Opinion: A job for the next council: improve our democracy
Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others,” or words to that effect. But there is a wide range of forms of democracy — from what are, in effect, elected dictatorships, to those where direct democracy works in parallel with elected democracy. The Scandinavian countries’ democracies are rated best, along with Switzerland, and almost all have accessible processes for national and/or local initiatives. In Switzerland, citizen initiatives only require 100,000 signatures in a country of almost 9 million — slightly over 1% — and the signature gathering process is relatively simple. Also, Switzerland allows initiative votes up to four times per year. In Boulder, non-charter legislative initiatives require the signatures of 10% of the average number of voters in the last two municipal candidate elections. In 2023, over 33,000 people voted. This will likely increase substantially in 202...