The Global Social Network for Voters
Empowering Voters Worldwide to Re-Invent Democracy
Table of Contents
The Challenge
Reversing the Global Democracy Decline
Step 4
Voters use network tools to
enhance human intelligence with artificial intelligence
Step 5
Voters use AI-based network tools to fact check
and debunk social media disinformation
The Challenge Reversing the Global Democracy Decline
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."
"This decline comes as elected leaders face unprecedented challenges from Russia’s war in Ukraine, cost of living crises, a looming global recession and climate change."
"The number of backsliding countries—those with the most severe democractic 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."
"Other key findings:
- As of the end 2021, half of the 173 countries assessed by International IDEA are experiencing declines in at least one subattribute of democracy.
- 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.''
Key Causes of the Global Decline
1. Minority Rule
According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica,
“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.”
In contrast, research indicates these vital decisions typically are not 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".
Harvard University Professors Levitsky and Ziblatt conducted research revealing the contours of minority rule in the US:
“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 Majority (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."
2. Political PartiesThe large majority of factors contributing to the global democracy decline in the 21st century are instituted by undemocratic political parties. Their actions engender, legally and illegally, not only minority rule by lawmakers and legislative bodies, but chronic political conflicts and infighting between parties. These disruptive patterns lead to legislative stalemates for which they lack effective consensus building mechanisms.
By imposing constraints on the exercise of voting rights, they prevent voters from fully exercising their political sovereignty to determine who runs for office, who gets elected, and what laws are passed. Political parties and their organizational hierarchies typically monopolize these decisions, excluding voters from setting priorities and deciding which candidates can run on party ballot lines. This undemocratic monoplozation of electoral decisions compels voters to “choose” among party-nominated candidates who are already on official party ballot lines, and who run on platforms and legislative agendas over which voters exert little influence.
“No Choice” Elections. Various forms of voter disenfranchisement, particularly by gerrymandering in the U.S., vote suppression, electoral fraud, and vote rigging, contribute to widespread loss of public trust in political parties, elections, lawmakers and legislative bodies, facts corroborated in 2022 by the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C.
One of the most striking repercussions is the widening gap between voters’ and constituents’ stated needs and priorities, contrasted with the priorities and laws enacted by elected representatives. US-based Pew Research indicates that for three decades, Americans have not believed lawmakers represent them, or care what they think. Its survey, "Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes" indicates
Americans feel increasingly estranged from their government. Barely a third (34%) agree with the statement, ‘most elected officials care what people like me think,’ nearly matching the 20-year low of 33% recorded in 1994 and a 10-point drop since 2002."
More recent polls corroborate and extend these findings. Following the 2018 U.S. mid-term elections, half of registered voters expressed the view the newly elected Congress did not represent their views, including Democrats, Independents and Republicans. (See Most Americans Don’t Feel Well-Represented By Congress. (2018)
Recent research by university scholars confirm the perceptions, demands, and disillusionment of American voters, as reported in Opinion | Politicians Don’t Actually Care What Voters Want" (2018):
"Over the past two years, we conducted a study to find out [what voters want]. We provided state legislators in the United States with access to highly detailed public opinion survey data — more detailed than almost all available opinion polls — about their constituents’ attitudes on gun control, infrastructure spending, abortion and many other policy issues. Afterward, we gauged the willingness of representatives to look at the data as well as how the data affected their perceptions of their constituents’ opinions."
"What we found should alarm all Americans. An overwhelming majority of legislators were uninterested in learning about their constituents’ views. Perhaps more worrisome, however, was that when the legislators who did view the data were surveyed afterward, they were no better at understanding what their constituents wanted than legislators who had not looked at the data. For most politicians, voters’ views seemed almost irrelevant."
3. Distrust of Government and Populism
Global Social Network for Voters digital tools enable mainstream voters to build and manage online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions operating within and across election districts, regions, and even nation-state boundaries.
Lawmakers and political parties controlling governments elected through undemocratic "No Choice" elections are distrusted by people they should serve, but do not enable to obtain basic life necessities and financial security. OECD" (2021)
When elections and electoral outcomes are not determined by voters, they choose alternative means to press their demands, including street-level demonstrations, protests, and violent confrontations.
