Table of Contents

Foreword: Global Consensus Building

Introduction: Why and How to Re-Invent Democracy

I. The Network's Geneva Roots: A Leap across Centuries

II. The Network's Roots in Swiss Popular Sovereignty

III. The Dismantling of Popular Sovereignty in America

IV. Direct Democracy Global Network

V. Expanding 21st Century Direct Democracy Tools

VI. The 10 Step Process

Epilogue

Sources

Appendices

Contact

Foreword: Global Consensus Building

In anticipation of the completion of the Direct Democracy Global Network, I am writing this essay to explain why its new political consensus-building technology is urgently needed, in tandem with a global social network making it accessible to voters worldwide.

The technology and network will enable large numbers of voters to exercise their political sovereignty, by collectively determining legislative priorities, and deciding what public and private policies are needed to protect and promote their general welfare and the common good.

This technology and network are especially needed to empower voters to play a decisive role in resolving and preventing crises and conflicts of all types and at all levels, within and across nation-state boundaries. The ensuing paradigm shift will pave the way for the collective attainment of peace and security throughout the world.

Since an effective and globally scalable consensus building technology does not presently exist, nor is there a voter-driven social network dedicated to utilizing it, I have invented both using the tools I acquired as a political scientist and computer scientist. They are outlined in the description below of the Direct Democracy Global Network. They are also accessible in greater detail here.

The description also identifies key historic roots of this consensus building technology and network, from my vantage points as a dual citizen of Switzerland and the United States. It outlines a 10 Step Process enabling voters worldwide to use the technology and the network's direct democracy tools originally invented in Switzerland several centuries ago. This platform enables voters worldwide to build consensus across partisan lines, and voter-controllled political parties large enough to decide who runs for office, who is elected, and what laws are passed.

Comments are welcome here:

hello@directdemocracyglobalnetwork.net

Sincerely,

N.J. Bordier

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Introduction: Why and How to Re-Invent Democracy

The need for the Direct Democracy Global Network is reflected in voters' increasing political disenfranchisement and loss of control over elections, lawmakers, legislative bodies, and legislation. The result is widespread governmental neglect of the basic needs, priorities, and demands of their constituents and populations as a whole. This neglect is accompanied by increasing inequality and a widening gap between the wealth and income possessed by various socio-demographic segments of the population.

The roots of this incapacitation are shown by historical records and academic research. They indicate traditional democratic institutions and processes have been weakened and even deliberately altered to prevent voters from exercising fundamental, inherent political rights, and the political sovereignty attributed to them for centuries.

These rights and sovereignty were articulately described, advocated, and defended in Western Europe centuries ago. And while they found echoes in the views of the founders of the American republic, their most ardent and powerful opponents have also been Americans. Instead of supporting majority rule, they have instituted undemocratic minority rule governments that have led to widespread voter distrust of lawmakers and opposition to minority rule governments that fail to ensure their constituents' their basic needs.

To counteract this incapacity and restore basic rights and popular sovereignty, the Direct Democracy Global Network I am proposing is designed to connect voters worldwide to each other online, within and across nation-state boundaries. The network provides them free access to direct democracy levers that originated in Switzerland, which enable them to exercise their political sovereignty by electing popularly responsive governments capable of meeting their needs and acting in the public interest.

As described below, the network enables them to form their own online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions to elect lawmakers to enact their priorities and agendas, while voters circumvent interferences impeding exercise of their sovereignty.

What is most striking is that original electoral processes, which were acclaimed to function democratically by according citizens "universal suffrage" -- the right to vote -- did not do so, and were replete with contradictory provisions. Nonetheless, and despite these contradictions, it was assumed citizens would exercise this right by voting in periodic elections to choose representatives to enact legislation responding to voters' needs, common interests, and demands.

Majority Rule versus Minority Rule

The original intent of this democratic form of government is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as follows:

“Democracy is a system of government in which laws, policies, leadership, and major undertakings of a state or other polity are directly or indirectly decided by the “people,” . . . generally understood since the mid-20th century to include all (or nearly all) adult citizens.”

Unfortunately, by the 21st century, this definition does not appear to portray what is actually occurring in the large majority of countries, due to factors described below. Evidence indicates these factors lower voter turnout, create significant gaps between laws passed by elected representatives, and largely ignore the priorities, needs, and demands of lawmakers' constituents and populations.

Predominant influences among these factors are political parties, which appear to be modern day incarnations of the political actors in Geneva that political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau railed against in the 18th century. His criticisms were directed to their relentless efforts to curtail and supplant what he considered inalienable individual rights and popular political sovereignty, and acquire control of legislative bodies.

Unfortunately, Rousseau's insights, admonitions, and recommendations were largely ignored, resulting in is the dramatic decline in the number of fully functioning democracies worldwide. According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance based in Stockholm, Sweden:

"Half of democratic governments around the world are in decline, undermined by problems ranging from restrictions on freedom of expression to distrust in the legitimacy of elections."

"The number of backsliding countries—those with the most severe democratic erosion—is at its peak and includes the established democracy of the United States, which still faces problems of political polarization, institutional disfunction, and threats to civil liberties. Globally, the number of countries moving toward authoritarianism is more than double the number moving toward democracy."

"Global democracy’s decline includes undermining of credible elections results, restrictions on online freedoms and rights, youth disillusionment with political parties as well as out-of-touch leaders, intractable corruption, and the rise of extreme right parties that has polarized politics."

"The Global State of Democracy Indices (GSoD) show that authoritarian regimes have deepened their repression, with 2021 being the worst year on record. More than two-thirds of the world’s population now live in backsliding democracies or authoritarian and hybrid regimes."

"In Europe, almost half of all democracies—a total of 17 countries-- have suffered erosion in the last five years. These declines affect 46 per cent of the high-performing democracies."

"Authoritarianism continues to deepen. Almost half of all authoritarian regimes have worsened."

"Democracy does not appear to be evolving in a way that reflects quickly changing needs and priorities. There is little improvement, even in democracies that are performing at mid-range or high levels.""

Academic research in Europe and the US supports findings that vital decisions tend not to be made directly or indirectly by "the people". Instead, in nations throughout the world, the prevailing form of governance is more accurately described as "minority rule".

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I. The Network's Geneva Roots: A Leap across Centuries

Portrait by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1753

What I find most remarkable about Rousseau is that he condemned outrightly core political views held by powerful groups in 18th century European society.

He wrote and spoke out against the purported "divine rights" attributed to monarchs and nobles, along with the rising power of commercially and financially successful elites he observed in Geneva and France. The only rights he recognized are the inherent birth rights that every individual is born with, rich and poor, which cannot be transferred and certainly cannot be usurped.

