Blockchain Democracy

TLDR Summary:

• Use blockchain technology to power remote voting for laws using your phone or computer. Everyone gets to vote.
• If you can't be arsed to do that simply delegate your power to someone else.
• Only the most popular whales are allowed to physically enter Congress or Parliament.
• Use Democracy-Coin to fund political parties.
  
  

Satoshi Nakamoto and his paper on the bitcoin protocol started a revolution that hasn't been seen since the invention of the internet itself.

If you have been living under a rock, the idea was to use a public distributed ledger that is protected by math to use as a form of currency for the computer age. Think email for money.

The Blockchain Is For More Than Just Money

Money is not the only thing that could be stored on a blockchain. An entire country's democracy could also be stored on a public blockchain (further reading: E-Democracy).

Just think about it:

• Every citizen is given a private key to be used for voting. This could enable a person to vote on laws from their computer or even their cell phone.
• That private key could be used by the citizen to vote directly on a piece of legislation.
• If you are too busy to vote on laws (most of us) then the power could be delegated to someone else.
• If you are not confident about voting on laws then the power could be delegated to someone else.
• This delegation can be removed at any time and sent to someone else. If a politician does something you don't like or changes their political position too much then you get to take away their power right away.

All of the laws of the country could be stored as well on the blockchain. A winning vote could be used to override and replace an old law right there on the protected blockchain.

Democracy-Coin

Even more, if there was a coin associated with that blockchain then you could use upvotes to fund people or political parties to run for office.

But What About The Old People?

You are right, not everyone is tech-savvy and not everyone likes computers. The things even scare some people.

That's okay because traditional voting can still occur with paper ballots and can still occur every few years. What this means is that the person you vote for will just get your delegated power for four or five years.

But What About Poor People Without Computers?

Not everyone has money. Not everyone can afford a home computer or a cell phone yet they need to have the right to vote.

This problem can be solved in two ways.

One, there are public libraries everywhere in developed countries.

If you are poor go to the library, log in and vote. If you live near a library but still can't be arsed to do that you should just delegate your vote to someone else.

Overcrowded Parliament?

Will this mean that your Parliament, Congress, or Senate etc. will be filled to the brim with millions of minnows?

No, as with Steemit there will be whales, dolphins and minnows. Only the people with the most voting power (whales) would be allowed into the legislature building itself. Every one else would have to vote electronically.

If the chamber can take 500 people then only those top 500 people will be allowed to enter.

Ultimately not being allowed into Congress or Parliament is not a problem because most of the debate in an e-democracy will take place on-line. The old style politician standing up and making a speech would become obsolete.

Instead people will be making videos, writing posts and creating memes to get their idea across.

Closing Words

I think blockchain democracy is an interesting idea that could be made to work.

It would be cool if some city somewhere instituted this first as a test bed before moving on to a larger jurisdiction.

Enabling blockchain democracy in a city would instantly put them on the map and make it world famous.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.