I would like to suggest, however, that an element in the process suggested by
Kent has not been addressed sufficiently. This is the part of the process
preceding the election, that is, the discussion of the issues that will be voted
on. This part of the process is, in my opinion, also susceptible to structuring
so that participants in the voting procedure described by Kent come to the
actual vote after having passed through stages of becoming informed about the
issues and providing input into them, which should greatly reduce the changing
of votes described by Kent in his "Proposed Formal DNSO Online Polling
Procedure" and produce a more lasting and satisfactory adherence by the
membership to the outcome of balloting.
Mechanisms for online discussion and consensus-creation are being investigated
at present by the Harvard Berkman Center's "Representation in Cyberspace"
project (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rcs/announce.html). A certain amount of
research was also done by the ICIIU in preparation for the Cooper Union Internet
Users Conference in September, and resulted in the discovery of an extremely
interesting online discussion-structuring tool that was created by the Cyber Law
Institute (CLI) but never used: an interactive, asynchrounous "Deliberation
Space" that allows for continuous input and modification of issues in order to
arrive at concrete proposals that can be submitted to a vote. This Web-based
program is owned by David Johnson of the CLI, and could probably be made
available to the DNSO.
As in other arenas where voting is used to establish policy, such as with
propositions included in state government elections, the key to consensus and
the making of decisions that will become accepted practice is sufficient
information of the voting population and their involvement in the process of
drafting proposals. The CLI's Deliberation Space, or some other organized online
mechanism for making use of voters' input before balloting, could provide a
better environment for the voting procedure described by Kent.