400 significant anti-government protests have occurred in 132 countries worldwide since 2017, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace" (2023).
Dissatisfied individuals and groups angered by chronic political conflicts sparked by lawmakers and parties oppose their actions in street-level demonstrations, protests, and violent confrontations. They disrupt socio-economic activities and governmental processes, including elections.
4. Loss of Control
The unfortunate consequence of voter disenfranchisement is that people have lost control of their lives and their governments. By substituting Minority Rule for Majority Rule, and fueling chronic political conflicts and legislative stalemates, political parties prevent governments from making the decisions needed by government agencies to function on a day-to-day basis, and resolve crises, conflicts, and emergencies.
They render ordinary people at the grassroots virtually powerless to obtain government action they need to survive and be able to pay for the basic necessities of life, e.g. by passing laws that ensure living wages, affordable housing and healthcare, and disaster recovery and relief assistance in the face of catastrophic climate disruption.
Ironically, in the U.S., once revered for its democratic principles, institutions and procedures, Washington, D.C. based Pew Research has documented decades of distrust of lawmakers and political parties. Ordinary people feel they have no control over their lives, their elected representatives, or governing institutions
What is needed to reverse loss of control of is a global power shift from undemocratic political parties, lawmakers, and legislative bodies to the people at the grassroots possessing political sovereignty
The 10 step transformation process described below enables voters worldwide to join the Global Social Network for Voters to increase their control over their lives and their governments by fundamentally re-inventing democracy.
Step 1. Voters access Global Social Network for Voters crowdsourcing tools to connect on line and gain control of elections and legislation.
The digital crowdsourcing tools of the Global Social Network for Voters enable virtually unlimited numbers of voters to connect online to collectively devise and implement plans and strategies for democratically gaining control of elections and legislation.
They can use network tools for agenda-setting, consensus-building, and political organizing to shift power to voters at the grassroots, within and across election districts, to determine who runs for office, who gets elected, and what laws are passed.
The tools are designed to empower voters around the world to exercise their universally recognized civil, political, and human rights — especially voting rights, as defined by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
These rights are particularly important in the 21st century's second decade because the power of voters to exercise their voting rights is becoming increasingly limited and even eliminated around the world, by a host of anti-democratic actors, special interests, and actions.
They are undermining democracy by electing minority rule governments. Lawmakers in these undemocratic governments, in which elected representatives represent special interests and only a minority of the electorate, enact legislation favoring special interests and minorities, often at the expense of the large majority of people that governments should be serving.
To counteract these "democratic deficits", network tools empower virtually unlimited numbers of individuals and groups worldwide to obtain determining roles in electoral and legislative processes, enabling them to devise agendas and solutions to resolve life-threatening challenges that contemporary minority rule governments and lawmakers are failing to resolve.
There are billions of individuals worldwide who intend to vote, may already be registered to vote, or may become eligible to vote, now and in the future. They include countless individuals whose vast repertories of skill sets, expertise and know-how are vitally needed by the comparatively small number of governmental officials who make laws and enforce them.
Voters' knowledge and know-how is vitally needed to exponentially increase the problem-solving capabilities brought to bear for devising solutions to life-threatening crises, emergencies, and conflicts — especially those stemming from global climate catastrophes, pandemics, and political violence.
Global Social Network for Voters digital tools enable voters to define, update, store, share, retrieve and publicize their political and legislative priorities and agendas, and transmit them in writing to elected representatives.
These tools enable voters to remedy the historic lack of effective mechanisms enabling them to define in writing their needs, priorities, and legislative demands. Traditionally and currently, voters are unable to articulate their priorities, update them, and pressure political parties and party-backed lawmakers to enact them, especially those beholden to special interest campaign contributors.
A significant repercussion of these anti-democratic practices is that small numbers of elected lawmakers can pass laws enforceable on entire populations of tens of millions of people. They can cavalierly enact policies without comprehensive information authentically generated by millions of people expressing their needs, wants, and demands.
