discovering edemocracy and an in-depth preview of online ... · organizational needs and the...

Discovering eDemocracy and an in-depth preview of Online

Electronic ParliamentDEMOCRACY REBOOT

Panel “Rebooting democracy: rethinking partecipation and institutional innovation”

Davide Barillari, London, 04/14/014

No one can know everything, but together we are able to.A problem that has no solution does not exsist... if we unite our minds to solve it.

DEVELOPING COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

Collective intelligence (aka Symbiotic intelligence) is a theory describing a type of shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals

TOGETHER WE CAN FIND THE BETTER SOLUTION

The collective intelligence requires involvement of ALL citizens. Without regard to individual intelligence, experience, skills, or relationships with other groups\individuals. Not only by vote (online voting, polls, ..). Not only by discussions (forums, blogs, social networks..). Discussing problems before voting raises awareness. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of the opportunities and risks, allows individuals to evaluate alternatives and suggest others. This shared common view is not altered by social hierarchies and inequalities of knowledge.

eDEMOCRACY IS HERE

E-democracy (a combination of the words electronic and democracy): the use of information, communications technologies, and strategies by 'democratic sectors' within the political processes of local communities, states/regions, nations, as well as the global stage.

E-democracy means direct democracy,based on collective intelligence.

M5S wants to exceed the current limits of representative democracy, attempting to engage citizens in the full legislative process (for the first time in Italy).

What is LIQUID FEEDBACK

LiquidFeedback is an open-source software, powering internet platforms for proposition development and decision making.

It introduces a new communication channel between voters and representatives, delivers reliable results about what the participants want and can be used for information, suggestion, or direction depending on organizational needs and the national legislation.

Users can write a proposal and discuss it with all other users.All users are able to modify the original proposal, and the more “appreciated” suggested enhancements are voted.At the end, we hold the better solution built by the contribution of all users.

Main question: crowdsourcing to create laws

Is it possible for people to write their own laws?

YES.

“Beta name is Electronic Parliament and in the coming weeks will transform Italy in to the most advanced laboratory of digital democracy in the world”

WIRED, 2/7/13

...our step beyond the Pillars of Hercules...

We modified the code ofLiquidFeedback.

We expanded its core.We enhanced user interface, security,

functions, data integrity,internal editing...and more!

The project is called “PARELON-ONLINE ELECTRONIC PARLIAMENT”

Any average citizen FOR THE FIRST TIME in Italy can now write his\her own law, in a standard format with legal checks, share it on the net, and then bring it directly to the legislature, all thanks to the M5S representatives

WE ARE READY. It will be Italy ?

ONLINE ELECTRONIC PARLIAMENT - RELEASE 1.0 PREVIEW

MAIN TOPICS (1 of 3)

FREE AND OPEN SOFTWAREAll code is open source and will be provided to all citizens, governments and public organizations for free- edemocracy platform developed by volunteeers without any profit- no costs for citizens

HIGH STABLE PLATFORMLiquid Feedback V2 as central engineLiquid Feedback is well known and used by many groupsOnline community supports resolutions of all bugs

PORTABILITY TO ALL LEVELS- Runs on all platforms, expecially on smartphone and tablets- Main goal: edemocracy directy in every streets, between citizens

EASY USER INTERFACENeeded to involve over 50 (able to use ATM, same concept)- Clean interface, completely revised from Liquid Feedback- Big buttons and clear explanations- More graphical tools to show every step of the liquid democracy process

SOCIAL NETWORKS INTEGRATIONSIntegration with twitter and social networks



LIQUID FEEDBACK SOURCE CODE EVOLUTION (FORK)Enhanced structure and more complex- more votations steps- new process including technical commissions- vote rules and quorums review

ENHANCED INTERNAL EDITOR WITH TEMPLATES- templates to drive users to write law texts, with automatic tools- legislative standard Akoma Ntoso- AT4AM for emendments- not only laws but also resolutions, and other legislative acts.

DEVELOPMENT TEAM FOR FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS- new functions planned for next releases

SCALABILITY- planned usage of virtual servers to a fast increase of users

DEVELOPED FOR OTHER INSTITUTIONAL LEVELS- from national level to lower levels (region, city, ...)



SECURITY INCREASEDSecurity infrastructure increased from Liquid Feedback- two-factor authentication with certification of only real users- citizens become controllers: reports from user for profile cross checking- gesographical connection check- anti-phishing bidiretional check

DATA INTEGRITY- every user can dowload data- public database to check in every moment any modification, automatic checks for integrity- no moderations or way for administrators to modify data

TRASPARENCY IN VOTING SYSTEM- all votes can be verified- no anonymous proposals, and transparency to avoid conflits of interests- temporary delegation on specified theme or time, revocable in every moment- Schulze method to satisy the major number of users and involve the minorities


FLOW FOR ACTIVE CITIZENS TO THEIR REPRESENTATIVES

1) IDEA TO REPRESENTATIVES - Ideas and proposals from citizens are sent to M5S Representatives through traditional tools: mail, phone, postal mail (!)....but often are simple and generic problem reports.

