The author and all respondents on this thread seem to be totally missing the most important factor – whatever the problems with our governmental system and whatever reforms are needed, it has surely got to be aimed at improving the independence of government from the enormous vested-interest profit motive and allowing government to actually take our society down the right path towards a sustainable future instead of promulgating the growth spiral into economic and social meltdown.

Better quality ministers, better political reps who actually represent their constituency, better leaders, etc, are not going to achieve anything if we are going to remain in the same old never-ending-expansionist paradigm.

In fact, reforms of that sort are likely to actually worsen the situation by leading to greater efficiency in heading towards the proverbial cliff!

In these days of hackers I don't think internet voting would be very
sensible change. Any government party that wanted to stay in power
could adjust votes as they came in to suit themselves.
Anyone who thinks that such things would never be done by the covert
parts of any government or party is not living in the real world.

I completely agree, Ludwig. Unfortunately, our type of democracy, the political system that has brought stability and reasonable fairness to our lives, is now the stumbling block to a sustainable future. Perhaps if governments were elected for ten years and individual members were held financially and morally accountable for the results of their decisions, things might improve. But when the only hope of keeping one’s seat in the halls of power is to pander every three or four years to the majority of voters, most of whom appear to be ill-informed and susceptible to corporate propaganda, then there’s no hope of change. Cleverly promoted changes to taxation, corporate size and profitability, ownership restrictions and so on would be very popular, provided anti-government corporate propaganda was legally restricted to provable facts, not wild, fear-inducing speculation.

Baz
Hacking can occur with internet voting, and of course steps can be taken to ensure it doesn’t occur. I have not heard of any research being conducted or authorised by government to find a program that can be used for public voting through the internet, when it could be more democratic, and much more cost effective than voting through a ballot box.

Someone can fill out their tax return forms through the internet, and fill out many other government forms, but they can’t vote through the internet.

Seems a little suspicious to me, and I find it totally impertinent when governments believe that only people elected into a government have the intelligence and education to form policies, and the public is too dumb to do so.

Vanna, India uses specially designed machines for computerised voting
at voting booths. That is the most automated voting that I have heard about.
I don't know whether they read out at the booth or take the m/cs to
a central area.
Many people would not have internet access and so booths would still
have to be manned.
A card like the Australia card could be used for voting as well as
medical records, medicare, centrelink and petrol rationing.
Bob Hawke got jumped on when he tried to introduce it but it is now
time to try again.

Bazz
A member of the voting public could just use their taxfile number to log in. It is intriguing that someone can lodge their income tax online, but can’t vote online for a policy, or vote for who they want as a minister, or as Prime Minister.

My guess is that political parties want to be in power, and running the country is rather secondary.