VFM Status Updates

Voter-funded media implementations are moving ahead at several universities --

1. Simon Fraser University: Now launching year-round online VFM system – see www.votermedia.org/sfu. Please spread the word to potential media entrants.

2. UBC: I don’t know what’s happening here. If anyone knows, please update me and I’ll post some info. There was supposed to be a contest launched before now, but I haven’t seen any sign of it.

3. Western Washington University: Elections Coordinator Ben Murphy will make a VFM proposal to WWU Associated Students Board of Directors on November 28 (I’ll attend).

4. U C Berkeley: I spent a week there in October. Met ASUC External Affairs VP Danny Montes. He likes the idea of year-round online VFM and will discuss with other executive officers. A professor sponsored me for a computer account, and I’ve built a prototype online voting system at https://bspace.berkeley.edu/ (need login for access).

5. BCIT: Had several positive meetings with student reps. They like the VFM idea and are considering ways of implementing it.

6. Kwantlen University College: Had several meetings with student reps. Some like the VFM idea better than others. Still under discussion.

You can discuss VFM with students at various universities in the votermedia Google group.

Various updates

It’s happening! Student unions at UBC, SFU and Kwantlen are moving ahead on VFM:

I got an unofficial report that UBC AMS Council created its new VFM committee on May 30.

I presented a brief VFM proposal to the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) Board on June 6. They’ve invited me to discuss it with their larger governing body, SFSS Forum, on June 27.

Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) Council has also asked me to present a VFM proposal at their June 27 meeting. (Good thing they meet at noon, so I’ll have time to get to the 4:30 SFSS meeting.)

The general reaction at all three student unions continues to be favourable. But like last year at UBC, I’m concerned that slow progress may lead to late implementation, thus reducing VFM’s benefit to students.

So meanwhile I’m rewriting my paper Voter-Funded Media for resubmission to the International Journal of Communication.

Interesting news from other blogs:

1. UBC Insiders posted an interview of me. (Well, I think it’s interesting!)

2. Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig just announced a major change of his focus from intellectual “property” issues to fighting political corruption. So I sent him this email:

Dear Professor Lessig –

Thank you for shifting your focus to fighting political corruption – we need all the help we can get!

I’ve long admired your public-interest work on IP. We met when I organized a debate between you and a former director (Dickinson) of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in February 2001.

My main project since 1996 has been designing ways to reduce corruption in corporations and politics. It’s more than 10 years but I’m not ready to change horses yet – I work slower than you!

Besides, the project is heating up now – see attached 1-page description, and www.votermedia.org.

-- Mark

It’s time to get VFM rolling for the coming year

Building on the success of VFM at UBC in January 2007, I’ve been meeting with student union members, representatives and employees at UBC, SFU, BCIT and Kwantlen, offering to sponsor VFM for them in the coming year. Their responses have been broadly positive, so I hope to see it happen in most or all of these democratic communities. (I’m contacting others too.)

Student unions need media coverage all year, not just at election time. So the sooner VFM is launched, the more benefit it will bring. Even just the anticipation of VFM can encourage new and existing media to cover student association issues. I don’t know if that’s a factor in UBC Insiders’ continued blogging, but I’d like to think so.

What’s the next step? I emailed this outline to the UBC AMS VP External last September, when we were planning the first VFM:

“Here are the main steps I think we need to follow:

1. Choose a name to replace “turbo democracy”.
2. Decide the rules for the media competition, including ballot format.
3. Get AMS Council approval to proceed with implementation.
4. Publicize the competition to potential media contestants.
5. Media sign up, start covering AMS issues and building their websites.
6. We publicize the new info system to voters, with media help.
7. Media gradually gain reputation in the eyes of voters and other media.
8. Potential candidates decide to run for AMS positions, partly because of this new info system that will help voters elect good candidates.
9. Election campaign period begins. Media cover debates, interview candidates, write evaluations and endorsements.
10. Media review and critique each other.
11. Voters read media websites, vote for election candidates, and vote funds to media contestants.
12. Candidates are elected; media awards are paid out.

All these stages take time. …

I think it’s important for voters, media and candidates to develop their understanding of how this new info system works, before the election campaign starts. That education process is in steps 5, 6 and 7 above, and can be expected to take several months.

Ideally, I would have liked to be at step 5 by now as the semester begins. How fast can we play catch-up and get the first four steps done? As each week goes by, the chance of success diminishes for a full implementation by January 2007.”

As I feared, it took months to work through steps 1 to 4, and we ended up launching the contest in early January, a mere 3 weeks before the election. UBC students would have benefited more from an earlier launch.

Our next implementations of VFM can build on what we already learned at UBC. Based on the above 12-step program, step 1 is done – we now call it "voter-funded media" instead of the too-retro "turbo democracy". But most of the remaining steps will need to be redone in whole or in part, which will take months. Although the rules used at UBC worked pretty well, there’s plenty of scope for trying to improve them. So if we want to launch VFM in September, we should start designing the rules ASAP.

Although many students are away in summer, and everyone has competing priorities, each student union could create a small committee to move this plan forward. I’m available to help!