With limited knowledge of world politics and forms of government, my ability to criticize them is also limited. I do, however, observe problems within the American political system. My first observation is that our system seems to be designed to favor two parties and only two parties (at least only two truly successful parties). Our system of election encourages similar parties to merge to defeat larger parties until only 2 parties remain, at which time if either has an advantage, the other is likely to shift in the advantaged party's direction to balance back to two fairly evenly matched parties. At the same time if a new party emerges, the more similar of the two empowered parties is likely to shift in the direction of the new party enough to make it redundant and take away any option for a real future for that party. Only very extreme circumstances would seem to break the natural two party mode of the American system.
Each person has one vote. They can choose to abstain, or they can choose to pass their vote to a candidate or proxy. Any individual with a vote can have themselves registered as a proxy so that others can pass their vote to said proxy. A registered proxy can then pass their votes to a candidate or another proxy, including all votes they have received from other voters and proxies. Any individual eligible for election can have themselves registered as a candidate. A candidate can either act as a proxy and pass their votes on to another candidate or proxy, or they can hold all the votes they have received in the hopes of winning the election.
This system can also work for propositions, except that there are no candidates, only registered proxies, voters, and the propositions themselves. Voters vote for the proposition or pass their vote to a proxy. Proxies do the same.
To protect voter privacy each voter should be given a unique, government controlled, voter identification number which is only known by the voter and a special organization that oversees the voting process. Gaining unauthorized access to voter identification numbers and their owners should be considered treason, and clearly control of that information should be outside of any elected officials jurisdiction. Registered proxies would have separate public proxy identification numbers, so that voters have a means of passing their vote to the proxy and can track where the votes of the proxy have gone.
This system works very well with contemporary computer technology, making it easy for voters to ensure they have voted correctly, and track where proxy votes have gone. Without computers all of this is still possible, but may take longer. Of course network security precautions should be taken to ensure voter privacy, including at the very least encrypted transmission of user voting information, and ideally a separate network connected to local government run voting facilities.
In a continuous voting system votes are not cast, but rather held. Voting is a continuous processes. Elected officials are constantly in danger of being replaced and propositions are constantly at risk of being repealed. There are two main benefits to this type of model. First of all it introduced a kind of Dynamic Legalism, describe in another article, where decisions are not written in stone, meaning that elected officials are continuously accountable to the voters and propositions can change if conditions, opinions, or information changes. Second there is a level of transparency to such a system. Voters need not rely on inaccurate “polls”. Instead they can see directly what gaining or losing popularity as votes change in real time. In this way the outcome of an election is never a surprise, though rapid shifts in political ideology may be. Of course there are many details regarding the structure of such a system that need to be described in further detail.
Despite the fact that votes are held, and continually in flux, it would be unreasonable those votes to be officially counted at every moment, government changes would occur far too quickly. Instead votes should be officially counted only periodically, as frequently as the infrastructure can support, a monthly official count may be ideal with a modern telecommunications network supporting the process. Also, every official count should follow a certain procedure to ensure validity and due deliberation.
Two days before the votes are counted candidacy should be cemented. For the next two days no new individuals should be permitted to declare themselves an eligible candidate, all new declarations during this time will be delayed until after the official count. This is to ensure that proxy voting has time to settle before the official count. Allowing a candidate to enter on the day of the official count creates the potential for spontaneous rather than deliberated voting.
One day before the official count all proxies should be cemented. For the next day no proxy can change where the votes that have been proxies to them are directed, though they can still change their personal vote. This ensures that a proxy cannot fool voters by changing to an unexpected candidate immediately before the votes are counted. For the last day before the official vote, the voters can safely ensure that their vote is directed at a candidate they approve of, without risk that it could change without their will or knowledge.
