CREATING A NEW COUNTRY 2

You can’t vote unless the UK government allows you to.

Well, that’s not strictly true – more information to follow on the ICCPR campaign and the 2020 Referendum Act – but for the purposes of any national vote we are wholly dependent on the UK government and the Electoral Commission which, contrary to the intention of its inception, is entirely under government control. If the government says no then no it is.

The above is, of course, paper voting and exists under UK law. So how about online voting?

People’s Assembly Scotland, formed in February 2017 followed and supported a number of popular initiatives which sadly failed for different reasons but gave us significant lessons to be learned. The one initiative we refer to here is the Scottish Digital Covenant. This Covenant was overly complicated to sign up to but the worst problem was that, in purchasing space using Etherium, the price went through the roof. Nevertheless, support from Holyrood politicians was quite extensive:

In turn, Jenny Gilruth MSP lodged a Motion in Scotland’s Parliament, in support of any significant future national decisions regarding self-determination and EU membership, being underpinned with the security of blockchain technology.

Sadly, as Nicholas and I found out, this enthusiasm did not extend to the Scottish government. Several presentations went nowhere.

As you can see from the website, the full digital agenda went much further than just a digital electorate. https://yesdayscotland.wordpress.com

Learning the lesson of cost control and relative simplicity combined with a much narrower scope, namely the creation of a digital electorate only we have produced a blockchain voting app which is accessible without reference to either the Holyrood or Westminster systems. Voting can be on a local, regional or national basis and the votes can be polling or determinant.

There are details about the voting app and its security together with information for those who are not familiar with the idea of online voting but the digital electorate is there to be used by the public without interference by others. More on how to use it to follow shortly but one final thing – the registration fee. Why do we ask this? Well, we cannot be beholden to any outside influence and it still costs money to run. This is guaranteed one-off payment and will never happen again. You will occasionally be sent an email to confirm or update your information but replying is simple and free.

There is one huge advantage to this. We have already ensured that any vote taken is internationally verifiable and a vote, say, on independence will completely sidestep Westminster. No UK government agreement, no Supreme Court challenge, nothing.

But of course we have to be ready for such a move.

More to follow.

Please consider registering. There is lots to come and we need to be ready for it. Join us now.