Americans Vote on Initiatives

Alongside the recent Congressional elections Americans also voted on a range of local initiatives including gun controls, marijuana, abortion, minimum pay and healthcare. You can read more about it at NBC, here.

Tablets Drive Deeper News Consumption

According to this report by Starcom MediaVest and the BBC, tablet users "consume" more news across more topics. This means that mobile internet is helping educate people about current affairs, supporting the adoption of Interactive Democracy in a number of ways:-

• Issues can be researched with ease. They can check the facts of others' arguments.
• Voters can choose to access a variety of news and information sites which aren't monopolised by large media organisations.
• Votes can be cast from a personal mobile device in a convenient and secure way, probably boosting "turnout".
• The device can be carried to a private and secure location providing better secrecy of votes cast.
• Voters can be prompted to vote, boosting "turnout".

Compensate for Fallibility

I think that wide use of voting can compensate for fallibility. How? Here's a thought experiment.
No one is perfect. Just imagine the best leaders you can, they still make mistakes. Perhaps less than the average person, but probably 5% of the time. So, if they are in a position to make the decisions, 5% of them are wrong.
Now, imagine instead putting the decision to a vote. If, on average all the voters are right only 60% of the time (greater than 50% will do), then the majority carries the day and, in theory, every decision is right!
OK, maybe this sounds too good to be true, but this analysis suggests that direct democracy will lead to more good choices than experts/leaders make on their own. It is likely to be more right than a vote in parliament, partly because it uses a bigger population but mostly because the electorate are more independent, not pressured by party whips or lobbyists.