Additionally, the voting requirements for a change in office or a change in the status of a proposition could be made inversely proportional to the amount of time in office. Put simply, the longer an official holds an elected position the easier they are to replace. This ensures that quick changes in government positions only occur when opinions change dramatically. For example, the law may dictate that the leading candidate requires 90% of the vote at any time in the first six months to replace the currently elected official, 70% until the end of the first year, 50% until the end of the second year, and by majority after that. Keep in mind that votes for the elected official still stand, so for a different candidate to have 90% of the vote within the first six months would require an extreme loss of faith for the voters that originally held their vote for the currently elected official. Also, these are not the suggested numbers, merely an example to assist with understanding.
One of the biggest advantages of this electoral system is it's effects on political parties and ideological shifts. Instead of having two large political parties, there can be as many political parties as there are people. In the end there may be just two leading candidates for a position but the votes may have passed by proxy through many different political parties. These smaller parties can appear, grow, change, and die freely. This freedom allows political ideology to shift with the people. If a group of people have certain values they vote for the corresponding candidate, knowing that their vote will not be "thrown away" but rather can be used by that candidate to vote for whichever other leading candidate fits party policies best. It would be good if people did not stick themselves so firmly with meaningless labels like democrat and republican, instead let the multitude of beliefs be as multiple as they should.
Some people don't want to be involved in politics. They may not have the time or desire. Expecting, and worse forcing, them to be involved is dangerous and stupid. Why increase the number of voters that vote on whim, popularity, or simply for the party they grew up with. The proxy system allows such individuals to take their semi-active roll in politics in a productive way. The semi-interested citizen passes his vote to one of his friends or someone in his community that he knows has the same interests as him. The semi-interested citizen then takes his hands off and allows his proxy to handle and watch politics. When there is an issue that the semi-interested citizen is truly interested in, he can take a more active role, and maybe only during the big elections will he check and make sure his vote is for something he finds acceptable.
A true democracy is a system of government where every citizen has the right to vote on every law and every issue. With the advent of computer technologies, continuous proxy voting could be used to create a form of true democracy. Imagine that laws can be proposed by the public, are placed on a website that can be searched or arranged by date proposed, number of votes so far, and so on. When a law receives enough votes it is manifest. True democracy has problems on a large scale, like on the national level, but could be incredibly useful and effective for smaller organizations or local governments.
What follows is an example of a government structure similar to contemporary ones but employing proxy voting in the electoral process. This could represent a national or state government, or could even be part of a Hierarchical Republic as defined in another article.
The system I propose is similar to parliamentary governments. The role of president is a largely symbolic one. The president represents the image of the people and may concern himself mostly with foreign affairs and military and intelligence matters. The president is elected by direct continuous proxy voting.
The congress consists of one house. It is in charge of legislative matters as well as appointing the Prime Minister. There are a limited number of seats in congress. If a candidate receives a number of votes equal to the total eligible voting population divided by the the number of seats available, they are guaranteed one seat. If they receive a number of votes that is a multiple of that number (rounded down) they receive that many seats. If seats remain after all guaranteed seats have been given then the remaining votes (that is the votes left after subtracting those that have been examined for guaranteed seats) of all the candidates are examined and seats are given to those with the greatest number of remaining votes. Continuous proxy voting could be used for congressional representative selection. Every year the votes could be recounted, possibly resulting in changing seats. The congress could also handle it's legislative matters (like passing bills to laws) through continuous proxy voting as well.
The prime minister has domestic executive power. The prime minister is selected by the congress through continuous proxy voting. These votes are made publicly, not privately like the votes of citizens for presidential or congressional election. The publicity of congressional voting ensures that the public knows what a congressman truly stands for, which determines who the public votes for. In the case of an emergency the congress can grant the president emergency power, effectively giving the president the powers of prime minister as well, and possibly more.
The judiciary system could work the same as it currently does. However one may want to consider whether judges should be elected by the people, appointed by the president, appointed by the prime minister, or appointed by the congress. Also one may want to consider whether these appointments are for life, or under constant reevaluation. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these decisions, and I am hesitant to make a recommendation.