From: | "M. Kolar" <wddm(at)mkolar.org> |
---|---|
Date: | Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:37:26 -0700 |
Subject: | P.S. Re: [WDDM] Great Canadian Wish List |
More than a month ago I wrote here about the Great Canadian Wish List
(GCWL).
Since then I introduced there the wish (initiative) to introduce
Direct Democracy in Canada.
The GCWL has closed today. The results are here:
http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/07/the_top_30_wishes.html
Total number of participants in this experiment was 19,865.
My wish to introduce Direct Democracy in Canada got 29 supporters
(including myself), i.e., only about 0.15% of all the participants
were interested in Direct Democracy.
However, the whole thing was driven by the campaign to ban abortion in
Canada, and countered by the progressives' drive to keep abortion a
matter of choice. These two groups tried to mobilize as many
like-minded people as possible, many of whom, I suspect, have not paid
any attention to other wishes, so it is not easy how many people
really evaluated or even took note of the minor wishes like mine.
Altogether, 3204 wishes (initiatives) were made, some frivolous, but
many other were thoughtful and very reasonable, and brought many new
interesting ideas how to deal with public and environmental matters.
There were reported attempts of cheating and software problems that
enabled it. Also there was no way to make sure that only Canadians
participated in GCWL. Suspicions were voiced that many Americans
participated in the battle to ban abortion.
Again, without an official Internet registry of voters in a given
jurisdiction (legalization of digital signatures), it is very
difficult to say how meaningful any Internet voting results really are.
Mirek