State Government News featured us in their October, 1994 issue. Sandia Labs continues to lumber along developing a multi-million-dollar phone voting system for the state of New Mexico. These are the people who developed nuclear weapons for the Pentagon. $600 hammers, anyone? Systems from our friends Omni Software are available for $1000 and up, about $13,000 for a city the size of Boulder (100,000 people). This is in line with the NSF study. A single Boulder election now costs $60,000!
The September 26, 1994 TIME excerpts famed Republican analyst (and Nixon speechwriter) Kevin Phillips' "Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics". He supports more `direct democracy'. When leading Republicans advocate what our opponents in the '93 campaign called "true democracy", can Democrats be far behind? The people are way ahead: polls for years show 80% of us want true democracy.
CU Law Professor K.K. DuVivier is publishing her paper: "By Going Wrong All Things Come Right: Using Alternative Initiatives To Improve Citizen Lawmaking" in which the Dr. writes: "The major benefit of the alternate initi ative is that it wrests this agenda control away from a single interest group." How to get more alternatives? Lower initiative petition requirements, we think! Increased use of the initiative can be accommodated inexpensively by quarterly or monthly phone voting.