Furthermore, if I live in the canton of Zurich, I have to write out a list of 35 names for elections to the National Council – a tedious task considering the huge number of candidates and the fact that I don’t have much faith in any individual party. An app could make our lives much easier in this regard. Today, platforms such as smartvote, for example, can already provide voting recommendations by working out who I agree with most on the issues. The app would also know my personal preferences (“No lawyers or members of boards of directors”) and could therefore help me select suitable candidates.
More nuanced voting
An app would also allow us to do much more than that, paving the way for greater nuance instead of simple yes or no answers. For example, we could ask people what annual budget should be allocated to public service broadcasting. Once all the figures were collected, the budget would be determined by taking the median of voters’ responses, so that precisely half the population preferred to spend less and the other half preferred to spend more. Democracy doesn’t get more grassroots than that!
Alternatively, all voters could express and prioritise which of the proposed solutions they liked best, for example: solution A is the favourite, B is the second favourite, and definitely not C or D. Thanks to digitalisation, it would be easy to hold more complex – and also more nuanced – votes like these.
Other innovations would also be conceivable in a digital democracy: as electronic voting is very cheap, we could hold votes on a greater number of substantive issues. And what if someone doesn’t feel like voting? Why not simply transfer their vote to a person or organisation they trust? Or, depending on the topic, to various people or organisations? As they would retain control of the delegated digital votes at all times, they could still step in should the representative fail to vote according to their wishes. We are already familiar with this principle in the form of delegated voting or “l
iquid democracy
” – but digitalisation would simplify it.
The digitalisation of democracy therefore has the potential to bring about comprehensive reform in our democracy. Electronic voting has its advantages in terms of verifiability, but this reason alone is not enough to justify introducing it in Switzerland. This form of voting becomes especially interesting if we are also talking about genuine added value and the huge potential of Democracy 3.0.
This post has also been published in «Schweiz am Wochenende».
