The system wouldn't require many people to read much. Some gadflies, lawyers, and think-tankers would do a deep pass in areas that concern them; a citizen bitten by a specific law would look at that law in detail and register support/disapproval.
Then, the areas of controversy or obscurity would start to stick out in automated/ranked analysis. Activists (of all stripes) would point out areas for a closer look with URLs.
It is a system for calling attention to things, in turn -- not necessarily forcing preemptive review of (or expertise on) everything.
It could also work if the only people who register support/opposition are elected legislators. In this variant, by default, if you've voted for a law, you're marked as supporting all its clauses. A legislator can then go in -- after the fact -- and remove their name from those clauses they don't specifically support. (When replaced, the new seatholder inherits the previous legislators' positions, until they choose to update them.)
If/when a clause has zero supporters -- no one in the current legislature is willing to go on record as sponsoring it -- then it enters a sunset period. If it doesn't get another on-the-record defender in 6 months to a year, it expires.
Thus, every law, when passed, has coverage for every clause -- but then legislator shame and/or turnover leaves the most embarrassingly narrow clauses with fewer and fewer supporters facing more and more negative attention.
Compare it with the "enforcement priority list" for crime concept about midway through this piece:
By focusing attention on one egregious clause at a time -- as the 'least sponsored' or 'most opposed' -- the normal unaccountability legislators enjoy, because citizens are distracted and their concerns are diffused over the entire legal code, can be remedied.
Actually, I do think you're on to something, in part because the change itself would change the nature of law. Automatic sun-setting and expiration, for instance, would winnow down the legal code in a matter of time. As a system, it certainly has potential.
Basically it's a system of representation in which it's direct democracy in the base-case, yet any individual can at any time empower another with their vote (thus making them their representative). Ultimately you get a hierarchy of delegation, with what we would currently call reps would just be those who at any moment in time currently have the top vote empowerment totals. No terms, not necessarily any districts, no need for parties or runoffs or anything of the sort. Just an online system for tracking the delegations.
However, there's a separate concern, apart from whether a system would work, which is how to bring it about. I'm a big believe in Condorcet & Approval voting, but getting them through the public process, with established players dead-set against them, is an enormous challenge.
Part of my thinking with VoteReports is that it approximates the Delegatory Republic, where the delegatees are report creators, rather than other individuals, but within the current system. That part is key: it doesn't require systemic change to implement, the change can be brought about from outside the system.
So that's another point to think on, for projects like these: what can I do now? How can it work from the outside?
Then, the areas of controversy or obscurity would start to stick out in automated/ranked analysis. Activists (of all stripes) would point out areas for a closer look with URLs.
It is a system for calling attention to things, in turn -- not necessarily forcing preemptive review of (or expertise on) everything.
It could also work if the only people who register support/opposition are elected legislators. In this variant, by default, if you've voted for a law, you're marked as supporting all its clauses. A legislator can then go in -- after the fact -- and remove their name from those clauses they don't specifically support. (When replaced, the new seatholder inherits the previous legislators' positions, until they choose to update them.)
If/when a clause has zero supporters -- no one in the current legislature is willing to go on record as sponsoring it -- then it enters a sunset period. If it doesn't get another on-the-record defender in 6 months to a year, it expires.
Thus, every law, when passed, has coverage for every clause -- but then legislator shame and/or turnover leaves the most embarrassingly narrow clauses with fewer and fewer supporters facing more and more negative attention.
Compare it with the "enforcement priority list" for crime concept about midway through this piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/business/economy/04view.ht...
By focusing attention on one egregious clause at a time -- as the 'least sponsored' or 'most opposed' -- the normal unaccountability legislators enjoy, because citizens are distracted and their concerns are diffused over the entire legal code, can be remedied.