The inherent rights of citizens include the non-transferable right to determine "the general will" in "assemblies" in which they participate and control. While they can assign "magistrate" roles to bodies that transform the decisions into laws, these roles are perfunctory and logistical only.

In addition, at same the time that religious orders such as catholicism and protestanism were spreading throughout Europe, Rousseau objected to political interference by "prelates" who were members of religious orders, and supported the views of the elites.

These views are a far cry from what is occurring in purportedly democratic forms of representative government and their elections in the 21st century. Critics claim they have been engineered by undemocratic and anti-democratic political parties and special interests to transfer popular political sovereignty from the sovereign citizens and voters to lawmakers and governments that enact laws and programs for which they are unaccountable.

American Professor Adrian Kuzminski, notes in Fixing the System, the observations of Ellen Meiksins Wood:

“Representative government and voting as we know them not only have nothing to do with democracy, they actually stand in opposition to it. . . the novelty of the American idea . . . fosters not the exercise of political power but its relinquishment, its transfer to others, its alienation . . . the people give up their actual right to direct participation in government in return for the mostly symbolic privilege of electing representatives pledged to honor human rights.

Rousseau foresaw this writing on the wall when he advocated the adoption of the direct democracy practices that were emerging in the regions that formed the Swiss Confederation, such as the right of citizens to conduct initiatives and referendums that were binding on lawmakers. While this adoption did not occur at the top governmental level, they did spawn global efforts to transpose such rights to citizens in countries around the world, as described below.

Fortunately, the Direct Democracy Global Network is designed to provide voters worldwide the tools and services they need for creating their own online decentralized "assemblies" that can be digitally interconnected if they wish, for deciding what laws are to be enacted at any level. These assemblies can function simultaneously at local, regional, and cross-national levels, and acquire sufficient voting strength to elect lawmakers of their choice. They can address any demands, crises, and emergencies they wish, and formulate any policies and laws they desire.

So where did these unique advances in political thinking originate? The most influential sources of modern democratic principles and doctrines, according to many historians and analysts, can be traced back to ancient Greece, and renowned philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Yet others consider Switzerland and the 18th century Geneva born Jean-Jacques Rousseau to be just as influential, and possibly more so.

For example, Yale University Professor of Political Science Stephen Smith considers Rousseau's unique conceptualizations of human nature, inalienable human rights, "the general will" and the social contract to have exerted an unparalleled influence on political doctrines right up to modern times. (See lectures 18. Democracy and Participation: Rousseau's Discourse; 19. Democracy and Participation: Rousseau’s Discourse; and 20. Democracy and Participation: Rousseau's Social Contract. I-II).

Equally noteworthy are modern critics and researchers who claim these core features of authentic democracy continue to be dismantled. To counteract such dismantling, it is the mission of the Direct Democracy Global Network to utilize emerging technology to empower voters worldwide to resurrect core elements of Rousseau's seminal thinking and advocacy, including his authorship of constitutions for several countries to implement his views.

Born in Geneva in 1712, he was a radical democracy advocate, who dedicated most of his life to vigorously arguing in favor of inalienable individual rights and popular political sovereignty. Specifically, he declared that citizens’ possess the sole power to determine the "the general will", and irrevocably control governing bodies in order to implement their will. Simultaneously, he vigorously refuted the views of wealthy "patrician" families, aristocrats of assorted lineage, and even monarchists defending the French monarchy, whom he accused of relentlessly fighting to assert control of governing bodies, especially to use them to levy taxes unfairly and inequitably on all inhabitants.

Rousseau’s unique and expansive ideas about individual liberty were well-known in the 18th century. His doctrines advocating self-government were also well-known, especially his insistence that government officials are “servants” of the people. He authored the famous Social Contract in which he provided a multi-faceted rationale and numerous prescriptions for building political institutions capable of empowering individuals to use government to protect their liberty. Given the simultaneous emergence of Switzerland’s popular sovereignty doctrines and direct democracy principles, he urged European countries to emulate them.

Although Rousseau’s life was caught up in turbulent cultural, economic, and political upheavals inside and outside his native city, his writings displayed dogged determination to make sense of these upheavals, as Swedish historian and American university scholar describes in Rousseau and Geneva: From the First Discourse to The Social Contract, 1749–1762.

As a consequence, Rousseau’s radical views were controversial and widely condemned during and after his lifetime, even by those who considered him an unparalleled genius. Although he is regarded as one of the world’s most influential thinkers and authors, the following critique was written by historians Will and Ariel Durant:

“How did it come about that a man born poor, losing his mother at birth and soon deserted by his father, afflicted with a painful and humiliating disease, left to wander for twelve years among alien cities and conflicting faiths, repudiated by society and civilization, repudiating Voltaire, Diderot, the Encyclopédie and the Age of Reason, driven from place to place as a dangerous rebel, suspected of crime and insanity . . . how did it come about that this man, after his death, triumphed over Voltaire, revived religion, transformed education, elevated the morals of France, inspired the Romantic movement and the French Revolution, influenced . . . the socialism of Marx, the ethics of Tolstoy and, altogether, had more effect upon posterity than any other writer or thinker of that eighteenth century?"

He pursued this avocation even when his idiosyncratic formulations for reversing growing inequality evoked criticism from wealthy patricians and aristocratic proponents of social, political, and economic hierarchies. At that time, Geneva was largely governed by an oligarchy comprised of wealthy families whose control of governing institutions enabled them to levy and collect taxes from all families and individuals. The population at large considered their tax levies unfair, as was their undemocratic control of the governing institutions that enabled them to decide these and related matters.

And while he read widely and familiarized himself with the renowned authors of his time, and met many of them in his travels, especially to Paris, his eclectic views were idiosyncratic and non-conformist. He opposed the censorship of intellectuals’ views and writings by members of both patrician families and aristocrats in Geneva. In retaliation, they frequently banned works and their authors, who could be beaten, and even killed if they deviated from orthodoxy. Nonetheless, even though Rousseau could mince words if necessary to propagate this views and avoid censorship, he rarely went out of his way to conform, even though he often found himself unwelcome in many places throughout his life.

On occasion, Rousseau did try to immerse himself into other ways of thinking aligned with more patriarchal and aristocratic views. They included those espoused by prominent French intellectual Voltaire and prominent partisans in nearby France, which was ruled by an oppressive monarchy ended by a revolution lasting from 1789 -1799. But soon thereafter he repudiated Voltaire and these views, and re-aligned his views with those of the people with whom he grew up in his native city of Geneva, and in surrounding regions that later coalesced into the nation-state of Switzerland.

