It's fun for us onliners to think of ourselves as a boiling cauldron of anarchistic creativity, boldly telnetting where no loser has ever telnetted before. Great. So what happens when an online community has to agree on a budget, decide which workstation to buy, or determine whether advertising is allowed in cyberspace? Enter Marilyn Davis, creator of eVote, an online system for wired democracy.
The eVote software can be embedded in conferencing software, news readers, and other groupware applications. Any user can propose a vote, which can be registered with yes, no, or a numerical rating; the results can be public or private. Davis calls it the perfect emulation of a town-hall meeting, in which participants propose, discuss, and decide. She likes to think of it as modeled after Quaker meetings, in which cycles of voting and discussion evolve until nobody disagrees, or the dissenters ''stand out.''
I tried the eVote demo by calling the eVote BBS at +1 (415) 493 8683 and logging in as eVote. The underlying database engine may be sexy, as Davis claims, but the demo interface sure is crude.
Any hope for a real-life implementation of eVote? Davis has not been shy in going straight to the top. She proposed to Jock Gill, special projects coordinator of media affairs for the White House, that the administration use eVote to set up a ''Tell Bill'' conference in which citizens submit, discuss, and vote on issues of the day. President Clinton would then personally respond to the top scoring issue each month. In a ''Help Bill'' conference, the prez would ask our advice in matters of state. Not any time soon, said Gill, who got himself into a testy e-mail to-and-fro with Davis over eVote's suitability for electronic democracy. Davis says Gill disparaged eVote, while Gill says in his e-mail responses that he never intended to comment on eVote per se, only on instant polling systems. Anyone for a show of hands? eVote:
+1 (415) 493 3631, e-mail evote@netcom.com.
ELECTRIC WORD
Q: What Is the Information Superhighway?
Making Cyberspace Safe for Democracy
