Circle of Trust Voting

I think we need a new system of voting. One big problem with voring is that the default is not-voting, which is kind of bad for society. So we need to switch the default to esy-voting, while accounting for the fact that people are mostly lazy.

I think what we need is a system with a permananetly assigned proxy. You could revoke your proxy and give it to another at any time. If you decide to cast a ballot yourself, it overrides the proxy vote on your behalf. After the initial ballots are cast, each voter who had a proxy would get access to a list of how all their votes were cast. If there are any votes that weren't cast (say, the proxy lives in another city and didn't know how to vote ona local issue), or that the voter does not like, they can be changed, and then the final tally is calculated.

But the basic idea would be: a regular person could pick someone they trust to be their proxy. Could be a friend, relative, priest, anyone. At the individual level, everyone could be anonymous, but to collect proxies, you would have to make yourself public.

And then the proxies could connect to each other on specific candidates or ballot issues, so at any time you can see how your "representative" is positioned on issues. You could search people out there who take similar stands to you on all, some or one issue, or just has a personality or philosophy you liked.

This would make the actual corridors of power visible to all. The voters could be anonymous, but to aggregate voters, you would have to be public. The real time ebb and flow of power could be seen for all.

• better participation among people who don't have the time, energy or desire to get involved but want their vote to count.
• real-time visualization of the distibution of electoral power

I think part of the problem with out democracy is that it is basically impossible to trust anyone at the top anymore. This approach would at least us show who is aggregating power (at least, in the form of expected votes by proxies).