What I find most impressive about Rousseau's work is that it grew ot of his comprehensive analysis of virtually all types of human interactions. He delved into ancient history and immersed himself in works written centuries before his time, including those of the Greek philosopher Plutarch. His aims included extending beyond an understanding of human nature and inherent birth rights to identifying the institutions and processes he considered indispensable to ensuring ordinary people are the sole, sovereign decision-makers.

In arguing that lawmakers in government are the servants of the people, he was countering long-standing patriarchal and aristocratic views that were being relentlessly affirmed to create a highly stratified and rigid system of social classes. Undaunted, he painstakingly identified, described, and prescribed specific ways and means by which sovereign citizens can determine the general will, such as gathering together to make decisions, and thereafter voting in elections to decide which "servants" of the people will hold positions in governing institutions."

“Rousseau believed in a legislative process that necessitates the active involvement of every citizen in decision-making through discussion and voting. He coined this process as the “general will”, the collective will of a society as a whole, even if it may not necessarily coincide with the individual desires of each member.” [141] Wikipedia

"Throughout his life he kept returning to the thought that people are good by nature but have been corrupted by society and civilization. He did not mean to suggest that society and civilization are inherently bad but rather that both had taken a wrong direction and become more harmful as they became more sophisticated." Encyclopedia Britannica

Paradoxically, Rousseau signed his original works “J.J. Rousseau, Citoyen de Geneve”. But later, after Geneva elders condemned his books and they were ordered to be destroyed, he renounced his citizenship. Interestingly, he maintained his independent, idiosyncratic views even after they were roundly condemned, and he was declared persona non grata in one place and one country after another. He simply moved on to other less hostile environments where he could find influential people who would protect him.

What makes Rousseau’s 18th century work especially relevant to the Direct Democracy Global Network in the 21st century is its emphasis on the source of political liberty — people’s rights at birth, and the institutions and processes required for them to exercise it -- not on constitutions, laws, court decisions, cultural mores, etc.

What he railed against were the external forces and factors that obstructed this exercise, and limited the possibilities for people to live their lives in their own way, as part of self-defining and self-determining communities. They are a far cry from the enclosed enclaves within election-districts that are created and controlled by modern, pre-emptive political parties that disenfranchise voters by means of pre-set priorities and slates of candidates that are determined by top officials.

Rousseau's political views and entreaties exhort us today to re-invent such self-defining communities -- a primary goal of the consensus building, agenda setting, and political organizing technology embedded in the Direct Democracy Global Network. As described in the next section, Rousseau's Geneva-based philosophical and political enlightenment was intertwined with the wisdom of indigenous mountain dwellers in regions that became Switzerland, who created and defended unique pathways to exercising and retaining their self-defined political sovereignty.

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II. The Network's Roots in Swiss Popular Sovereignty

Outside the region that eventually coalesced into the nation-state Switzerland, in earlier centuries, neighboring France and the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty were rife with internal and external conflicts and attacks. But one notable exception within the region were people living high in the mountains who co-operated to build peaceful, agrarian communities. They were well-armed and capable of fending off external attackers

As early 1291, fiercely independent and autonomous farmers and peasants banded together to provide each other mutual aid and protection against foreign invaders. As the formal structure of the nation took shape, governing laws were written. They included the insertion of self-governing laws into Switzerland’s evolving governmental structure that entitled Swiss citizens at the grassroots living in “communes” and “cantons”. They created a “direct democracy” form of government that included “initiatives” empowering citizens to directly propose laws to lawmakers, and “referendums” empowering citizens to directly mandate amendments and revocation of existing laws.

As early 1291, fiercely independent and autonomous farmers and peasants living high in the Swiss mountain ranges banded together to provide each other mutual aid and protection against foreign invaders. They were strong and well-armed, and included the legendary William Tell. He was "an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow", who is credited with slaying a tyrannical Austrian duke. According to the legend,

"Tell's defiance and tyrannicide encouraged the population to open rebellion and a pact against the foreign rulers with neighbouring Schwyz and Unterwalden, marking the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy. Tell was considered the father of the Swiss Confederacy."

Due to the successes of these early inhabitants of Switzerland in repelling external attackers, more and more of their neighbors in nearby regions joined their mutual aid alliance.

As the formal structure of the nation took shape, governing laws were written. They included self-governing laws inserted into the country’s evolving federal structure by Swiss people living at the grassroots in “communes” and “cantons”. Among the fundamental laws inserted into the constitution, creating a “direct democracy” form of government, are "initiatives" that empower citizens to directly propose laws to lawmakers, and "referendums" that empower citizens to directly mandate amendments and revocation of existing laws. These actions are legitimized by nationwide votes by Swiss citizens to accept or reject specific proposals formulated by Swiss citizens, which mandate implementing actions by federal lawmakers.

What is most impressive in the evolution of the Swiss nation-state is that the people living at the grassroots succeeded in maintaining their autonomy and authority to launch and vote in initiatives and referendums during the several centuries when Switzerland’s statehood was being formalized.

Eventually, a bicameral federal legislature was created, with the lower level comprised of lawmakers representing the population, and the upper level comprised of lawmakers representing the cantons, all subject to implementing the results of referendums and initiatives. Wisely and presciently, rules have been made to prevent any elected lawmaker from serving more than one-year term as president, and prevent any of the multiple Swiss political parties from placing one of their elected lawmakers in the presidency for more than one year.

An important consequence of Switzerland's historic "direct democracy" roots, and evolution into a formal nation-state, is the emergence of political and cultural norms that favor compromise and consensus building to reconcile divergent views. The emergence of these norms was motivated in all likelihood by common recognition of the need to reconcile the internal diversity existing within Switzerland, reflected in distinct, geographically-based cultures; four different languages; and two major religions.

In the early years of forming the Swiss Confederation, the Swiss people most likely agreed that in order to unite internally to build a common front to repel external adversaries, their survival might well depend on their ability to reconcile diversity and avoid being internally divided by domestic quarrels and conflicts. A small country like Switzerland, existing in environments dominated by far larger, well-armed, and often aggressive countries, needed to be as free as possible of internal confrontations in order to circumvent external confrontations with foreign countries. On many occasions in the early days of its existence, what saved the day were the high Swiss mountain ranges which few foreigners could climb better or faster than the Swiss themselves.

