My Campaign Platform

I am a populist.

I believe in the wisdom of the people I seek to represent.

Therefore, my political campaign platform is built on the wishes of the Ward 1 voters contained in my Seguin Quotes website section.

My Promise: If elected, I will work for four years to resolve the issues presented to me by the voters as described in my Seguin Quotes. Those with the most consensus will go closer to the top of the list of To Dos. Also, matters which are more pressing, say, dealing with public safety would be dealt with before road drainage issues. But, with your name attached to a Seguin Quote, I take your words very seriously and you will hear from me personally during the course of my term on the subject of your interest.

If elected, I promise to document in text and photographs my efforts to address the issues presented to me during the campaign, actions taken, response from responsible parties, and, hopefully, positive outcomes. Because problems presented to me may place one neighbour against another, there may often be no 'right' outcome. However, I promise to address the issue and seek compromise and understanding between parties to the best of my ability.

This is the simpliest, and best idea I can think of in terms of representing a ward as councillor. It just makes sense to me. If you have any ideas of how my platform can be improved in helping people with their township problems, please e-mail me and I'll give it full consideration and maybe take it on board.

So, my platform is to give the people what they want - to the best of my ability. That's total accountability, folks.

The important thing for me to do is listen, understand, then take action. This blog will record how and why I succeed or fail.

This is my election promise. Straight and simple.

Voter Eligibility

Seguin Township Office

I swung by the Seguin Township administrative building today to find out a thing or two about voter eligibility. As I will be surveying Ward 1 people for their direction on my council voting, I want to be sure that I'm talking to people qualified to vote.

Here's what the Municipal Elections 2010 Guide states:

A person is entitled to be an elector at an election held in a local municipality, if on voting day he or she is:

• a Canadian citizen;
• at least 18 years old;
• residing in the local municipality or an owner or tenant of land there, or the spouse of such owner or tenant; and
• not otherwise prohibited from voting.

The following cannot vote in a municipal election:

• a person serving a sentence of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution;
• a corporation; or
• a person convicted of a corrupt practice for an election held within four years of voting day.

If not on the voting list, you can fill out a form to get registered at the Seguin office in September. As it is a mail-in voting system, trying to do this on Oct 25th (voting day) could be problematic to say the least.

The form merely requires a potential voter to declare on the signed document that they occasionally 'reside' in Seguin. Their word is taken for granted.

So, for the purpose of my 'Perfectly Seguin' survey, an 18 year old who visits a family cottage for one weekend out of the year has the same right to vote in a Seguin Township election as a 60 year old who has lived in the township since birth.

Should I wonder who takes the trouble to vote?

Types of Democracy

I did a Wiki search on 'types of democracy' and came up with an interesting entry that lists umpteen different ways of giving individuals voice in a democracy.

The entry on e-democracy was interesting. Here's a quote:

The research indicates the political process has been alienated from ordinary people, where laws are made by representatives far removed from ordinary people.^[3] The goal of e-democracy is to reverse the cynicism citizens have about their government institutions.^[7] However, there are increasing doubts concerning the real impact of electronic and digital tools on citizen participation and democratic governance and warning against the "rhetoric" of electronic democracy.^[8]

I believe the Internet is an emerging and liberating tool to better represent the broad range of opinion of constituents than any other communication channel before. The challenge in using the Internet in a campaign to maximize voter/candidate understanding is ensuring that all constituents have access to this communication channel. Residents who don't spend their entire year in Seguin have a window into the evolving issues and have a means of influencing policy. While Sequin libraries now have very good Internet access computers, my feeling is that older residents likely wouldn't have the Internet skills to participate at this time. Representation by way of the Internet alone would not serve constituents who aren't connected in this way.

The reason why I like to use a blog to communicate is that there is no intermediary filter between my words and the reader. There's no editorial slant or filter. And this is a two-way medium where people can give their feedback directly to me and visible to all other readers. No private phone calls, backroom deals, special influence.

In the absence of the Internet with it's potential to link a candidate to every single - confirmed - constituent through the use of on-line polls, on-line discussion forums, I think a candidate or representative is trapped in a coccoon of his/her inner circle of influencers. The Internet makes it possible for every, in this case, ward voter to add to the sum of community opinion on every issue. Each community participant has an equal unit of influence. On-line forums permit constituents to present grassroots ideas and have that idea gain influence based on its merits judged by others in the community. In this way, the quiet, well-reasoned voice is not drowned out by others who might wish to dominate discussion for personal benefit at the expense of the community as a whole.

A combination of, say, monthly town hall meetings between representative and interested constituents would allow people who don't engage in Internet discussion to also have voice, participate in polling which helps to guide their representative. In this way, the disconnect between constituents and representative is greatly reduced with a better, stronger, faster feedback loop.

I just wouldn't want to be unduly influenced by individuals pushing their own agenda at he expense of the community as a whole. That just isn't my idea of democracy.