As attractive as the idea of total democracy might be, the possibilities of hackers distorting the vote are overwhelmíng and the people with the most money could hire the best hackers. The corruption we see today would be minuscule compared to that in internet voting.

Mr. Sand, I am not talking about security problems. I have been paying my bills online for years now, nobody has ever stolen my money. The great challange in the direct voting system is that the voter is directly responsible for the result. It means that people must take an actif role in society and be responsible for it. I believe it would bring back some people who are tired of politicians and there methods of manipulation. Think about it.And all that, I think is better.

The motivation for stealing your money is insignifiant when compared with the motivation for changing major government policies with billions of dollars involved. The current problems with computerized voting machines clearly indicates that the opportunities for corruption are huge.You are proposing government by referendum and there are many problems with that also.

No, I'm not proposing government by referendum, because people would be busy all day. I am also not talking about voting machines, but the possibility to surf to the website of the government, where there is (for example) the question: Do you favor a minimal health care system? You enter your personnal voting code + a password. Finished. I would like to be able to vote just on important issues. That's all. Issues like, going to war or not, education, pension, etc. I just think it's unfair that you vote only every x years, on promises the politicians make then, and afterwards...nothing. they do as they want.

Furthermore, I feel that the democratic system doesn't evolve anymore, and I believe it should. We live in a system and we stopped questioning it. That's bad. We know it isn't perfect, but we don't change anything.

I'd have to disagree with this sort of idea on, unfortunately, a fundamental level. I believe that the best government governs the least, and the best of all systems to enforce a majority view while protecting a minority's rights is a republic (a federal republic, to be exact). The fact is, most people want to live their lives and do their thing free from government and political intervention. Not to mention that it's difficult enough for legislators to know enough to make informed decision, let alone an entire populace of almost 300 million. Laws should be few (they're not, but should be) and deliberative -- not treated like a poll on CNN.com.

Novel idea, though. Now if local communities wanted to experiment with this sort of thing for their affairs... that might be interesting.

Making internet access available is one thing; requiring it of all citizens is quite another. Just because we who discuss these issues on this site take our internet access for granted doesn't mean that most people have or even want it as a necessary means to participate in our democracy. And using the internet is essential to your proposal unless you'd have the laws you're speaking of voted on every two years during federal elections.

there is nothing more empowering for the average person than the ability to vote directly and make laws.why should you give away your power to an elected representative - do you think he is smarter than you and will vote better than you in your own interest. no he won't - he will usually vote what his interest groups tell him to, whether it's his political backers, fundraisers, lobbyists, corporations etc.

if you, the american people, want to take control of your lives, go to nationalinitiative.us and vote to empower yourselves as lawmakers. This is your first chance at real freedom. The government will not vote on this for you, they have no interest to give up their power - you have to do it and take back your sovereignty.

The argument about security being a barrier I think is flawed. Billions and billions of dollars are transferred online every day without incident. If I'm a sophisticated enough hacker, I would care less about an election between dumb and dumber (as is often the case at least in the US), and more about snagging a wad of cash for myself. The overwhelming benefit of having everyone in the country vote would significantly outweigh any security concern in my mind.

Voting systems now are bad enough (see Florida 2000 US Presidential Election) that even a hacked election every so often would be an improvement over current things.

I think the only people who would be against this are the people who's livelihood depends on keeping the whole population from voting, and not just the affluent (ie many rich politicians!).

I've heard that the direct voting is something that you can find already in some comunities for many years or decades. So, this is not a new idea, but its a great idea of democratic participation indeed. The possibility of participating and voting on laws directly, should be an alternative everywhere to the politicians who represent you when you dont trust them, or when you desagree with them. In fact, the best thing would be to have a paralel direct voting system that would contribute together with the parlement with an important porcentage for the final result in each law aproval. This would inprove democracy a lot...