Features for Freedom

by Marilyn Davis (short-biography)
eVote/USA

Marilyn Davis talks about polling and voting from a democracy-theory point of view. The internet cuts down the logistical barriers to true democracy. Therefore it is time to redefine the word "democracy" in terms of the new possibilities.
Toward that end, Marilyn proposes that the two important features for a meaningful expansion of the word "democracy" are:

• The user controls her vote, changing and/or withdrawing it if she wishes until the poll is closed.
• All users have equal opportunity to compose polls.

Marilyn Davis describes eVote's underlying architecture and shows how these features and others are supported by the various layers of the eVote software.
Finally she proposes an appropriate architecture for coalescing local opinions into global decisions.

Full text of the paper "Features for Freedom"