To counteract this "democratic deficit", voters can use digital devices, such as a smartphone and desktop computer, to access the Global Social Network for Voters to verify their identify, and those of their interlocutors on the network, receive authorization to create their own profiles, and use network tools and communication capabilities to connect with other voters.
The network's tools are designed to shift power to voters at the grassroots by enabling voters to take a vital step toward increasing their control over their lives and governments by gaining control of elections and legislation. This increase starts with defining and continually updating, sharing, and publicizing their needs, priorities, and legislative agendas so that voters collectively become the driving force of electoral and legislative decision-making.
Global Social Network for Voters digital tools enable mainstream voters to build and manage online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions operating within and across election districts, regions, and even nation-state boundaries.
Netword agenda setting and political organizing tools enable voters who join the network to do all the things that traditional and establishment political parties do — without their interference. The tools free voters from having to adhere to the partisan and ideological dogmas and contraints of party organizational hierarchies whose officials substitute their decisions and legislative priorities for those that voters can and should formulate.
While voters belonging to network-hosted blocs, parties, and coalitions can reside in numerous and widely separated election districts, they can nonetheless set common agendas responsive to the needs of voters in many jurisdictions. Network tools enable groups of these voters residing in the same election districts to work together. They can register to vote in existing parties or in new parties they build, manage and register so they can obtain their own ballot lines.
In the U.S., running winning candidates in primary elections is often an indispensable step to getting chosen candidates on official general election ballots. By so doing, and by building an electoral base comprised of voters across the political spectrum, they can supplant the influence of established parties by defeating their candidates and electing their own. In this way, the network enables voters to take control of elections and legislation without the implementation of reforms.
The following comment describes the undemocratic methods typically used by establishment political parties in the U.S. in primaries to choose general election candidates: “a small number of voters in a handful of states choose from a pool of self-selected candidates who have been tested mostly by their ability to raise money and get attention in debates”.
A key contribution to the network's digitally-enabled consensus building capabilities stems from the recent evolution of decision-assisting artificial intelligence (AI). It amplifies human intelligence, but does not replace human intelligence, by assisting real people make real decisions. This evolved AI technology enables voters to debate divergent views and priorities online. It assists people make well-informed decisions by "debating" with an argumentation tool that enables them to express and debate their ideas and divergent views in "Natural Language". They can discuss fact-checked arguments against non-fact-based arguments, tapping into massive datasets of information - one of which is characterized to be the "first AI system that can debate humans on complex topics."
Such a question-answering computer-based technology is capable of answering questions that voters pose, and "learning" during successive rounds of Q&A to expand and analyze the datasets to provide increasingly useful answers, as the result of continuous interactions with humans posing questions. The programming of the algorithms of the technology enables it to gather, "input" and "process" new information to enrich and expand the usefulness of its "answers" to questions posed.
AI and its related technology, referred to as Machine Learning (ML), are inherently neutral technologies. Since these technologies are computer machine-based, they are not "intelligent" in the same way humans are "intelligent". They are only used to devise increasingly complex sets of instructions - algorithms - for analyzing processing and distributing various types of data received from a wide variety of sources, for a variety of purposes.
Many purposes are considered beneficial, others can be considered harmful. Currently, opposing sides have emerged in a global debate about whether AI and ML are harmful or helpful, for example for attaining human goals - such as increasing people's control over their lives and governments, or decreasing it.
Global Social Network for Voters decision-assisting AI and question-answering ML digital tools are vitally important in counteracting the harmful use of AI and ML to distort people's perceptions and undermine democratic processes and institutions. They make it possible for virtually unlimited numbers of voters, lawmakers, electoral candidates, political parties and others to connect directly with each other to build consensus regarding solutions for meeting the challenges they face, individually and collectively.
The massive data processing capabilities of these tools can provide voters a far greater range of legislative priorities than they might already be aware of, or otherwise consider. They can facilitate individual and collaborative evaluation of far more numerous alternatives by voters, lawmakers, electoral candidates, political parties, and others who request such information for the purpose of using it to build consensus to support collectively determined solutions.
