Direct democracy framework

Abstract

There is disclosed a global infrastructure that would help change the world's political landscape. Utilizing the distributed technology of end-user voting tools—installed on computers, cell phones, and other digital devices across the globe—this new infrastructure would facilitate a viral virtual democracy process identified as distributed voting. When integrated with the centralized management capabilities of a Voting Management Server into a Direct Democracy Framework, this process can dovetail into petitioning, registration, congress, and ratification. Such a system makes it clearly possible to represent the will of the people far more effectively than the often slow-moving voting systems that serve us today, either by providing a conduit of the people's will to existing representative governments or, where appropriate, by facilitated governance by direct democracy.

1 . A method of voting comprising the steps of:
 creating an initiative which requires a response of support for the initiative, rejection of the initiative, or no opinion to the original initiative for transmission to selected recipients;   editing said initiative prior to transmitting to said selected recipients;   sending said edited initiative to said selected recipients;   allowing said selected recipients to send said initiative to other recipients for a vote;   sending a vote response from said selected recipients back to the creator; and sending said initiative to other recipients for a vote;   transmitting a vote response from said other recipients back to said selected recipients; and   sending back to the creator of the initiative the responses from the other recipients to the initiative wherein a preponderance of support responses is needed for the initiative to be submitted for petition to one or more organizations.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising the step of creating a petition upon receiving a preponderance of support for the initiative;
 transmitting said petition to a hosting organization such as a voting management server;   transmitting with said petition the initiator's identity to said voting management server.   
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2  further comprising the step of notifying each of said selected recipients who received the initiative that the initiative that they previously supported or opposed is now being petitioned. 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3  further comprising the step of notifying selected recipients who received the initiative that is now being petitioned that they have the opportunity to automatically or manually sign the petition for or the petition against the initiative. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4  further comprising the step of notifying the selected recipients who received the initiative that they can forward the petition to those whom they originally forwarded the initiative. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein said voting management server transmits the petition across multiple serves 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6  wherein the number of persons supporting or opposing the petition is tracked and the voting management server, based of the results obtained, can proceed to require authentication of user voting. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7  wherein, where authentication of user voting is required, said voters are requested to register by physically visiting a site that facilitates direct democracy registration. 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8  wherein said registration is administered by competent neutral groups. 
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 9  wherein said registered users can confirm all of their positions on all of the initiatives in which they were involved in a secure environment provided by a voting management server. 
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 10  wherein the registered users can participate anonymously. 
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 11  wherein the registered users, instead of voting for individuals, have voted for direct initiatives. 
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein said voting management server creates a statistically valid sampling lottery and randomly selects a limited number of voters to appear as delegates to a congress to validate the registered vote. 
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 13  wherein the validated registered vote is ratified by the appropriate conventional government bodies. 
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 13  wherein non-government entities confirm the legitimacy of the initiatives sent to them and write into law the process by which these initiatives would be enforced.