Although it is not Direct Democracy (definitely not at the first sight), this is a very interesting proposal how to improve representative democracy. What about trying it first in small communities, or small organizations to get an idea how it is working, and whether it gives a better results than the standard election approaches.

If you think about it, this troika method is actually quite similar to the combination of the Decentralization and Federation principles of the anarchist "ten commandments" recently discussed elsewhere in this Forum ( [www.world-wide-democracy.net] ).

Couldn't a modification of it be also used directly for decision making on the most important issues? The basic citizen group could have a larger size than 3, perhaps around 10. This is still a small enough size when people (neighbours) could meet in person, discuss an issue, and make a decision on it. Then select one representative who would defend their decision at the meeting of 10 representatives of 10 basic citizen groups. These representatives would try to arrive at the common position on the issue of all 100 citizens. If necessary, they could come back to the basic groups to get approval for a compromise decision. Then one would continue to higher levels in a similar way (Fred's New Jersey example would require only about 6 levels if the group size would be increased from 3 to 10).

mk, [democracy.mkolar.org]