Step 5. Voters use network tools to fact check and debunk social media disinformation
The Global Social Network for Voters provides online AI and ML-based digital tools enabling voters to distinguish fact from fiction in the information they gather, evaluate, and include in their legislative agendas.
The 21st century has the infamous distinction of witnessing the introduction of democracy crippling technology that many critics consider powerful enough to dismantle democratic institutions and processes in unprecedented ways. This noxious use of technology incorporates computer-based, "generative" Artificial Intelligence (AI) into social media platforms, and uses their communication capabilities to instantly transmit vast, unprecedented amounts of political propaganda and falsehoods to tens of millions, and even hundreds of millions, of people simultaneously.
When delivered by politicians skilled in misrepresenting facts and convincing undiscerning people to vote for them, the combination has the potential to engender massive misperceptions of facts and even reality. Entire voting blocs of deluded individuals can be created, and millions of voters can be induced to support and vote for unscrupulous candidates and political parties whose prior and subsequent priorities and actions gravely jeopardize the well-being of their supporters.
Such radicalizing transformations are reported to be occurring in many countries around the world, and not just the U.S. Several post-facto analyses have concluded that this technology-transmitted disinformation has actually swayed elections in several countries, as described above.
Fortunately, despite this anti-democratic use of biased social media technology, in combination with polarizing divisive algorithms, Global Social Network for Voters tools and capabilities counteract it, using unbiased AI-based technology to devised objective algorithms that enable voters to distinguish facts from fiction.
U.S. voters have long been demanding additional choices of electoral candidates and political parties beyond those of the two major U.S. parties that dominate elections and largely control electoral laws. But these two parties maintain their grip on the outcomes of electoral processes and legislative decision-making through the candidates running on their ballot lines that get elected.
A flawed electoral process and outcome, such as that described above, accentuates the need for voters to exert far greater influence in democratically determining who runs for office and who gets elected. Fortunately, they will be able to attain this influence through the voting blocs, parties, and coalitions they can build, manage, and host on the Global Social Network for Voters. By using the network's digital tools and online voting utility, they can investigate and verify information about the track records of candidates they are considering, as well as candidates and incumbents they plan to oppose at the ballot box.
They can also request prospective candidates to use the network's agenda setting tools to define their own legislative priorities, and then compare candidates' priorities with the priorities of voters' blocs, parties, and coalitions. These two sets of priorities can serve as an informal contract between voters and candidates who are seeking to be elected with their votes. Since both sets of priorities will be in writing, voters can later use the candidates' written list priorities to compare their legislative actions with their electoral promises.
After the blocs, parties, and coalitions complete their pre-election investigative work, they can then use intra-network communications tools to ensure that sufficient numbers of their members register to vote in primary and general elections in election districts in which they are eligible. This step will enable them to vote for their own candidates running on written legislative agendas that reflect voters' agendas using their own ballot lines, if they have created official ballot lines. Or they can vote for candidates running on the lines of other parties if their agendas converge. If they need to increase the voting strength of their electoral base, they can reach out across partisan lines to prospective voters across the political spectrum who may not be members of their blocs, parties, and coalitions, and ask for their votes for the candidates they collectively consider qualified and trustworthy.
xx Global Social Network for Voters digital tools and services enable voters to raise funds online to support the electoral campaigns of their blocs, parties, and coalitions. According to Open Secrets, expenditures for the 2020 election totaled $14.4 billion.
Exclusive public financing of elections would provide the fairest, most democratic way to finance electoral campaigns. Unfortunately, lawmakers funded by wealthy special interests have not enacted effective public financing laws. As a result, virtually unlimited and untraceable amounts of private money are channeled into campaigns from domestic and foreign sources. These donations enable electoral outcomes to be determined by interests that do not reside in the districts whose elections they sway, and do not have voting rights in them. In contrast, public financing would give candidates equitable amounts of money to publicize their campaigns and legislative priorities, and organize "get out the vote" drives to elect them.
To circumvent what critics consider legalized bribery, voter created online blocs, parties, and coalitions hosted on the Global Social Network for Voters can build their own campaign war chests. They can reach out to their fellow network members electronically via internal network email to seek funding. This personal inter-connectivity and network-based outreach capabilities minimizes the need to raise money for "get-out-the-vote" campaigns because these voters will already be familiar with their candidates' legislative priorities.
