Read in November 2006’s Wired Magazine: Daniel Rosen is a candidate for U.S. Representative in Nevada’s Second Congressional District. “Rosen’s pitch to the people of Nevada’s Second Congressional District is that if they send him to Washington in November, he’ll vote exactly the way his constituents tell him to. Really. Each of the district’s 358,000 registered voters would be able to log in to a secure Web site and record their preference for every piece of legislation that comes before Congress.”

What it means: although I’m a strong believer in using the Web to democratize the political process (the real “power to the people”), this might be pushing the envelope too much. I like the general idea but, at the same time, an elected official is put in office to represent people, need to be able to take decisions based on complex dossiers and can’t really manage by polls (in this case votes, but you know what I mean).  In any case, this might stimulate more people to vote and that’s good!   Expect the next 10 years to be really interesting though in terms of social applications applied to politics.