A Brief History of the Cyber-Electioneering : 1992- 1996.

A Brief History of

CYBER-

ELECTIONEERING

from 1992 to 1996.

The history of the Cyber-Electioneering began in 1992 when the Democratic Presidential ticket of Governor Bill Clinton and Senator Al Gore posted a website with "full texts of speeches, advertisements and position papers, as well as biographical information."[88] Being a minuscule amount of the American population had Internet access at the time [89] the website was more a novelty than anything else.

Four years latter though in 1996 --- after Window 95 and Internet Explorer was introduced—an election day exit poll by the Voter News Service[90] showed 26% of American voters to be regular Internet users.[91] Realizing this growing trend earlier that year, 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole felt compelled to announce his campaign's website address at the end of his first nationally televised debate with President Bill Clinton.[92] It did not help, and he lost the race anyway.

"This type of chain-letter petition can also counterproductively annoy the legislative staffers

~~~ This is the earliest academic electronic posting I have found reviewing the lack effectiveness of Email - Cyber -Lobbying. Cyber-Lobbying will never match the power of hand-written letters and grassroots voter action. ~

~~ `Technopolitical ~~ `

by Phil Agre April 1996

Department of Information Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California 90095-1520
USA"
pagre@ucla.edu
http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/

"This type of chain-letter petition can also counterproductively annoy the legislative staffers and other lowly individuals who are supposed to open the petitions when they arrive in the mail. The problem lies in the mathematics of Internet chain letters."

"Most of them, for one thing, have been very badly designed. They usually have no cut-off date, source of background information, signature from the organization or individual who is sponsoring the alert, or instruction to post the alert only where appropriate. As a result, these alerts have caused a lot of disruption and annoyance all around the net, and it would not surprise me if the negative sentiment they cause outweighs the positive benefit of the actions they encourage."

http://www.oneworld.net/anydoc_mc.cgi?url=http://www.netaction.org/training/

by Phil Agre April 1996

"Feel free to circulate this article for any noncommercial purpose.

Department of Information Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California 90095-1520
USA"
pagre@ucla.edu
http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/

The Internet explosion began in 1995

The Internet explosion began in 1995 

with the introduction of Microsoft Corporation’s

 Windows 95, and its Internet Explorer.

 Before this historical watershed the Internet was a sparsely populated domain composed mainly of academics, technophiles and even some political activists.[26] 

 World-wide in December 1995 there were about 16 million users of the Internet[27] out of a global population of over 4.5 billion (~.0036 %). Just 7 years later in December 2001 a Neilson/NetRatings survey of the largest 22 industrial nations shows at least 422.4 million Earthlings to be online,[28] (nearly 10% of the world population). About 140 million of these users are in theUnited States, with 54% of the total American population connecting to the web[29] at home, work or school.

"electronic town halls." & Why E-Democracy Won’t Ever Fly in the USA

~~ Comment below post ~` TP

From: A Paper Prepared for the
Kettering Foundation

By Scott London
March 1994

http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/ed.html

""The perennial debate over the future of American democracy reached new heights in the wake of Ross Perot's 1992 campaign, the centerpiece of which was his notion of "electronic town halls." The idea was an evocative and appealing one: to recreate the spirited gatherings of New England townspeople on a national scale through the medium of interactive technology. When asked about the electronic town hall in a television interview, he put it this way:"

"I would create an electronic town hall where, say, every week or so we would take a single major issue to the people. We would explain it in great detail and then we would get a response from the owners of the country - the people - that could be analyzed by congressional district so that the Congress - no if's, and's and but's - would know what the people want. Then the boys running around with briefcases representing special interests would be de-horned - to use a Texas term."" Ross Perot during his 1992 Presidential campaign

http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/ed.html

A separate annotated bibliography on electronic democracy, compiled in 1994, is available here.

You are welcome to distribute this file, but please use it fairly -- don't remove my name or change my words if you quote from it. I would also appreciate hearing from you if you are interested in these issues, have corrections, or information on this subject that my be useful in my ongoing research.

Copyright 1993-2005 by Scott London. All rights reserved.

~~~

Why E-Democracy Won’t Ever Fly in the USA

A decade ago many pundits envisioned the Information Super Highway as heralding a new age of direct democracy in America. In an Electronic-Democracy (e-democracy), citizens would directly decide on public policy and legislation via live Internet voting, after cyber-public debate.

Or at the very least, non-binding national cyber-debates would guide elected leaders to follow the American peoples will. In theory the rise of the Internet and other Digital Technologies would facilitate more informed thus more involved citizens bringing about fairer and more just social policy.

“I would create an electronic town hall where, say, every week or so we would take a single major issue to the people. We would explain it in great detail and then we would get a response from the owners of the country - the people - that could be analyzed by congressional district so that the Congress - no if's, and's and but's - would know what the people want.”

------ Ross Perot during his 1992 Presidential campaign.

As we have seen, today in 2002, while the Internet has somewhat impacted the activities of the American citizens in several areas, the vision of Ross Perot’s “e-town hall” is very, very, very far off. (Did I say "very?" I cannot emphasize this point enough.) The evolution of a formal (--and even informal--) and direct “E-Democracy” in the USA is completely stymied on the national level by the fact that America is not a pure Democracy. The American citizen body has no formal constitutional role in the formation of federal law and policy. Rather the United States of America is a Democratic Republic, where the American body politic elects our legislatures and executives to enact laws and make national policy decisions in a slow (and hopefully) deliberative fashion.~~~ Technopolitical , july 2002.