They can also use network administrative services and digital tools to raise money from external individuals, groups, and organizations by sharing their priorities and written legislative agendas with prospective contributors, and also invite them to provide written descriptions of their priorities to provide a basis for comparison. Convergence of the two sets of priorities will eliminate the current practice of candidates changing their priorities to correspond to those of their special interest contributors, while ignoring the needs and legislative priorities of their constituents.
Global Social Network for Voters AI and ML-based digital tools, including its online voting utility, enable voters to conduct petition drives, referenda, initiatives, and recall votes, publicize their results, and transmit them to mandate elected representatives to enact voters legislative priorities.
These actions and inducements are indispensable to ensuring lawmakers honor the priorities of the electorate and population at large, rather than special interests. It is an unfortunate characteristic of Minority Rule that after candidates backed by special interests and established parties win elections and take office in a legislative body, such as the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, they become part of the organizational hierarchies, rules, and regulations created by the Minority Rule party controlling the body. They adhere to them in exchange for favors and funds from party leadership, elected representatives.
The members of each party assemble in a private "caucus" where they decide which legislative priorities to pursue, even if they have no bearing on the needs and demands of their constituents. They adopt strategies for moving their priorities through the various committees that review their provisions and can alter them beyond recognition. These committees are often deadlocked by inter-party conflicts. Possibilities for the emergence of crippling legislative stalemates stalk their every move.
By this stage, the needs, wants, and demands of the constituents who voted to put these lawmakers in office have largely disappeared from the decision-making arenas of legislative bodies. There are no formal mechanisms by which elected representatives regularly poll their constituents to find out what their priorities are, or whether the priorities adopted by their party caucus support or oppose them, or whether various actions they are considering might impinge on constituents' needs and demands.
To counteract this disconnect between voters and lawmakers, Global Social Network for Voters digital tools provide effective levers through which voters can mandate and direct legislative decision-making. These tools enable voters to conduct petition drives, referendums, initiatives, and recall votes. They can use the network's online voting utility to tally and publicize their results, and - most importantly - transmit the results to lawmakers so they know where their constituents stand on legislative proposals lawmakers are evaluating, considering enacting, and voting into law.
Since the online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions that voters build and host on the network can operate within and across voting blocs, as well as across state lines and national boundaries, these levers for enabling virtually unlimited numbers of voters to express their priorities regarding legislation under consideration is vitally important for ensuring lawmakers heed voters' demands, or risk defeat in forthcoming elections.
This is where that network members have the potential to play critical roles in ensuring their elected representatives' responsiveness and accountability. If lawmakers' actions diverge too far from the needs and priorities of their constituents, what is known as "straw" recall votes can be conducted at any time using the network's online voting utility. Such votes alert incumbent lawmakers to the risks they may face in terms of future electoral defeat, because their constituents can collectively evaluate their performance and legislative track records, and decide whether to re-elect or defeat them and replace them in future elections with candidates of their choice.
Global Social Network for Voters digital tools enable voters and their online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions to build electoral bases large enough to supplant Minority Rule.
As described above, the term Minority Rule. describes governments in which "a minority group of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that population's decision making, with legislative power or judicial power being held or controlled by a minority group rather than a majority that is representative of the population."
In contrast, the term Majority Rule. is typically used to refer to governments in which lawmakers serving in legislative bodies represent a majority of voters and enact laws to meet their needs and demands, rather than those of special interests and minority groups.
Switzerland's flourishing democracy is a government possessing attributes of Majority Rule, due to the existence of laws providing Swiss citizens a potentially powerful form of direct democracy. They can exert control over local and federal government bodies, lawmakers, and laws by autonomously initiating and voting on initiatives and referenda - actions that are publicly financed but are beyond the purview of the bodies in question, and without their permission.
All adult Swiss citizens are eligible to vote and are automatically registered to vote. They receive official ballots in the mail that they can complete and deliver in person to their local polling station, or transmit by mail. If initiatives and referenda win a majority of votes cast by Swiss citizens in official votes, lawmakers are mandated to enact, rescind, or alter laws to reflect the intent andresults of the votes.
