SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Paige Saunders is in the process of selling his house in order to launch a website he hopes will upgrade democracy in the city.

The New Zealand-born tech wizard - who has been living in Yellowknife for six years - said he'll live with friends once he's sold his home to pay for the launch of IserveU, an online voting project which will put municipal decisions in the hands of city residents.

"I'm trying to put as much in as I can to help get it off the ground," he said, adding other sponsors are also pitching money toward launching "e-democracy" at city hall.

Saunders said the project he's been working on for a number of years will register city residents and give them the ability to vote 'yay' or 'nay' on motions before city council – and leave comments providing rationale. City councillors recruited to the IserveU platform will take the votes as direct orders when it comes to the final council vote.

Saunders said the group hopes to enlist five city councillors (out of eight) who will swear oaths and sign contracts promising to vote according to public demand. He said some people feel opening decision making up to the general public online would be too chaotic and voters don't necessarily care enough to weigh in on every decision made by municipal politicians. But, he said, he's designed the system to account for voter apathy.

"Some issues people are going to be really interested in," he said, citing the Robertson Headframe as an example. If lots of people log in to vote the IserveU councillors will vote according to their wishes, he said.

"(If) most of the people in Yellowknife turn out for the vote then this is what Yellowknife wants," he said. "It's fair if the majority of the people say they want it. It's like a cheap referendum."

Issues that don't capture public attention won't be decided by e-voting, he said. The system will revert to a representational system but the councillors can still use the votes that are cast as an indication of what some of the people want in order to better round-out their decision.

"If people in Yk choose not to vote … it just reverts back to the (representational) system. It's kind of a best of both worlds."

Saunders wouldn't say which councillors currently on city council have shown interest in the plan. He said the group has found five people who plan to run for city council in the fall who are on board.

"We have a lot of councillors interested and people that will run for council in the election," he said, adding the group is focused on the municipal level.

"We're not really aiming at the territorial level," he said. "We think the municipal level is quite manageable and it will work quite well."

If it goes ahead, it will be the first example of e-democracy in the country, said Saunders, however similar e-voting systems have been established in municipal governments elsewhere in the world.

Coun. Cory Vanthuyne, who plans to step away from municipal politics to run for an MLA spot in the fall, said he's not convinced this process will work for the city.

"There's so much more involved in making decisions," he said, adding that throwing decisions to an electronic vote would undermine the system that currently makes decisions based on council debate. Voters who haven't tuned in for the discussion might not be informed enough to make sound decisions, he said.

"One of our most important documents (is) the budget," he said. "That's a four or five night process we go through page by page. How would they be involved in that process?"

Mayor Mark Heyck, who recently announced he'll run for re-election in the fall, said he thinks the IserveU group has an interesting concept but has his doubts about how it will work.

"I think it's an interesting idea in theory, but I think there are some practical issues with it," he said. "We often modify our decision through debate and discussion from hearing the perspective of other councillors on a given issue. That's the way representative democracies are designed. That's how we typically make decisions."

Heyck said he has a meeting scheduled with Saunders for next week when he'll hear more about the plan.

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