What is also salient is about the pervasive, long-standing consensus-building norms is that Swiss federal lawmakers strive to avoid provoking Swiss citizens into launching and passing initiatives and referendums mandating federal lawmakers to change what they have done, or are planning to do. In effect, these fundamental rights, which that empower Swiss citizens at the grassroots possess to decide what laws are passed, revoked, or amended, are reported to exercise an inhibitory influence on lawmaking at the federal level.

Significant benefits of Switzerland's accrued from its internal and external circumstances and environments, however. One such benefit, dating back to the early 1800s, is Switzerland's decision to declare its political neutrality and refusal to take sides in external conflicts. This neutrality has contributed to internal and external stability. In contrast to countries where internal and external conflicts are endemic, and political violence is frequent, the politically neutral, consensus-building Switzerland is internally peaceful, by comparison, and can play a uniquely helpful international role as conflict mediator and peace builder.

In addition, the country has become the home of numerous humanitarian organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and as one of the four major offices of the United Nations. In the difficult times characterizing the first two decades of the 21st century, Switzerland can also serve as an encouraging role model illustrating ways and means to use "direct democracy" to reverse the global decline of democracy.

Although Rousseau urged European countries whose governments were in formation to adopt Switzerland’s model of popular sovereignty based on “direct democracy” model, it was fully functioning and vibrant only in Switzerland.

Nor was it emulated by the founders of the American republic when they devised new institutions and processes, and ratified the constitution in 1776. In fact, the founders incorporated fundamentally undemocratic features limiting the scope of citizen’s rights, such as the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate

The consequences of hobbled democratic institutions and processes are dire when judged by the precipitous decline of democratic institutions and processes worldwide, not merely in the US and Europe. Increasing ways and means are being devised and implemented, legally and illegally, by politicians, political parties, and special interests, to restrict citizens’ and voters’ control of elections. They prevent citizens and voters from duly registering to vote, choosing candidates, setting platforms and legislative agendas, casting ballots, and having their ballots accurately counted.

One consequence are widening gaps between the needs, priorities, and demands of people at the grassroots, on the one hand, and those of lawmakers who enact legislation, on the other hand. In my view, these retrograde developments indicate traditional democratic institutions and processes are failing to withstand the tests of time. Demands for reform are of scant avail, because effective internal reform mechanisms are ineffective and inaccessible. Consequently, it is my view that these institutions and processes must be re-invented externally — to protect individual liberty and popular sovereignty, as defined by Rousseau, and incorporate the basis premises and tenets of “direct democracy”.

To do so, voters must be able to circumvent anti-democratic and un-democratic laws and decisions that have been enacted, by using the advanced technologies that have been developed to support these rights and expand opportunities to exercise them. The Direct Democracy Global Network incorporates these technological advances and combines them with the prescriptions provided by Rousseau and the Swiss model of popular sovereignty and direct democracy.

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III. The Dismantling of Popular Sovereignty in America

Significant obstructions leading to the dismantling of popular sovereignty in American date back to obstacles contained in the U.S. Constitution ratified in 1778, such as the U.S. Electoral College, as well as subsequent obstacles stemming from them.

By this time, Alpine dwellers in regions that founded Switzerland had already put in place the essential principles and practices of popular sovereignty and direct democracy that were later in enshrined in the Swiss constitution.

In contrast, European settlers who established themselves in colonies in North America incrementally ignored and began dismantling these principles and practices, even while revolting against monarchical despotism that was imposed on them from England.

While there were many causes of this dismantling, key among them has been the practices of US political parties undermining the inherent political rights that Rousseau attributed to all citizens, along with popular sovereignty championed by Switzerland, and rendering inoperable classic direct democracy practices emanating from Switzerland.

This dismantling is epitomized in practices, laws, and regulations engineered by undemocratic political parties, which deny voters effective mechanisms for defining voters' legislative priorities and agendas and slates of electoral candidates. They also obstruct voters' efforts to form their own alternative political parties that do provide them effective mechanisms. These factors include the following:

• Political parties usurp the prerogatives of voters to set priorities, and determine who runs for office, who wins elections, and what laws are passed


• Elections controlled by parties serve as legal mechanisms for transferring voters' political sovereignty to party-backed lawmakers, instead of providing organizational vehicles through which voters can exercise their sovereignty.


• Many voters are legally and illegally prevented from registering to vote, casting ballots, and having their votes accurately tallied.


• Rules enable candidates to be declared winners even when all the other candidates running against them cumulatively received more votes.


• Voters are subjected to influences that distort their perceptions and judgement, emanating from biased social media, political parties, and special interests.


• These distorting influences can spur voters to vote against their interests for candidates who subsequently ignore their needs, demands, and priorities once they are in office.

One salient political consequence is US voters' loss of faith in elected representatives, parties backing them, and electoral processes and institutions. For example, immediately following the 2018 US mid-term elections, half of registered voters expressed the view that the newly elected Congress did not represent their views, including Democrats, Independents and Republicans.

This loss of faith is a long-standing phenomenon. The views of voters surveyed in 2018 are similar to those of mainstream US voters collected during several decades. Surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center between 1987 and 2007 showed that Americans have felt increasingly estranged from government, and became convinced their elected representatives did not care what they think. These feelings exist among voters belonging to the two main U.S. political parties, as well as voters registered as independents.

The result is what is referred to as "Minority Rule", described by Harvard University Professors Levitsky and Ziblatt who conducted extensive research revealing the contours of Minority Rule in the US, and comparing it to countries abroad:

“Democracy is supposed to be a game of numbers: The party with the most votes wins. In our political system, however, the majority does not govern. Constitutional design and recent political geographic trends . . . have unintentionally conspired to produce what is effectively becoming minority rule.”

“No other established democracy has an Electoral College or makes regular use of the filibuster. And a political system that repeatedly allows a minority party to control the most powerful offices in the country cannot remain legitimate for long.”

In Tyranny of the Minority (2023),

"They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy: When political leaders realize they can no longer win at the ballot box, they begin to attack the system from within, condoning violent extremists and using the law as a weapon. Unfortunately, our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable.

"It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind."

The numerous causes of minority rule are complex and complicated. In the US, it has been alleged that reputedly "democratic" elections controlled by the two major US political parties result in the transfer of popular sovereignty to lawmakers backed by parties but not voters, who lack the power to nominate candidates of their choice.

Such party-controlled elections also generate chronic legislative conflicts, exacerbated by the lack of scalable, effective mechanisms for building consensus. They restrict voters’ choices to choosing between established parties and party candidates voters' disdain. The parties monopolize the electoral machinery and prevent competitive third parties from taking root and running candidates that have a fair chance of winning. And once a “winning” party and their candidates take office, they impose minority rule within the legislative bodies they control.

