VoterMedia Newsletter #23 - September 2006

Written by Mark Latham

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. World’s First Test of Voter-Funded Media – at UBC

2. Proxy Advisor Proposal in Microsoft Proxy Statement

3. GAO Starting Review of Proxy Advisory Business

4. Media Reform Conference in Memphis, January 2007

5. Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform

1. WORLD’S FIRST TEST OF VOTER-FUNDED MEDIA – AT UBC

The University of British Columbia student council is interested in my proposal to sponsor the world’s first test of voter-directed media funding, in their January 2007 election. They have created a committee to review the proposal and report back by October 11. I have met with the committee, and the test appears likely to go ahead.

Council minutes are on the web at www.ams.ubc.ca/content.cfm?ID=106 – see August 2 and August 23, 2006 meetings.

Although these student representatives like my idea, they don’t like the name I had given it, “turbo democracy”. So I’m changing the name to “VoterMedia” and moving the website to www.votermedia.org .

My aim is to demonstrate the benefits of this enhanced voter information system at UBC, then spread its application to larger democracies and to corporations.

2. PROXY ADVISOR PROPOSAL IN MICROSOFT PROXY STATEMENT

For corporate shareowner voters, the most influential media are proxy advisory firms such as Glass Lewis and ISS. So in the corporate context my voter-directed media funding proposal is called “Proxy Advisor Proposal”, and calls for selection of proxy advisors by shareowner vote, paid with corporate funds. This proposal will be in the Microsoft Corporation proxy, to be issued in the next few days – see www.corpmon.com . The proposal’s supporting statement explains that it “could also increase competition in the proxy advisory business”.

3. GAO STARTING REVIEW OF PROXY ADVISORY BUSINESS

The U.S. Government Accountability Office is starting a review of firms that offer proxy advisory services and/or corporate governance ratings. They will focus on the potential for conflicts of interest, the degree of competition in these businesses, their impact on the stock market, and questions of SEC regulation of these types of firms. They are currently in a preliminary education phase, and I have not yet found any reference to this review on their website (www.gao.gov). I only learned of it when they contacted me recently for information.

4. MEDIA REFORM CONFERENCE IN MEMPHIS, JANUARY 2007

I will attend the National Conference for Media Reform, to be held January 2007 in Memphis. The media reform movement has grown rapidly in the USA over the past few years, fueled by widespread concern that existing news media are not fulfilling the public-interest needs of our democratic political system. More info at www.freepress.net . I believe that voter-directed funding of media will solve much of this problem, by giving the media a stronger incentive to serve the public interest.

5. ONTARIO CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY ON ELECTORAL REFORM

Political system reform is gaining momentum on other fronts too: electoral reform and deliberative democracy. The deliberative democracy movement aims to improve acountability by increasing citizen involvement in public policy deliberation – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_democracy

Two of the most prominent recent applications of deliberative democracy have addressed electoral reform. Elected politicians have inherent conflicts of interest when it comes to changing the rules of elections, so two Canadian provinces recently handed over electoral reform deliberation to “citizens’ assemblies” of randomly selected voters.

I did not think a random group could do a good job of redesigning such a complex system as elections, but I saw it with my own eyes in British Columbia in 2004 – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC-STV

Ontario has now followed suit with its own Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, which began deliberations this month: www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca
This will lead to an electoral reform referendum in 2007.

Back to newsletter list