Computerworld  Denmark, October 15 1993 book review:

Marcus Schmidt: Direct Democracy in Denmark- About the Introduction of an Electronic Second Chamber of Parliament (in Danish), Copenhagen, Nyt Nordisk Forlag Arnold Busck 1993.

Reviewed by editor in chief Peter   Hvidtfeld

The group of popularly elected do not reflect the population, and their decisions do not reflect the opinions of the electorate. Thus voters are de facto being declared incapable of managing their own affairs, asserts an expert of opinion polls, who advocates the introduction of an electronic second chamber to ensure agreement between the preferences of the population and the decisions of the politicians.

"I merely ask for the power being handed back to the people. In my view, this is where it belongs instead of being in the hands of a bunch of schoolteachers, academics and journalists."

This is plain talk, spoken by Marcus Schmidt, an associate professor at the Southern Denmark Business School. Simultaneously, he has for years been responsible for the opinion polls at the Observa Institute and later at  GfK Denmark (a subsidiary of the big international market research agency).

The book starts out by going through the technique of opinion polls and gets down to treating the attitudes of the voters on one hand the decisions of the popularly elected on the other. Denmark has a representative democracy where we elect some people to represent our point of view and act accordingly - or to use the author's contradictory conclusion: The political decisions ought to be in agreement with those that a majority of voters would have carried through, if the voters technically speaking could have taken part in all the votes. .

Examples of popularly elected politicians being in agreement with their voters do exist, but there are also some rather striking examples of the contrary, nay, they even represent the rule, says Schmidt. A majority of the  Folketing (Danish Parliament) are opposed to calling anonymous witnesses in courts of law, while eighty percent of the population are in favor. A majority of the  Folketing are against a ban on hoods at demonstrations [enacted in 2000!], three out of four voters are in favor of such a ban. A majority of the   Folketing want to do away with the system of grades and exams of the primary schools, seven out of ten voters want to retain it. Sixty percent of the voters are in favor of euthenasia (assisted suicide), the majority of the Folketing are against. A majority of the Folketing have decided on the impeachment of the former Minister of Justice (Erik  Ninn-Hansen, accused of violating the law regarding the reunion of families among foreigners); according to an   Observa opinion poll, fifty-six percent of voters are against the impeachment, and only thirty six percent support it. The    Folketing passed the law about granting - automatically - residence permit to the   Palestineans who had been staying in the country for 12 months without obtaining residence on other grounds. Seventy percent of voters would vote against such a law, etc.

The author goes on to demonstrate how the members of the  Folketing do not reflect the population neither regarding age, education or profession. However, it wouldn't do any good to hold more referendums, since it is the    Folketing who decides the issues, the wording of the questions. Moreover, they posses disproportional influence on the shape of the debate.

The voters by means of the Danish constitution prevented from voting on things that really interest them (according to §42), for instance on taxation, and apart from that it has not once been possible to mobilize the sixty signatures of MPs needed to settle a political issue by referendum.

Today's 175 members of the  Folketing have succeeded in equating the welfare of the kingdom with their collective judgment. The electorate, on the other hand, must be kept down at all costs, concludes Schmidt and quotes Arne      Melchior, former Minister of Tourism and Communication: "The people is reactionary, it is retarding all progress."

The author hits the bull's eye by concluding that the voters are alienated because they have no influence -they mark their ballot paper in good faith but must often live to see how   the elected afterwards can't keep their election pledges and promises. They mostly excuse themselves with having to encounter the-best-possible compromise; far too seldom does one see a politician stick to his promises, and normally only in cases where a separate attitude doesn't topple the government.

The alternative to representative democracy, according to Schmidt, is direct democracy, which makes use of the push buttons on our telephones. Schmidt himself rejects the idea of calling 4 million to the buttons on every election, but once in his or her lifetime a voter should be given the opportunity of sitting in the electronic second chamber - thus we get a second chamber of 70.000 citizens, called MiniDenmark, who are chosen at random and thereby mirror the population perfectly.

The system is to work as follows: A bill first passes through the   Folketing, and subsequently through MiniDenmark, and if the two "houses" disagree or the outcome in  MiniDenmark is a close run, the bill is referred to a ordinary "brick and mortar" referendum. The 70.000 in  MiniDenmark must be supplied with the necessary material currently available to members of the  Folketing. Such facilities include the official gazettes, instructions with regard to procedures, at least one free newspaper of choice, free TV, and video, a free push-button telephone, a subsidized phone bill, a sum of, say, 5000  DKK at their disposal, and a paid day off work reserved for voting. Voting is to take place via voice response computers according to the model: If you vote yes, push 1, if you vote no, push 2 etc. It is going to be more costly than our present democracy, and is expected to have yearly working expenses of an estimated 5.6 billion DKK (Second Chamber) plus just under one billion  DKK for the popular referendums (necessitated when MiniDenmark and the Folketing disagree on a law).

But when the system in the final end saves us from a lot of expenses, whose payments are contrary to the wishes of the majority of voters, then this, according to the author, could very well be a price worth paying. The book identifies the problems involved in direct democracy, for instance the fact that voters may vote for costly bills and simultaneously vote against the counterbalancing increase in taxes. Likewise, push-button voters can get in the grip of moods and whims of the moment.

Due to the lack of relevant Danish examples and research the author is forced to turn to the USA, where local taxation laws can be put on the ballot by a popular initiative. There is plenty of evidence that US voters are able to understand that cost and revenues need to be balanced. Why, then, asks the author, shouldn't the Danes be able to decide wisely? The whims of the moment would also be much reduced in scale provided that Denmark became a direct democracy.

However, his own example with "Scandinavian Star" (ferry which went on fire in 1990, leaving 170 people death) gives food for thought. Shortly after the disaster a majority (50%) of Danes according to a poll wanted to forbid passenger ships under flags of convenience to dock at Danish ports and harbors. Only two years later 36% answered that such docking should be forbidden, while 37% (it was 31% two years earlier) answered that they should be allowed. But otherwise the argumentation is in order and all the weighty objections are refuted.

The book ends with the pious hope: Long live the Danish people! Hopefully it - and democracy - will live long enough to see the visions come true.