What is most worrisome is that few if any comprehensive solutions to overcome these challenges are on the table. Least promising are internal legislative reform efforts that lawmakers can veto. What is needed, and the solution proposed in this essay, the Direct Democracy Global Network, is a technology-driven, web-based global network that connects voters and provides them unique tools for building consensus across partisan lines. It incorporates innovations that experts argue are needed to

"[Integrate] social networks and the broader civil society into governance through new deliberative practices, such as citizens’ assemblies and other forms of impactful citizen engagement ‘that complement representative government and compensate for its waning legitimacy’.

In line with these recommendations, the primary mission of the Direct Democracy Global Network is to connect verified voters to each other online, within and across nation-state boundaries, without charge. It provides them a unique environment free of the undue influence of biased social media, undemocratic political parties, special interests, and partisan lines and ideologies. It empowers voters to autonomously build their own online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions, which can collectively gather and evaluate information; debate, discuss, and build consensus across partisan lines; and vote on who runs for office, who gets elected, and what laws are passed.

As I've mentioned, this network was inspired by Geneva’s Jean-Jacques Rousseau views on what constitutes authentic democracy, and Swiss popular sovereignty as expressed via direct democracy practices and laws enshrined in Switzerland's constitution. I argue below that Rousseau’s ideas and doctrines, and Switzerland’s unique form of popular sovereignty, are even more relevant today in the 21st century than they were in the 18th century, due to the complexities causing global democracy decline, and the lack of workable, near-term remedies.

While I recognize and applaud the wisdom of American political institutions and processes, I also recognize and applaud those of Rousseau and Swiss popular sovereignty expressed through constitutionally protected direct democracy. I propose in this essay that we revisit both, with special emphasis on ways and means for providing voters worldwide opportunities to take advantage of Rousseau’s vision and Swiss popular sovereignty by using the network’s free tools and services.

What evidence supports affirmations that contemporary mainstream voters have the capacities and proclivities to take this leap across centuries? While Rousseau was a keen observer of discernible influences on human behavior, and their evolution, can it be assumed they play a continuing role in protecting and supporting individual liberties? Will the capabilities of ordinary people to exercise sovereignty over elections survive opposition? Will the governing institutions, and the "magistrates" they elect to implement the "general will" defined by citizens in democratic assemblies persist and thrive?

Unfortunately, evidence indicates that the functioning of traditional political parties tends to undermine the beneficial lines of these positive evolutionary trends.

As European sociologist Robert Michels argued at the beginning of the last century, in Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (1911) "all organizations, even those in theory most egalitarian and most committed to democracy – like socialist political parties – are in fact oligarchical, and dominated by a small group of leadership." Wikipedia.

Support as well as opposition to Rousseau's premises are provided by University of California/Berkeley Professor of Psychology Dacher Keltner. His research findings demonstrate the evolutionary strengthening, as well as weakening, of cooperative, mutually beneficial, humanitarian traits within societies around the world. Akin to Rousseau's basic premises, research indicates that human beings possess inherent capabilities that can be purposefully cultivated for collectively caring for others -- but they can be countermanded.

As a case in point, Keltner's findings reveal the retrograde influence caused by the unbridled political power exercised by political parties, their special interest benefactors, and party-backed lawmakers in U.S. electoral, legislative, and judicial institutions. Their actions foster life-threatening and fatality-causing decisions at federal, state, and local levels, as he explains in The Power Paradox: The Promise and Peril of 21st Century Power’ | Talks at Google (YouTube. October 14, 2016.)

He describes how this exercise of power typically leads to inequality, “self-serving impulsivity”, “incivility and disrespect”, and “narratives of exceptionalism.” He makes the following assertion regarding the exercise of unbridled power in contemporary America:

"The United States politics is almost exclusively run by the very wealthy, who, succumbing to the power paradox, may be the very people most blind to the problems of powerlessness, poverty, and inequality."

Fortunately, this undemocratic pattern will be cancelled out, as Keltner explains in Survival of the Kindest. (YouTube. July 15, 2015.)

Keltner's research indicates positive, countervailing trends in the form of evolutionary patterns of interactions. At the same time, it also indicates the self-serving behaviors and conflict-producing interactions of competing political parties may well be a passing, retrograde blip in the forward march of humankind toward greater cooperation and collective problem-solving capabilities.

In addition to Keltner's work, there are additional related causes for optimism about the future of democratic governments and the role of social networks capable of sustaining them with unbiased algorithms, which will be leveraged by the Direct Democracy Global Network.

They include the numerical preponderance of the world’s 8.5 billion people, a number that dwarfs the comparatively small numbers of unscrupulous, power-seeking politicians, political parties, lawmakers, special interests, and despots endeavoring to increase their power, status, and wealth.

Far more people will be sharing mutually supportive values, cooperative behavioral norms, and altruistically oriented interrelationships than the political actors seeking to aggrandize their status by weakening the control ordinary people exercise over elections, their governments, and lawmakers.

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IV. Direct Democracy Global Network

In the West, grassroots direct democracy practices originated in mountainous regions that became the foundation of the country of Switzerland. They grew out of verbal agreements among armed members of peasant communities in well-defended enclaves to repel foreign invaders. Some of these agreements were written into simple treaties. Their practices, and citizens' legal rights to determine what laws are passed, spread throughout the region, taking the form of initiatives and referendums legally binding on lawmakers. They were subsequently protected by provisions written into the constitution of the Swiss confederation.

Throughout following centuries, they acquired Important socio-political and technological dimensions that support my contention that classic democratic doctrines and practices must be re-invented. They explain "why" and "how" democracy can re-invented by voters, using the technology-enabled consensus building tools and services provided by the Direct Democracy Global Network. These dimensions are described by the Principal Research Scientist Mark Klein at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.

He focuses on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and "social computing", specifically how computers can enable better knowledge-sharing and decision-making among groups of humans. Klein analyzes this broader dimension in “A Critical Review of Crowd-Scale Online Deliberation Technologies.”

Humanity now finds itself faced with pressing and highly complex problems – such as climate change, the spread of disease, international and economic insecurity, and so on - that call upon us to deliberate together at unprecedented scale, incorporating the input of large numbers of experts and stakeholders in order to find and agree upon the best solutions to adopt.

While the Internet now provides the cheap, capable, and ubiquitous communication infrastructure needed to enable crowd-scale deliberation, current technologies (i.e. social media tools such as email, forums, social networks, and so on) fare very poorly when applied to complex and contentious problems, producing toxic inefficient processes and highly sub-optimal outcomes. This paper explains the emergent crowd phenomena that underlie these poor outcomes and describes a set of integrated crowd-scale deliberation technologies - for idea generation, idea evaluation, and collective decision-making via negotiation - that are being developed to transcend these barriers.

