In the last article, we saw how parties corrupt Congress. Political Parties are primarily about the dominance of their points of view, their platform. Their primary purpose is not delivering what the people want. In this article, we’ll see how members of Congress are dependent on parties and influenced by them. And how PeopleCount frees our officials from that dependency and thus lessens party influence.

There are two main forces that keep parties in power. The first is our two-party system, which we’ll discuss elsewhere. The second is the inability of members of Congress to communicate with their constituents.

A member of Congress really has two questions, on an issue:

• What is best for America?
• What do the people want?

If a politician had real communication with constituents

If a politician had real communication with constituents, she’d know what her constituents wanted. Constituents would communicate it. And she knows what’s best for America, or at least, it’s part of her job to find out, to read research and talk to others in Congress and with experts.

She would then either agree with constituents or disagree. If she agreed, she’d know what to do. If she disagreed, she’d communicate that to voters and work it out. If she had the communication tools, she could have a conversation with voters, a back-and-forth.

Ideally, a politician serves the voters. She’s the employee and you are her boss. If she disagrees with what you want, she’d discuss why with you and you’d either agree or not and then direct her.

Without real Communication

Unable to do this kind of communicating, the politician is left in the dark. She doesn’t want to anger voters so she adopts the party position. There’s safety in numbers. If she does her own research and disagrees with the party, she’ll try to influence the party’s position. But in the end, she’ll adopt the party position to avoid being responsible for an unpopular stand. Lack of communication with voters makes our officials rely on the party for safety.

PeopleCount Provides the Communication Channel

PeopleCount.org simply provides the communication channel to voters. She communicates with voters via her reports on an issue and voters reply with grades and by changing their votes on the issue if they agree. While we have some other kinds of communication planned as well, this simple system will provide the communication necessary for politicians to confidently represent their constituents and be free from party positions.

PeopleCount will free congress from the corruption of parties. There’ll be two more articles on this, one about the two-party system and one about the proper role of parties.