Internet Used to Govern

I was honored to be a guest blogger on Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet's (IPDI) blog. The following post was my contribution.

Since its creation, governments have claimed to use the internet as a communication tool. In reality the vast majority of this communication was really dictation. Governments at all levels created websites to distribute information, but rarely have I seen a government seek public opinion via the internet. This one way conversation has apparently ended. Tennessee's state wide newspaper, the Tennessean, reports that a the municipal government of Spring Hill, a small city in Southern middle Tennessee, used an online poll to decide policy. The decision was rather or not to consolidate postal zip codes... not a decision that many would describe as paramount but the idea that this city was forward thinking enough to even consider using an online poll to get public input is impressive. Spring Hill had 2450 people participate in the online poll. As governments seek similar input from their constituents, there are some questions that need to be addressed but none of greater importance than security. How does a government insure no one votes more than once? How does a government guarantee the participants are actually constituents? How does a government prevent anyone from being paid for their participation? and others...

These questions may seem foolish given the issue at hand, but if the internet is going to be used by governments as a true communication tool, these questions must be answered.