On my Democracies Online blog I shared my dismay about the so-called online candidate debates thus far this election cycle. With E-Democracy.Org we hosted the first online candidate debate back in 1994, so I am looking for innovations that involve the public in determining the questions and would be satisfied without real candidate rebuttals online. E-Debates have a long way to go, but 10Questions.com is a huge step in the right direction.
If you work with a media site you can embed the online question voting right into your own site, just as E-Democracy.Org has done here. Imagine the power of hundreds of online news sites working collaboratively to combine their audience through one democratic experiment.
While I now focus much more locally with online citizen engagement, the presidential campaign is the signature experience which defines the expectations for races down the ballot. In short, a good online presidential debate might give me that dog catcher e-debate that I am just itching to see.
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
Cross posted to DoWire.Org – the Democracies Online Newswire.