(Originally published in Greater Democracy)

According to his blog, Josh Ferguson has finally voted. With the Blogger’s for Bush banner on his site, I expect that I probably would have voted differently than he did on many issues. However, is blog entry about voting has some very important comments.

He lives in California and notes that he and his wife spent six hours studying the 24 different propositions on his ballot. He writes about this:

Now, don't get me wrong. I think the proposition process is nice. It allows people to take their concerns directly to the people when their representatives refuse to listen to them. Nevertheless, I give the founding fathers credit for coming up with a representative government knowing that a pure democracy would be a total disaster. Sometimes I hear people that claim that, given current technology, that a pure democracy is now possible and that we should work more towards that. Anyone thinking that should vote in a California election and it'd become very clear that a republic is definitely the way to go.

I must applaud him for his efforts to understand and make wise choices on the propositions. I imagine many people will first read many of the propositions when they get to the polling place, and cast votes without thinking out the issues.

I think his conclusion about the importance of a representative government is right on the mark. My wife is running for State Representative in Connecticut. Over the past several months we have spent a lot of time working together and getting feedback from friends about many issues that our state faces and even more ideas about how to address these issues.

One of the goals of my wife’s campaign has been to get more people involved in politics and thinking about the issues. I hope that we will see more legislative blogs and online forums, which will enable legislators to be more effective. I hope we will see more people running for Representative on local and state levels. However, with Josh, I hope we hold onto some of the value that a representative form of government brings.