Klein's work defines the broad context in which voters worldwide will be able to use the direct democracy tools and services accessible on the Direct Democracy Global Network to re-invent democracy. The network will enable them to increase their control over elections and legislation, by deciding who runs for office, who is elected, and what laws are passed. The description includes the 10 Step Process outlined below.

The steps and network surmount the “democratic deficits” diminishing the capabilities of governments and lawmakers to serve the public good. They are designed to fuel a global power shift to voters at the grassroots, via an autonomous web-based platform, a unique global consensus-building superstructure.

The ten steps described below incorporate consensus-building mechanisms that enable virtually unlimited numbers of people to connect online via a uniquely, autonomous social networking platform to collectively build consensus to set common legislative agendas, and form and manage their own voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions to elect lawmakers to enact their agendas.

They can use the network’s platform to vote on any proposals they wish, at any time and on any subject, without waiting for elections. For example, if voters oppose laws and policies that have been enacted, or are pending enactment, they can use the platform to vote on proposals that express their opposition, and transmit them to lawmakers with legislative mandates.

This unique capability prevents lawmakers from ignoring voters, which many often do between elections. If lawmakers do not heed voters’ priorities and mandates reflected in voters’ online votes, the voters can hold additional votes — “recall votes” in which they declare their intention to vote against the lawmakers in upcoming elections. Such “recall votes” alert lawmakers to the prospect of electoral defeat and loss of offices in legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government.

Critics of efforts to reform this dysfunctional status quo by empowering voters argue that voter empowerment will lead to more conflicts. But research shows that voters -- especially mainstream voters -- tend to favor building consensus and oppose polarizing actions that engender legislative stalemates.

One successful research project was conducted by Professor Beau Sievers and his teams of researchers at Dartmouth College and Harvard University. The findings of this research demonstrate that settings can be devised that are conducive to consensus building among diverse groups of people who did not previously know each other. (See How consensus-building conversation changes our minds and aligns our brains.)

These consensus-building settings are virtual opposites of the closed, conflict-producing political enclaves created by politicians and political parties attempting to corral voters into accepting their priorities rather than determine their own. Below are excerpts describing the research:

A few years ago, Dr. Sievers devised a study to improve understanding of how exactly a group of people achieves a consensus and how their individual brains change after such discussions.

The results showed that a robust conversation that results in consensus synchronizes the talkers’ brains — not only when thinking about the topic that was explicitly discussed, but related situations that were not.

The study also revealed at least one factor that makes it harder to reach accord: a group member whose strident opinions drown out everyone else.

“The groups with blowhards were less neurally aligned than were those with mediators, the study found.

"Perhaps more surprising, the mediators drove consensus not by pushing their own interpretations, but by encouraging others to take the stage and then adjusting their own beliefs — and brain patterns — to match the group. . . Being willing to change your own mind, then, seems key to getting everyone on the same page."

In anticipation of the description of the 10 Step Process below, here is a short synopsis of pivotal types of empowerment that the Direct Democracy Global Network's tools provide voters to increase their control over their own lives, their elections, and their governments (voters include individuals intending to vote, even if they have yet to be officially registered in an election district in which they are eligible to vote).

• Network tools enable voters to extend their spheres of influence beyond the boundaries of an election district in which they may be eligible to vote, by enabling them to join forces with voters in other election districts, within and beyond a single nation-state.


• Voters can use network communication tools at any time, day and night, to connect online with other voters using the network for a broad array of purposes.


• They can individually define, express and share their needs, priorities, and legislative agendas with other voters using the network whose identifies have been verified.


• The needs, priorities, and agendas that voters define do not have to conform to those of any political party, and can be updated, stored, retrieved, and shared at any time.


• For the first time in history, voters have an autonomous web-based platform where they can individually and collectively define priorities and legislative agendas that affect regions and election districts anywhere in their home country, and in nations and regions around the world.


• To call attention to their priorities and agendas on the part of individuals and groups outside the network, voters can use the network’s online voting utility to calculate how many voters support specific priorities and agendas, regions and election districts in which these voters reside (although voters can decide whether or not to provide this information), and publicize these numbers and locations through as many channels as they see fit.


• Voters can also share their needs, priorities, and legislative mandates with lawmakers anywhere at any time, and alert unresponsive lawmakers to the numbers of dissatisfied voters in their election districts who indicate they are learning towards voting to defeat them in future elections.


• The network’s AI and ML-based agenda-setting, consensus-building, and political organizing tools empower voters to create their own online political parties, and work within and between them to build consensus across partisan lines in support of specific agendas, as well as reach out across partisan lines to forge electoral bases large enough to win elections to defeat incumbent lawmakers and elect lawmakers of their choice to replace them.


• Voters can bypass AI-generated information containing falsehoods and misrepresentations, and actively participate in elections and influence legislative decision-making, by using the network’s person-to-person and teleconferencing tools to engage in real-time, face-to-face interactions with other network users.

To summarize, the 10 Step Process enables voters worldwide to operationalize Rousseau's insights and Swiss popular sovereignty and its direct democracy tools to build consensus across partisan lines, and increase their control over elections and their governments.

Notably, the U.S. political system can serve as a case in point of key causes of the global decline of democracy, attested by its recent ranking internationally as a “flawed democracy” — a sharp contrast to its formerly heralded model democracy.

Interestingly, the Swiss model of direct democracy has become more relevant and quite possibly indispensable in the 21st century, as described below, given the refusal of so many elected lawmakers to enact reforms of deliberately dismantled democratic institutions and processes, especially elections.

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V. Expanding 21st Century Direct Democracy Tools

The Direct Democracy Global Network adds significant tools and activities to the repertory of direct democracy instruments that have traditionally centered around initiatives and referendums. They address the decline of fully functioning democracies around the world, documented by the research conducted by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance cited above.

To reverse these setbacks, the Direct Democracy Global Network provides voters tools and services that enable them to re-build failed and failing democracies, and in the process re-invent them.

For example, they shift power to voters at the grassroots, connect them online, and empower them to democratically set legislative priorities and decide who is elected to be the lawmakers receiving the results of voters’ initiatives and referendums.

In effect, the network provides voters a unique and unprecedented web-based platform where they can dialogue, debate, and vote on any proposals and issues they wish at any time, and share their decisions as they best see fit.

