Here’s what the IES gives you: one vote, cast for any candidate any time you like, change to any other candidate any time after that, no deadline, no finish date. How do you think this will affect your evaluation of the work done by the people who are elected to choose laws for the land where you reside?
The Interactive Sovereign Society (ISS) was founded in December, 2010, perhaps the first society in human history to practice an election in which each voter is allowed to use their democratic right to vote whenever they wish instead of only occasionally when given permission by authorities. In the ensuing time, there have been no observations of any deficiency in stability, minority enfranchisement, legislative feasibility, security, cost, or any other pressing priorities, for this method of collective decision making, in comparison to the periodic elections conventionally practiced by governments and other societal organizations throughout the world. However, it is possible that detrimental impacts to one or more of these objectives may become apparent once the IES is used by a larger electorate.
If no detrimental impacts are found to any of these objectives no matter how large the size of electorate observed to use this system, then perhaps it will be recognized that the denial of democratic rights for several years at a time has been a crime against humanity by governments since the dawn of the existence of elections in human civilization.
As a voter, perhaps the first consideration in engaging an IES is to scrutinize the policies and agenda of the incumbent elected representative to see whether anything conflicts with your conscience, and if so, find a candidate who has a good chance of getting more votes than the incumbent, who has an agenda more aligned with your conscience, and consider giving your vote to that contender. On the other hand, if you find that the incumbent does not have any major conflicts with your conscience that may be resolved by any close contenders, then instead, look for a candidate with a comparatively small number of votes who is espousing views that are innovative ways of attempting to make society more fair and equitable for everybody, and just give your vote to that outlier. There is no good reason to give your vote to the leading candidate because she or he is already elected and your vote won’t change that at all.
The incumbent, the contenders, and the outliers, as well as all of their supporters, will all be interested in offering you any information that you ask for to help you make your decision because that is the only way any of them are going to get your vote, so feel free to ask whatever questions will help you consider your decision.
If a contender gets more votes than the incumbent, then there is a guaranteed term of office (usually three months) for the incumbent to keep the position. Information will be made publicly available to you, including: who the incumbent is, which contender is vying for the position, and the date that the contender shall take the position if the incumbent does not regain the lead before that date. If your vote is not standing with the incumbent, then you can move it to the incumbent at any time during those three months if you prefer the incumbent over the contender. This may not be enough to prevent the change of representative, but it is your right to make this choice whenever you wish. If the contender takes the position, then you may wish to learn about the veto that the second place candidate has in the legislative process.
The elected candidate of the ISS is called the prime representative, and the second place candidate is called the main collaborator. The main collaborator has a veto over decisions made by the prime representative on behalf of the society. So if your preferred candidate is demoted from being the incumbent representative to being the second place representative, you need not fear that your preferences in policy or agenda will be ignored or overruled.
A veto may only be used as a tool for establishing a compromise between two different desired outcomes, never for indefinitely, completely overruling a decision desired by a substantial proportion of the public. If a veto is used with no gesture of good faith in a process of negotiation, then a judicial panel can be assembled to rule on a compromise. If you are not one of the elected candidates either supporting a decision or vetoing it, then you can be chosen by one of the parties in the disagreement to be a part of the panel. The objective shall then be to replace the veto with a middle ground compromise, and you shall be trusted to work with the panel to achieve this.
To learn the full details of which candidates have vetoes and under what conditions, look at the Part of the ISS Charter entitled Representative Collaborators, beginning on page 3.
To see some diagrams of different electoral distributions and explanations of how your vote can be used most strategically to seek the greatest advocacy for views consistent with your own, click here.