Saturday, April 25, 2009

The perpetual election

The Liberal party of Canada has an "idea storm"-style website. Go vote!

The original Idea Storm by Dell is a website where customers post ideas and vote on what issue the company should address next. The website borrowed the moderation mechanism of digg.com as way to draw out the voice of the consensus. Barack Obama also used this approach during the transition months, with a similar success.

The current tally at voice.liberal.ca captures the distance between my opinions and that of the aggregate constituency of the Liberal party. The first four entries are
904 votes, Review the Tax Fairness Plan
539 votes, Invest in internet infrastructure
496 votes, Net Neutrality
116 votes, Legalize marijuana
While I can get behind the third and the fourth, the first two are not even on my radar. The worst is, the environment doesn't appear until the 17th position,
6 votes, Be aggressive on climate change
It has only six votes, and three of those are mine. No wonder Dion lost.

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