For example, voters can use the platform to build consensus across partisan lines to set common legislative agendas, decide whether to join existing political parties, or create and manage their own parties, electoral coalitions, and voting blocs. Their parties, coalitions, and blocs can nominate electoral candidates and conduct campaigns to elect lawmakers of their choice, by engaging in the following activities:

• Build consensus across partisan lines from the grassroots upwards.


• Set common legislative agendas, and update them whenever necessary to keep pace with evolving needs and priorities.


• Create and manage formal and informal online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions, and host them on the network.


• Invite voters across the spectrum to join with them in forging cross-partisan electoral bases large enough to determine who runs for office, who gets elected, and what laws are passed.


• Mandate lawmakers to implement voters’ agendas by conducting petition drives, initiatives, referendums, and recall votes.

The Direct Democracy Global Network empowers voters to engage in activities such as the following that can effectively surmount and circumvent obstacles to democracy.

1. Participation in dialogues, debates, and bottom-up consensus-building. All too often, voters play passive and inconsequential roles in determining legislative priorities, reconciling divergent priorities, and resolving conflicts. The network’s agenda-setting and consensus-building tools and services enable voters to individually and collectively overcome obstacles to playing determining roles in these pivotal aspects of democracy.

They do so by enabling voters to set written legislative agendas, update them whenever necessary, transmit them to lawmakers and decision-makers, as well as track and evaluate their responsiveness to voters’ mandates.

2. Gaining control of political parties, lawmakers and governmental decision-makers. The preemptive role that traditional political parties and their elected lawmakers tend to play in ostensibly democratic and representative forms of government often minimizes voters’ electoral and legislative influence and control of their governments. This minimization is often due to the tendency of party officials and electoral candidates to decide their priorities by themselves, with scant input from their supporters and voters.

In order for initiatives and referendums to work effectively as core indispensable instruments of direct democracy, it is vitally important for voters to be able to democratically control political parties from the bottom up, and play determining roles in elections so that voters can nominate and elect candidates of their choice, and determine who are the lawmakers and decision-makers that receive the results of voters’ initiatives and referendums. The Direct Democracy Global Network provides voters political organizing tools and services for joining forces to democratically determine who runs for office, who gets elected, and what laws are passed.

The network’s agenda-setting and consensus-building tools and services, when combined with its political organizing tools and services, contains an inherent impetus to continually increase the numbers of voters who join together to build consensus across partisan lines. The larger these clusters grow, the more likely they are to nominate and elect candidates in sufficient numbers to control legislative and decision-making bodies, and halt the increasing emergence of legislative stalemates and paralyses.

Increasing voters’ influence and control is vital to reducing the age gap that often exists between lawmakers and decision-makers who remain in office for many terms and even decades, recently leading critics to argue that governments such as the U.S are becoming “gerontocracies” rather than democracies.

While the aging process often brings immeasurable wisdom to aged adults, it can also impede understanding and recognition of the needs, wants, and demands of younger and middle aged adults. In the political sphere, for example, younger voters in various locations around the world appear to be the more concerned about climate warming and halting climate disruption than older generations. It is important that they be able to elect lawmakers who are responsive to their demands.

3. Conducting and implementing petition drives, initiatives, referendums, and recall votes within shorter time frames It has become commonplace for voters’ roles in governance to be restricted to merely voting in elections. The consequence is that voters’ needs, wants, and demands tend to be given short shrift by political parties and their elected representatives who spend much of their time opposing each other and blocking each others’ legislative initiatives.

The Direct Democracy Global Network counteracts this undemocratic passivity by enabling voters to use the network as a platform to vote on any proposals they wish, at any time, anywhere, e.g. for conducting online petition drives, initiatives, referendums, and recall votes. They do not have to sit by passively between elections while lawmakers ignore them. If lawmakers are unresponsive, voters can conduct recall votes, transmit their results to warn unresponsive lawmakers when they risk electoral defeat if they fail to honor voters demands, and ultimately defeat them at the polls when they seek re-election.

4. Creating an autonomous, voter-centered platform functioning autonomously of existing governing institutions and processes. Voters can use the network’s platform to shift electoral and legislative control to themselves at the grassroots without previously changing existing governance frameworks. Voters worldwide can access the network’s and use tools and services free of charge. They can form online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions hosted on the network, whose members register to vote in election districts and venues where they are entitled to vote. These actions are separate and independent of the activities that take place using the platform.

5. Transnationally connecting people-to-people problem-solvers within and across nation-state boundaries. Voters throughout the world are experiencing many of the same needs, crises, and emergencies for which their individual governments have yet to devise effective solutions and reconcile divergent priorities. The Direct Democracy Global Network provides them a platform where they can join forces to devise common solutions, policies, and programs, and take action within their home countries to implement their plans. This is especially indispensable with respect to devising and seeking to implement common, amicable, non-violent solutions to spreading and escalating conflicts.

Fortunately, the spread of mobile telecommunications and digitization of popular communications have brought tens of millions of devoted and capable individuals, groups, and organizations worldwide into active, public, problem-solving processes. Sole governments are no longer separate and isolated problem-solvers and implementers. What can accelerate this new plateau of decision-making are the tools provided by the direct democracy movement and the Direct Democracy Global Network platform designed to bring voters at the grassroots directly into these processes.

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VI. The 10 Step Process

Key premises of the Direct Democracy Global Network and the 10 Step Process are supported by several decades of research demonstrating the value and efficacy of the phenomenon known as "crowdsourcing. ".

They include New York University's prophetic Professor Clay , who was among the first to recognize the transformative political potential of political crowdsourcing.

He analyzed the web-based activities of self-selecting groups of people without previous organizational ties coming together to solve problems. Shirky’s prescient understanding of the combined power of these phenomena is described in Wikipedia as follows:

In his book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations., Shirky explains how he has long spoken in favor of crowdsourcing and collaborative efforts online. . . . He discusses the ways in which the action of a group adds up to something more than just aggregated individual action. . . The fourth and final step is collective action, which Shirky says is ‘mainly still in the future.’ The key point about collective action is that the fate of the group as a whole becomes important.

What I find most interesting and encouraging about Shirky's insights is that they undergird core premises of the Direct Democracy Global Network. One key premise is that voters can and will use network tools to create their own immediately responsive, democratic, and flexible online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions controlled by the voters who build and manage them. The members of these voter-controlled entities can use network tools and technologies, especially the voting utility, to adopt, update, share, and publicize evolving priorities, while functioning democratically on an ad hoc basis.