- Using a dedicated blog, regional law proposals are posted from M5S Representatives on www.meetup.com/5-Stelle-Lazio/ (area “regional law initiatives”): every citizen can suggest ehnancements to law proposals put in discussion.

2) SHARED DISCUSSION TO GET DETAILS- Starting from the initial proposal, one or more phisical meetings are organized between representatives and associations/groups or single citizens. Many people discover (at this moment) their work was already performed for them by others; in some cases with same results or activities.

3) DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENTATION OF LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVERepresentatives, with or without help of citizens (depends on their experience), develope and re-elaborate the proposal into a legislative act, needed to address the problem into a law proposal, a interrogation, a motion, or an official request for legal documents, and so on

LIMITS FOR ACTUAL USED TOOLS

http://www.meetup.com/5-Stelle-Lazio/

PROBLEMS:

- Representatives can perform discretional evaluation and selections, using objective criteria for priorities and urgence on the topics;- Low participation can limit the level of sharing for law proposals;- It is a long process for Representatives to collect all of the modifications to a law, altering them in to a valid legislative format, and then writing/evaluating every amendment;- It is quite impossibile to combine all of the different proposals on the same topic;-The alternative proposals put into discussion are not shared with all participants;- Many citizens decide to not take initiatives due to presunta incompetenza nello scrivere e indirizzare proposte e suggerimenti al consiglio regionale.

LIMITS FOR ACTUAL USED TOOLS

WITH ONLINE ELECTRONIC PARLIAMENT

1) GET PROPOSALS one unique channel to get all proposals, without filters. No duplicate proposals. With initial quorum, onlyMore appreciated proposals are put in discussion.2) COORDINATED IN DEPTH DISCUSSIONS- all citizens sees other proposals on the same topis- less conflicts due to more information on shared proposals (no single “lobbies” to infliuence politicians)- we can work on a common text, coordinated, using collective intelligence3) DEVELOPMENT OF A LEGISLATIVE ACTCitizens theirself create a legislative act to address the problem, thanks to a guided path.The document is built in the legislative standard format.

Advantages:Political representatives have no influence in the process, left in citizens' hands.No discretional evaluations, but collective intelligence decides the priorities.Every decision is made with votation of majority of citizens certified in the system.More direct partecipation for active citizens.Law text is owned by all, no personalism.Maximum level of sharing, also with the possibility to modificationCommissions (technical/legal/legislative) composed by experts, go further the experience limits of politicians/representatives and complete the cultural deficiences of non experts.Integrated editor is developed to do a compared elaboration of different proposals on the same topicBroken wall between elected and elector: a “nornal” citizen can write a law.

OVER THE ACTUAL TOOLS

ONLINE ELECTRONIC PARLIAMENT -integrations

The Online Electronic Parliament integrates in its internal editor (AT4AM) the open format AKOMA NTOSO.

The AT4AM editor has been enhanced for more usability with Liquid Feedback.

AKOMA NTOSO

ONLINE ELECTRONIC PARLIAMENT USES AKOMA NTOSO COMMON STANDARD TO WRITE LAWS(in collaboration with few italian universities)

DOCUMENT FORMAT ADOPTED BY ITALIAN SENATE since February 013 as common standard for parliamentary, legislative, and judiciary documents.Italian Senate website are available, other than in the usual HTML, PDF, and ePub formats, also in XML, using an Akoma Ntoso compliant scheme..

The Italian Senate, in the wake of the European Parliament, has also joined the growing number of parliaments supporting Akoma Ntoso as common to support a more effective management of information and long-term preservation of formal documentation.

Akoma Ntoso is the result of the efforts of the Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan to realize a common standard for the interchange of legal documents among institutions and countries. Building on the opportunities offered by open standards, it aims at supporting the development of high-value parliamentary and legislative information services

AT4AM for All

AT4AM for All is the free / open source release of AT4AM, the web-based amendment authoring tool used at the European Parliament.

AT4AM is the web-based amendment authoring tool used with great success at the European Parliament since February 2010 by Members, their assistants, and advisors of the political groups to create and table amendments on the proposals of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the reports of the parliamentary committees.AT4AM is the first system of the future XML-based workflow of amendments at the European Parliament.Compared to the previous Word-based system, the great benefits of AT4AM are a much better quality of the amendments, an easier and faster process of creating, sharing, tabling, registering, ordering, and verifying amendments focused on content instead of the format.

http://www.at4am.org ONLINE ELECTRONIC PARLIAMENT USES AT4AM EDITOR TO AMEND LAWS

(in collaboration with EU IT department)

THE TIME FOR eDEMOCRACY IS ARRIVED

We are approaching a new golden time for our democracy, because we are working to return the power to the people.

Really.

Political movements that do not have the courage to resign their hierarchical structures, do not involve all their electors in all the decisional processes, or do not pursue collective interests, will extinguish in a short time.

Boosting Collective Intelligence

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