Before, during, and after the American Revolution, people like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton used the communications technologies of their time, such as the printing press and the postal service, to spread a powerful idea—that government should embody the consent of the governed. They were the bloggers of their day. They helped design a new government based on a small number of elected representatives, with a separate judiciary, checks and balances, and a free press.

More than 200 years later, Americans are increasingly using the Internet to participate directly in democracy. And over the next 20 years, our governance will include forms of direct democracy that have never before been possible.

In politics, the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign pioneered the use of the Internet for organizing and fundraising. That effort was premature, in part because broadband technology deployment had not yet reached a critical mass. In 2008, though, many candidates—in local, state, and national elections—used the Internet very effectively. The Obama campaign was based largely on grassroots networking and community organizing.

People are also using the Internet to strengthen or debunk political claims. Sites like factcheck.org and politifact.com scrutinize issues at a level the traditional press has neglected.

Beyond politics, the Internet is changing governance in still other ways. New York and San Francisco, for example, are experimenting with customer service systems, currently via phone-based systems. Call 311 in New York and you can get a pothole fixed or find out how to navigate local government to accomplish other tasks. A related effort is the US Transportation Safety Administration blog, which has made a good start in dealing with airport issues. Eventually, such Internet-based systems will emerge through all levels of government.

Another burgeoning area of grassroots, networked democracy involves government transparency and accountability. Though there is a great deal of data out there, it is difficult to navigate. For example, it is not easy to connect the dots between campaign contributions and what they might have bought in terms of legislated privileges or favored contracts.

Responding to this, the Sunlight Foundation (I serve on the board) has fostered a network of specialized organizations with online tools that anyone can use to examine the data. Then there is maplight.org, a public database that highlights the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes, and the Center for Media and Democracy, which runs congresspedia.org—basically Wikipedia for the US Congress.

The challenge is how to give more citizens a voice in governance without overwhelming their representatives. There are two approaches; both rely on existing technology. In order to participate in online democracy, one needs a verifiable identity, the online equivalent of a driver’s license. The current version of that technology is the “digital certificate,” a piece of data embedded in your browser proving that you are who you say you are.

Members of Congress and Hill staffers tell me that a message from a verified member of their district carries far more weight than a (possibly mass-produced) e-mail. That’s one near-term way to move closer to networked democracy.

A more ambitious approach would involve large-scale discussion boards in which every citizen, with a verified identity, could weigh in on issues. The challenge here would be to sort the wheat from the chaff. The solution is to let the citizenry to do the sorting itself by filtering up the best suggestions online. Early forms of such methods are visible on slashdot.org, digg.com, and even Amazon.com.

Such systems, in theory, need to support hundreds of millions of citizens, but let’s face it, most people would rather not be bothered with politics to this degree. However, the possibilities are enormous—creating a new vision of democracy, from the grass roots up.

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