Of all the democratic socialists who piled into a Manhattan church on Wednesday evening, none had the cachet of the man handed a microphone toward the meeting’s close.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani offered some pleasantries — “Hello friends, Zohran, he/him, Queens D.S.A.” — before launching into his mission: torpedoing the candidacy of a left-leaning ally, Councilman Chi Ossé, who is attempting to unseat Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat.
The remarkable scene was both a reflection of the tricky political calculuses Mr. Mamdani confronts as he prepares to take office next year and the egalitarian nature of a group that served as the grass-roots organizing machine of his political success.
The solution is to remove the power from leaders. We have the infrastructure to support digital liquid democracy systems. Give people the option of direct democracy or pledging their voting power to a leader or party, but give the people the power to remove that pledge at any time. No kore leaving corrupt leaders in power until the next election.
For a people who have mastered near instant communication, we remain too committed to representative democracy.
I like this idea but I definitely have concerns about cybersecurity with it.
Sure. That’s a challenge. But so is securing our current elections. I think we need government funded secure vote devices provided to every citizen, with optional voting systems set up at libraries and other government buildings. Smart phone style devices connecting to a secure government network, with no other mixed functionality and tamper resistant.
Not a popular opinion, but I think we need to consider getting rid of anonymous voting to ensure the most auditable voting. But it must be paired with strict laws further outlawing voter intimidation & retaliation.
No way, anonymous ballots are important for a reason. The temptation for those in power to intimidate people is way too strong.
Which is why I said it needs to be paired with strict enforcement to prevent that. The temptation is too strong for those in power to rig elections.
But who is enforcing it? Those in power. They will simply choose not to when it’s convenient for them.
So far elections have proven difficult to rig as long as there is a clear and transparent counting and recounting process with paper ballots. This is another reason I’m skeptical of online voting ideas since there is no paper trail.
There’s no concentration of power. The people are the enforcers.
That would require a much bigger change to governance than just elections to achieve. You’re basically describing anarchism at that point.
Not at all. I’m talking about direct democracy.
I think the fastest route is to set up parallel institutions to provide services the current government cuts. As they cut services, they delegitimize their authority. As we provide what services we can, we claim that legitimacy.