Unfortunately, the faltering U.S. democracy has failed to emulate the Swiss model. Most recall mechanisms in the U.S. that once existed have been removed or hobbled by anti-democratic political parties, lawmakers, and special interests. U.S. voters' only option for removing unresponsive lawmakers is to wait until the next "No Choice Election" rolls around - six years in the case of a U.S. Senator. Given the numerous, intertwined impediments injected into electoral processes to disenfranchise voters, objectionable and unresponsive lawmakers are likely to be re-elected.
Fortunately, the Global Social Network for Voters empowers voters to circumvent these impediments. Its digital tools provide voters an unprecedented, transformative platform comprising powerful attributes of direct democracy. As described above, this platform enables them to build online voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions hosted on the network, which are capable of forging such large cross-partisan electoral bases that they can empower majorities of voters across the political spectrum to determine who runs for office, who gets elected, and what laws are passed.
With this voting strength, voters can pressure lawmakers to enact their legislative agendas or risk defeat in the next election. It is not necessary to enact reforms to remove the disenfranchising impediments that political parties and special interests have inserted into U.S. electoral and legislative processes. Voters can easily and quickly use the digital tools provided on the Global Social Network for Voters to conduct online petition drives, referendums, and initiatives, and recall votes enabling the members of their blocs, parties, and coalitions to express their preferences and priorities. They can tally the results using the online voting utility and send the results to lawmakers to inform them of the actions demanded by their constituents. These actions need not be confined to a single election district, due to the fact that the members of their network-hosted blocs, parties, and coalitions will span district boundaries across all 50 states. Their multi-district, multi-regional, and cross-country reach will enable them to transmit similar legislative demands and instructions to lawmakers representing all 50 states, if they choose to do so. Their members will be able to demonstrate their electoral strength by ensuring that those eligible to vote in specific districts register to vote, and do vote in numbers large enough to determine who wins forthcoming elections, and what are their legislative priorities and prospective implementing actions.
Most importantly, they can use their voting strength to put electoral candidates of their choice on official ballot lines. They can use existing party ballot lines already approved by election authorities, or they can register their own parties and obtain their own ballot lines. In the U.S., running and electing candidates in primary elections is indispensable to winning general elections. Such victories, especially with respect to winning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, are facilitated by the fact each district typically comprises less than 1 million voters, and elections can be won by only a plurality of them.
This opportunity to introduce majority rule in the faltering Minority Rule U.S. democracy, without have to spend years and decades trying to devise and enact reforms, will enable U.S. voters to initiate and ensure enactment by lawmakers they elect of major, system-transforming legislation to institute Majority Rule.
Global Social Network for Voters digital tools enable voters worldwide to express their views about foreign policies, and whether they approve or disapprove of specific policies. They can create cross-national voting blocs and a climate of opinion that foreign policy decision makers cannot ignore without risking electoral defeat.
The lofty goals of the United Nations (UN) founded in the 20th century have been foiled since its inception by the simultaneous creation of its Security Council. The nine nation-state members of the Council, and the veto powers possessed and exercised by its members over Council decisions, have paralyzed the entire body. Their vetoes have prevented the nearly 200 nation-state members of the UN's General Assembly from devising and implementing peace plans for ending conflicts among Council members, and between members and other countries in conflicts, especially those involving the use of force. Members of the Council whose governments are engaged in actions that violate international laws typically veto resolutions designed to halt their actions, and authorize the General Assembly of all member states to take countervailing actions, including deploying peace-keeping missions.
The on-going 21st century, life-threatening and fatality-causing repercussions of these counterproductive features are built into the design of the UN. Similarly, lawmakers elected to Minority Rule governments who support military actions can ignore the views of their constituents and the population at large. Fortunately, voters can counteract these "democratic deficits" by taking advantage of the digital tools of the Global Social Network for Voters to propose and publicize non-violent peace-keeping plans that mandate the discontinuation of wars started and perpetrated by self-serving government leaders and decision-makers that cause preventable injuries and deaths of civilians and combatants.
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