They do not have to transform their blocs, parties, and coalitions into formal organizations, although they can choose to formalize their existence and operations if circumstances warrant -- e.g. if they wish to officially register their existence in specific election districts in order to obtain official ballot lines in chosen districts. Even then, these parties do not have to replicate the rigid structures, ideologies, agendas, and operations of traditional parties that have been in existence for decades, which may not serve the interests and resonate with contemporary voters and people at the grassroots.

In addition to Shirky’s contributions, the research and work of Nobel laureate and American economist Elinor Ostrom PhD lend empirical support to a core premise of the Direct Democracy Global Network.

In her article, Are Ordinary People Able to Self-Organize?, she asserts that self-selecting groups of people -- such as crowdsourced blocs of voters using the Direct Democracy Global Network -- are capable of governing themselves and their local communities.

Her extensive fieldwork focused on how people interact with ecosystems such as forests, fisheries, and irrigation systems, challenging the conventional wisdom that ordinary people weren’t able to successfully manage natural resources without any regulation or privatization. She believed that people are perfectly capable of taking control of decisions that affect their lives.” Ostrom described eight design principles that affect the success of self-organized governance systems, for example collective choices, mechanisms of conflict resolution and the recognition of a community’s self-determination by the authorities.” [italics added]

Ostrom's findings support the premise that voters that can effectively and flexibly use the Direct Democracy Global Network without having to build or transform their own votings blocs, parties, and coalitions into formal organizations. They can choose to formalize their existence and operations if circumstances warrant -- e.g. if they wish to officially register their existence in specific election districts in order to obtain official ballot lines in chosen districts. Even then, these parties do not have to replicate the rigid structures, ideologies, agendas, and operations of traditional parties that have been in existence for decades, which may not serve the interests and resonate with contemporary voters and people at the grassroots.

These options and flexibility are inherent in the 10 Step Process described below.

Step 1. Voters use the Direct Democracy Global Network to create a decentralized civic infrastructure of democracy by engaging in continuous grassroots deliberations, debates, and online voting.

Step 2. Voters use the crowdsourcing tools accessible on the Direct Democracy Global Network to connect and unite online to gain control of elections and legislation.

Step 3. Voters define and share their legislative priorities, collaborate to build consensus across partisan lines, and collectively set common legislative agendas.

Step 4. Voters join forces online to build their own online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions.

Step 5. Voters’ blocs, parties, and coalitions nominate electoral candidates, place them on official ballot lines, and elect them to enact voters’ legislative agendas.

Step 6. Voters fact check and debunk social media disinformation using the network’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tools.

Step 7. Voters use Direct Democracy Global Network tools to conduct petition drives, referendums, initiatives, and recall votes; publicize their results, and mandate lawmakers to enact voters’ legislative priorities.

Step 8. Voters mandate lawmakers they elect to reform election laws and legislative processes to ensure Majority Rule throughout all branches of government, while protecting universally recognized minority rights.

Step 9. Voters use network tools to raise funds online to finance and conduct campaigns to elect their candidates.

Step 10. Voters create a new “International Order” by building multi-national online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions; devising and enacting common peace-keeping plans; and voting online to collectively deploy multi-national peacekeepers to resolve conflicts without the use of force.

Epilogue

Applying the concept of complexity to democracy helps reveal the difficulties of grasping the full scope, breadth, and depth of democratic processes and institutions worldwide, and rectifying their failures.

Many of these complexities are independent causes of their failures. Many were inherent in original principles, such as separation of branches of government. In addition, many others resulted from deliberate dismantling of democratic institutions and processes. The dismantlers include anti-democratic political parties, their candidates and lawmakers elected to anti-democratic legislative bodies, and the special interests that fund them.

They have re-engineered and tampered with fundamental precepts, such as free and fair elections and laws ensuring them. Other types of interference have led to the intentional, outright disenfranchisement of voters. These include obstacles preventing them from exercising the inherent rights embedded in their political sovereignty, such as setting political and legislative priorities, and deciding who runs for election, who gets elected, and what laws are passed.

In addition, again under the heading of complexity, is the disproportionate numbers of lawmakers compared to their constituents. Very small numbers of lawmakers control legislative bodies, typically numbering no more than a few thousand. They pass laws and impose them on tens of millions of captive voters they have confined to gerrymandered election districts, without even knowing what their needs and priorities are, or devising mechanisms for finding out. Worse still, neither lawmakers nor their constituents have effective mechanisms for reconciling divergent priorities, needs, interests, and demands.

These factors, and the complexity of their combined interactions, have led many theorists, including a Nobel laureate, to declare authentic democracy is mathematically impossible.

I beg to differ, based on the emergence of digitally based, decision-assisting technologies, such as those incorporated into the platform of the Direct Democracy Global Network.

I have described them in the technology patented by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office accessible here . By tapping into the power of these technologies, I have created a web-based, global superstructure enabling voters worldwide to build consensus across ideological and partisan lines largely fabricated by political parties, politicians, and special interests. This autonomous superstructure enables them to escape the constraints imposed on corralled voters -- sovereign citizen decision-makers -- by undemocratic and anti-democratic governmental processes and institutions.

Virtually unlimited numbers of voters within and across nation-state boundaries can use this paradigm-shifting network to manage global complexity by building such large electoral bases, and cross-partisan voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions, that they can win elections wherever enough of them can register to vote. They can define their own political priorities and set and implement common legislative agendas by defeating unresponsive lawmakers and electing representatives of their choice.

It is imperative this network be operationalized as soon as possible, to empower voters worldwide to exercise their political sovereignty to control governments that are jeopardizing their lives Otherwise, much of the world is likely to be engulfed and demolished by uncontrollable catastrophes. They include preventable, human-caused, governmentally enabled catastrophes in an overheated planet that have recently burned most of densely populated Los Angeles and southern California to ashes.

This catastrophe is dwarfed by the totality of similar catastrophes around the world, which have caused millions of people to lose their lives, homes and livelihoods, and sustain life-threatening injuries. These human-caused catastrophes appear to be occurring randomly, causing droughts and wildfires, raising sea levels and moving shore lines, and destructive hurricanes and tornadoes.

Scientists have been warning for decades that what is happening now was bound to happen unless governments changed course. But they were ignored, and continue to be ignored by legislative bodies and lawmakers beholden to special interests that cannot be held accountable by their disenfranchised constituents.

The solution is a global platform, the Direct Democracy Global Network. It is uniquely capable of empowering voters worldwide to exercise their political sovereignty to control elections and legislative bodies. The network's expanded set of direct democracy tools and services enable voters to replace unresponsive lawmakers with elected representatives of their choice, who will take the action needed to save their lives -- and the planet's capabilities to sustain life.

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