DEMOCRACY IN 21ST CENTURY

As Pia Mancini (co-founder of DemocracyOS and ‘the Net

party’) said – “We are 21st-century citizens, doing our very,
very best to interact with 19th century-designed institutions
that are based on an information technology of the 15th
century”. Democracy needs to modernize – starting at the
foundation; the electoral system. Widespread calls for
electoral reform seek to make the process fairer, more
representative and accessible; but these efforts have largely
failed by refusing to innovate.

The UK system is an excellent example – a 2011 referendum

offering to replace First Past the Post system with an
Alternative Vote was rejected by the public. This was, in part,
because of a feeling of ‘better the devil you know’. The ‘new’
system had its own shortcomings as demonstrated in Australia
and Ireland. Alternative vote has been accused of both forcing
voters to show support for candidates they may disagree with,
and promoting informal voting. Other systems such as,
Proportional Representation have also been shot down for,
amongst other reasons, endorsing extremists and radicals to
positions of power.

Why should electoral reform have to be based on an

established but flawed system? Surely politics and democracy
should follow the rest of the world in the move onto the
internet to improve. Social media platforms are growing
exponentially – increasingly frequently companies in other
industries are utilising technology to reach the maximum
number of the population. Is this not also the responsibility of
a democracy?
There have been success stories of integrating the most
modern technology and elections. In Argentina the ‘Partido de
la Red’ party was established to promote the Smartphone app
DemocracyOS. The app allowed the electorate to vote on
legislature going through city government, where
hypothetically, Partido de la Red   members would vote as the
app vote dictated. Effectively the app users would control
every single vote. In 2013 the party missed out on one of 70
seats by just 0.26% of the vote – however the project sparked
similar movements across South and Central America.  This
project was partially inspired by comparable ‘Pirate Parties’,
successful in Germany and Scandinavia and active in many
other countries. ‘Pirate Parties’ all demand Direct Democracy,
as well as other policies including open access and open data.
One of these parties holds 2 of 20 European seats in Sweden
amongst other successes. In 2014 DemocracyOS was given a
trial run of 5 months in Buenos Aires, and whilst lawmakers
did not promise to vote in accordance with the app, they did
agree to report to it. Partido de la Red’s share of the vote is
predicted to increase in the next election.

The idea of Direct Democracy may not be perfect, as with the

current electoral systems. However, the overwhelming interest
in this concept, and the momentum it gained in a relatively
brief period of time, shows that there is demand for immediate
access to political decisions. When absolutely all other
information is available instantly, and news hits twitter before
traditional outlets, it would make sense that there would be a
demand for the ruling bodies to operate in a similar way.
Therefore, instead of governments merely trying to recycle the
electoral processes used in other countries, the concept of
interaction with politics between general elections and on a
regular basis could influence a new kind of system. If
DemocracyOS takes off then it could revolutionise democracy
in the 21st century.