Legislative BRANCH
The Legislative branch, which largely involves accepting or denying policy and personnel change, comprises the entire population of Augury. This is facilitated by the Moderated Direct Democracy System, which is monitored by Minerva. The underlying principle is that the operation of Augury, from the Judicial branch to the Executive, is ultimately under the control of its population. The Judicial and Executive branches exist to serve the best interest of the population and optimize the city in specialized fields.
Moderated Direct Democracy System
The Moderated Direct Democracy System (MDDS) is an internet-based system that makes voting as accessible as possible. The MDDS can be accessed by any citizen’s personal device with an internet connection via a website or application, connecting users with their registered data with three-factor verification. This system operates in close proximity to all other internet-based municipal networking managed by Minerva and Apollo. This system removes the need for representative-based democracy and minimizes the need for politicians. Citizens may undertake law-making, policy formation, and regulation enforcement.
Any proposed change in policy (typically proposed by a head of an Executive or Judicial branch) must be put to a popular vote, and all citizens should have until a specified deadline to cast their vote. Simpler policies will have shorter deadlines than greater changes, to allow voters time to explore related data to consider consequences and alternatives.
Furthermore, the MDDS could be able to enforce conditions to balance the fairness of voting conditions including but not limited to the following examples.
The MDDS may:
-
Compensate the weight of individual votes for factors such as expertise or conflict of interest.
-
Not make some votes available to the entire population if the issue is only relevant to certain departments or demographics.
-
Require voters to pass a comprehension quiz to demonstrate familiarity before voting on policy changes with a high estimated impact, as well as offer relevant background information concerning the issue.
-
Offer a mandatory multiple-choice quiz after voting "no" on a policy change to explain their choice and request an (optional) suggested alternative for the intended goal (typically only on smaller changes)
The MDDS technicians operate as a sub-department of Minerva to design these vote modifiers and are constantly optimizing the system to be more effective and ensure any modifiers do not cause significant bias. The MDDS department itself is also open to constructive criticism by the general population, and all vote modifiers are clearly declared at the time of the vote and recorded for later reference. Certain conditions for designing votes will be universally required for all proposed policy changes, such as the following:
Proposed Policy changes:
-
Must also clearly declare the intended effect
-
Must declare the department that proposed them
-
Must be presented for vote individually. No votes may ever be cast to apply to multiple policy changes at once.
-
Must be written in language simple enough for the average citizen to understand, and phrased as simply and concisely as possible. The MDDS department should have dedicated plain-speak auditors to ensure this.
The above conditions also apply to elected officials. While most officials are appointed by the direct superior to the position, the superior must choose at least three qualified candidates for the position and then allow citizens to vote for their preferred candidate through the MDDS. For example: if the city needed to replace the head of the Bia department, the City Manager would choose at least three candidates who are willing to accept the position, have sufficient experience in electrical engineering or a related field, etc. These candidates would then 'campaign' by publicly exhibiting their qualifications in documentation not unlike a resume. Citizens would then have a certain period of time to research and vote for their preferred candidate, and current members of the Bia department would have a higher weighted vote compared to other citizens. The MDDS would then calculate the winner by popular vote and assign their role as head of Bia.
All votes, results, and contextual information would automatically be time-stamped and stored along with a current record of municipal Augury law by Apollo in a public change-tracking database repository similar to Git.
Will this system be perfect and immune to hacking or fraud? Of course not—what system is? But I don’t believe it will be especially prone, and it will make democracy more accessible and accountable than ever.
Politicians
The concept of a politician typically evokes the idea of a representative who votes and perhaps introduces new policies on your behalf. The Moderated Direct Democracy System eliminates the need for representative politicians—the closest thing in Augury will be Department Heads and the City Manager. Like the economy, politics in Augury should be shifted away from a competitive mentality and towards cooperation. These leaders must be gracious, humble, willing to learn from and work alongside fellow candidates. Their approach should be to work alongside other officials to solve problems, rather than to compete with each other for accolades and popularity. They should care more about the wellbeing of the city than their own personal ambition.
New Department Heads will be elected by citizens conditionally. Eligible candidates must have certain relevant credentials, experience, and education for any given role (as specified in each department description in Part 1). Consider having runner-up candidates become assistant Department Heads, to discourage bipartisanship. Political parties should be prohibited, as should donations from citizens or organizations towards political campaigns. Rather than making a spectacle of campaigning for office, positions of public office should be treated like the jobs they are. Positions in any branch of government can be held in contracts of 1 or 2 years at a time, with citizens voting to renew the contract at the end of the period or seek other candidates. Exact terms of the contract (as well as compensation and conditions for termination) should be publicly available. When candidates are being compared for a position, they should not campaign with rallies and parades—rather, they should make their qualifications publicly known, answer questions calmly and directly without manipulation, and if they take part in debates against their opponents, they should be conducted without a live audience. Candidacy for office in Augury should be a question of optimal qualification, not a performance for a popularity contest.