficient to make the point that war is not primordial but has a definite origin in the relatively recent past.
The "nightmare past" that Hobbes envisioned in which individuals lived in continual fear of violent death, clearly never existed. Unsegmented societies do display a very marked tendency toward the resolution of conflict and the restriction of lethal violence.
Strong emphasis is placed on the reestablishment of a cooperative, comunitarian ethic of sharing and goodwill (Knauft 1987, 1994). When a spontaneous conflict over resources takes place between neighboring local groups, they tend to move apart, obviating the underlying cause of conflict. In the normal course of events continuous efforts are made to maintain relations of positive peace with neighboring groups through some combination of intermarriage, kin ties arising from marriage, adoption, visiting, gift exchange, and collective social gatherings entailing joint feasting, singing, and dancing.
Human propensity to peacemaking, is central to the nexus of interrelationships between human nature, war and society – and this bodes well for the future":
Raymond Kelly, Prof. at the University of Michigan; Warless societies and the origin of war.
      afoviahappiness at yahoo . com, 2004/12/26

CIVICNET & ELECTRONIC PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

Subject: CIVICNET and Electronic Participatory Democracy
	> CIVICNET- A non-commercial computer network, separate from the internet, for the
	> civil interaction of citizens provided by a national or regional government
	> (such as the EU).
	>
	> Electronic Participatory Democracy- Decision making by individual citizens
	> through their computers and the CIVICNET. Citizens need not respond to each
	> individual question, but could have a data base on their computer with their
	> beliefs. The CIVICNET could then query the individual citizens data base as to
	> their positions on any given question. If the data base does not cover the
	> question being asked, a message would be left for the citizens response, and
	> this response could be added to the citizens data base for future questions.
	>
	> Such a system would harness today's computer and communications technology to
	> provide direct control by individual citizens of the political decision making
	> process. The role of politicians would be changed from that of elected
	> representative decision makers to that of conveyors of political thought.
      DA VE HARRISON, CDHARRISON at UNISERVE . COM, CANADA, 2004/11/10