The Party Website - A Detailed Vision

The Idea laid out a high-level vision of a new political party whose core belief is taking the power from the representatives and giving it back to the people.  The high-level vision also included a few details about a website that would provide the infrastructure of the party and facilitate this transfer of power.  There are a lot of things that need to be worked out to define exactly what functions this website should provide.  The purpose of this post is to lay out a more detailed vision of how this website could function.

The Basics

The website could provide the following basic functionality:

• A public home page(s) that gives details about the party and the party's core belief.
• A way for people to sign-up for the party (which would simultaneously sign them up to use the website).
• Party members would probably need to be verified, to make sure they're a real person and they live at their stated address.  So there would need to be different levels of party membership (i.e. new member, verified member, etc).  There would need to be administrative screens for administrators of the party to mark someone as verified.
• Contact information for the national organization of the party.
• A way for people to donate money.

More Advanced - Building the Organization

The national organization of the party will need to be setup first to provide the infrastructure of the party and the website.  But once that is done, there will need to be a way for the party to grow.  Again, this can all be coordinated through the website.  The website could:

• Allow someone to search for the nearest local chapter of the party.
• Provide details on how someone can start a local chapter if one does not exist yet in their vicinity, including contact information if they have questions.
• Post details on help that is needed at the national level for people that are interested in helping build the party at the national level.
•  Allow local chapters to setup their own branches on the website where they can post their own content, needs, contact information, etc.
• Provide flyers that people can print out and post in public places, or hand out to their friends and neighbors.
• Provide presentation slides that could be presented at a local meeting that state the beliefs and goals of the party.

More Advanced - Selecting Party Candidates

In order for the core belief of the party to be realized, the party must first get people elected. That means for a particular office we have to choose a single person from our party that we will all vote for - that is how the Republicans and Democrats do it, and that's why they're so successful.  Due to the core belief of our party, it's not as critical who we select to represent us, as long as they agree to adhere to the core belief.  Still, there needs to be a process for people to apply to represent the party, and a way for the party members to choose a final candidate.  Again, the website can facilitate this.  The website could provide:

• A way for administrators of the national and local chapters of the party to post public offices that they would like to target in upcoming elections.
• Applications that someone wanting to be a candidate for an office must fill out.
• A voting process for whittling the candidates for a particular office down to one.  This could be a straight-up winner-take-all vote by party members who would be constituents of the office.  Or if there were enough people vying for the candidacy, it could maybe be a tournament-style process that would consist of several separate votes to get down to the final candidate.

More Advanced -  Elected Officials and Implementing The Core Belief

So now someone from the party has been elected to public office.  There needs to be a way for the core belief of the party to be efficiently administered.  The website could provide the backbone for this as well:

The elected official view

• Provide an interface for elected officials to post summaries of the decisions (votes) that are coming up, along with a date and time by when their constituents need to submit their votes.  The post could also include a link(s) to more detailed information about the issue being voted on. 
• The interface for posting the decision could include a priority-level of the decision.  For example, if it's something the official thinks most party members would care about, they could rank it high.  If it's something the official thinks most party members wouldn't care about, they could rank it low.  These ranks could then help party members filter out the decisions they care most about.
• Provide a view of the decisions that their constituents have voted on, and the results of each.

The member view

• When members login, they could see all of their elected officials, with a special designation for their elected officials that are members of the party.
• The member could select an elected party official and see all of the decisions the official has posted to be voted on, along with the dates by which members must submit their votes.  Members could change their vote up until the cutoff date/time for the decision.
• There could be a view of all of the upcoming decisions from all elected officials the member is a constituent for.
• There could also be a view for the party member to see past decisions from the elected official, how the official voted, how the constituency voted, and the final outcome.
• The members could have a settings screen where they specify how or whether they want to be notified for the decisions that the elected officials are posting.  For example, they may want to receive a text message for high-priority decisions.  And they may want to just receive an email or no notification at all for a low-priority decision.

Even More Advanced - Member-Driven Legislation

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written by average people all across the globe.  It is trusted by millions of people who need to lookup information.  Why couldn't legislation be written the same way?  A party member could start a piece of proposed legislation, and designate a constituency that would be affected by it (i.e. whether it would be a national, state, or local law). Party members in the constituency group for the legislation could edit it, wiki-style.  Once a certain threshold of constituents voted for a version of the legislation, an elected party official could propose it as a bill.