Prevent fat cats in Washington from running the government, using an anonymous election system that could theoretically elect a literal fat cat!

Background:

Corruption is a problem that seems inescapable in every form of governance—even in the best-run governments, there’s always going to be at least some incentive for certain individuals to use bribery, threats, and blackmail to advance their own agenda.

This can be difficult to address with traditional forms of government.

The proposal:

It would be difficult to bribe or threaten a ruler if the identity of this individual was unknown. Previously, this was not feasible (perhaps all senators could wear masks and long flowing robes to conceal their identities, but realistically this is not a practical solution).

But with modern technology, it is now possible for all legislative meetings to be conducted remotely over the Internet, either by text or by audio (with an anonymizing voice-modulating filter applied to the audio stream).

Each legislator could possess an encryption key that would verify that they were in fact the individual in question (or at least that they were someone who had stolen the key).

With the identities of members of government now a secret, it would not be possible for them to be influenced by bribery or threats. (This has been done in the past for juries in particularly dangerous situations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innominate_jury )

Fig 1: In this anonymously-run government, there is no possibility of legislators being pressured by threats, blackmail, or bribery.

In a representative government, elections could still occur as before, except with candidates being replaced by an anonymous silhouette and a written up statement of the candidate’s political platform. This would also even the playing field in elections, as the physical appearance of the candidate would no longer be a factor in the election.

An alternative option would be to randomly fill offices with willing citizens (sort of like a voluntary version of jury duty). This is called “Sortition” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition) and would avoid the problem of having to conduct elections in an anonymous fashion.

There would probably also have to be some system in place to discourage people from just selling their position to the highest bidder, which would otherwise be extremely easy (and nearly undetectable).

Conclusion:

Democracy has been slow to adopt the new technologies of the Information Age. Next time this idea is on a local or national referendum, you should vote for it and see what happens!

PROS: Reduces sex / race / appearance / class / income bias in government. Could make it easier for legislators to make necessary but politically unpopular decisions.

CONS: A legislator who lost their encryption key would be locked out of the government for the remainder of their term.