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The Swiss canton of Glarus still practices the concept of the Landsgemeinde. Quoting from Wikipedia:

Eligible citizens of the canton meet on a certain day in the open air to decide on laws and expenditures by the council. Everyone can debate a question. Voting is accomplished by those in favour of a motion raising their hands.

In Switzerland, this is practiced by the cantons of Glarus and Appenzell-Innerrhoden. The German-language Wikipedia article Gemeindeversammlung tells us that most Swiss municipalities use a similar system, but that details differ locally. The linked English-language article on town meeting describes a number of examples in the United States, although the article on open town meeting seems more similar to what the German language article describes and what is practiced in Switzerland. The examples described here are mostly in New England.

What are the main arguments in favour and against decision-taking by general assemblies, compared to other forms of direct democracy?

gerrit
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    Advantages for whom? Please be specific. This is currently just another List Of Things question. – fuxia Dec 09 '12 at 13:55
  • I disagree that advantage/disadvantage is a list question, see this discussion. But I've rephrased it to state more specifically what I'm after. – gerrit Dec 09 '12 at 15:18
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    I think that as a community we need to make some kind of call on advantage/disadvantage questions, so I've posted a question on meta about the subject. –  Dec 09 '12 at 16:52
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    At the moment I still see the problem of a too broad question which could result in a List of Things answer. I don't move for a close because I believe @gerrit can rephrase, but may revisit my decision… – Sven Clement Dec 10 '12 at 00:57
  • What other forms of direct democracy do you have in mind? Direct democracy isn't practiced much, and the most well-known was among the ruling class in ancient Athens, which may or may not be relevant. Do you include recall elections and referenda? Or are you interested in hypothetical forms, such as instant electronic voting. – Stuart F Dec 30 '21 at 00:26

1 Answers1

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I will list the main two disadvantages:

  1. It is hard/impossible to scale well. Especially when we include discussions.

    • Physically, you can't fit all that many people together and allow either discussions or even accurate voting.

    • Electronically, you have issues with authentication etc...

    This is exactly why you see such an approach used for small town meetings or small Swiss cantons. How are you going to organize an assembly of all eligible voters of Texas, USA?

  2. In physical presence assemblies, the people who can physically intimidate others have too much power. I'm not going to vote openly against slavery reparations when there are a couple of 6'3" 200lb bodibuilder type black guys standing near me glaring angrily, no matter what my opinions as a short small white person are. Especially if we are talking about small community where people know where you live.

    Please note that the latter is the main reason why pro-Union left wants a so-called "card check" legislation in USA and anti-union right does not. The MAIN thrust of the legislation is to abolish secret voting to establish union in a factory. The objections to that is that the union thugs would - in absence of secret ballots - intimidate people into voting pro-union (lest someone states that it is merely overactive paranoid imagination of right wing, look at the statistics - a LOT more people vote (openly, when directly canvassed in person by Union organizers) to support the "should we have a union vote" motions; than people who vote to instantiate the union in subsequent secret ballot voting.

user4012
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    Two comments: (1) I think the labour union comment is not necessary, the rest of the post is good but the labour union one is a bit argumentative and (2) point 3 is not applicable, because I specifically asked "compared to other forms of direct democracy". Otherwise a good answer. – gerrit Dec 10 '12 at 17:29
  • It is not "impossible" to scale if you use electronic methods, and Liquid Feedback proves it quite well. – o0'. Dec 11 '12 at 16:58
  • @Lohoris - was any Liquid Feedback implementation ever attacked using full spectrum of available attack methods? – user4012 Dec 11 '12 at 16:59
  • @DVK, of course not, but this doesn't mean it's powerless.. – o0'. Dec 11 '12 at 17:00
  • @Lohoris - I'm speaking from CompSci and computer security standpoint. It's currently impossible to organize such a method so that you can't have fraud, DoS, and/or many other issues. – user4012 Dec 11 '12 at 17:01
  • @DVK what are you talking about? Of course you can't have fraud with Liquid Feedback, it's built for that exact purpose! – o0'. Dec 12 '12 at 01:00
  • @Lohoris - "built to avoid fraud" != "impossible to commit fraud with". Especially once your remember rule #1 of computer expliting - the weak link is in the wetware. – user4012 Dec 12 '12 at 01:15
  • @DA. - the OP asked for reasons against. This is one reason against. If you don't believe that people have such a concern, you need to get out more. Stop downvoting every post that dares to mention existance of viewpoints you disagree with, when the OP asked for whether viewpoints/reasons exist. – user4012 Apr 09 '13 at 20:59
  • @dvk I didn't downvote your answer because I disagree with your statement (I agree with it). I disagree that your statement is complete and, as it's not, clearly a partisan jab. You could expand upon it and point out the opposing view (management intimidation) and still keep your point. –  Apr 09 '13 at 21:06
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    If I may suggest a rewording: "Please note that the latter is the main argument used by both sides of the Union 'Card Check' debate. Pro Union members argue that without it, you can have management intimidation, with it, you can have Union intimidation" –  Apr 09 '13 at 21:18
  • @DA. - I will if you explain how in-person elections remove the threat of management intimidation compared to anonymous ones. – user4012 Apr 09 '13 at 23:41
  • While it's an interesting topic, It's a complex issue and this isn't the place for it. Either you care about the broader issue or you don't. If you do, there's plenty of information out there. I merely explained the downvote. –  Apr 09 '13 at 23:57
  • Here's a good place to start, though. It does a fairly decent job of explaining the different points of view: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2009/03/uncivil_union.html –  Apr 10 '13 at 00:17
  • @DA. - That article has so many holes it's not even worth the electrons. A union guy who knows where you live and KNOWS how you voted on your card (it's open) is nowhere near "same intimidation" as a consultant the company sends to you, who has ZERO way of knowing how you voted and to whom you can happily lie that you voted against the union if you worry about repercussions. This isn't discussing different point of view, this is blithely ignoring one of them. It doesn't even remotely address the major discrepancy between secret and open voting. – user4012 Apr 10 '13 at 02:12
  • "This isn't discussing different point of view, this is blithely ignoring one of them" = sigh. –  Apr 10 '13 at 12:25