What is the symplest system of e-democracy that can be quickly implemented.

The Australian registered political party called Online Direct Democracy is preparing for an Australian Federal election within a year. Our party is looking for House of Representative candidates and I am going to contest my electorate of Fisher.

I am LB Joum and my thoughts regarding Actuated Digital Direct Democracy are developing. I am keen to share them with people and get feedback and ideas of how it might work.

I want to implement a simple online group, perhaps on the Loomio platform. Group membership will be limited to verified members of my electorate – Fisher. I know that this system will have flaws but it is the quickest way that I can see to have a fast example of the idea in action.

I know this idea will have many issues. Firstly is the issue of account security and secondly is the verification of the members.

The main security issue is having a persons identity and or account stolen. The only thing I can think of is to have a process where a person can notify me that their account has been hijacked and deduct that vote until the account owner is verified. Which leads to the second issue.

This group will be very different to most accounts, where it doesn't really matter if a person is not who they say they are. In this group I must be certain - as best I can. But if you think about it, when we go to the polling booth to vote we do not have to produce ID, you get your name marked off a list. So if I can do at least as well as the Australian Electoral Commission then that should be enough. Eventually I would like to do better and send each person a 'snail mail' with a verification code, but that would require more functionality than most platforms currently have. Eventually our organisation will have to develop our own platform, and this is when it will become very exciting.

The reason. I only have one reason for creating the group - well sort of two. I want to give my electorate the opportunity to create my preference list that I recommend for the election. This is presented in a “how to vote” card that people take with them, or get handed, when they vote. Of course they don't have to follow it. I know, so why bother? In Australian Elections, preferences are a contentious issue. In the Senate election they are vital but most Australians don't understand our system so will be interested in House of Reps preferences too. But mostly, it is a way to involve people in a decision an show them how we will operate if we do get elected, and wouldn't that be great.

I can be quite sure that there will be Labour, Liberal National, and Green candidates so I will need to create a thread for each party and run a vote for each. To keep it simple, the number of each candidates “agree” votes will determine my preference list order.

I will lock the permissions of the parent group to only allow people to vote and comment. If they were able to create threads and decisions it would get messy. I will create a subgroup where people are open to do everything.

I like the idea of using Loomio because if is a very simple, usable platform. But the platform will have to change in the long run. It will need multiple choice and multiple levels. There are many design features to consider but all designs have one common and important element. They will all need to manage and verify their members. If we break the voters into small groups then it will be easier to manage the verification process. To begin with this needs to be a 'hands on' process. I like the idea of sending a snail mail with a code for them to log back in with. I would love to hear other ideas if you have them.

Or do you have any other ideas you would like to share? Remember to keep them as simple to implement as possible. I only have a small amount of ability so cannot create a complicated system but feel it is necessary to offer something that shows how decisions can be made online.