Additional requirements to be valid

A few additional requirements are needed to wrap up our discussion on the practicality and validity of our democratic solution process and Citizen Governance Websites.

Multiple languages

Should the Citizen Governance Websites and the democratic solution process be in multiple languages to ensure no one was excluded? Under the House of Representatives English Language Unity Act of 2017, English would be the official language of the US Federal Government pertaining to all laws, public proceedings, regulations, publications, orders, actions, programs, and policies. [6]

As of this writing, the websites for the Senate and House of Representatives are only in English. IRS webpages are in English, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian, Vietnamese, and Haitian Creole. However, all tax forms are in English only.

Perhaps an easy solution that provides multiple languages and keeps things simple would be to inform citizens that Google Translate is available at translate.google.com. Try it yourself. Go to translate.google.com, click on "Websites," select "Spanish," and enter "senate.gov" as the website. The Senate website will be displayed translated into Spanish. Regardless, if the people wanted to require multiple languages, they could enter an issue and solve it.

Lack of internet access or technical ability

Another concern is that for all adult citizens to have the opportunity to participate, they must have internet access and the technical ability to use the website. Currently, anyone can mark a ballot, although some need and receive help reading the ballot or traveling to a voting location.

Internet access availability

The internet access issue confuses many people because of the big push now to bring "broadband" internet to all locations in the US. For example, an article in 2021 had a headline of, "Nearly a Quarter of US Households Don't Have Internet Access." [7] Unfortunately, this is false and the headline is misleading but this message is common throughout the media. This article was based on an article titled "Nearly 1 in 4 Households Don’t Have Internet" in Aug 2021 in Review.org that has since been taken down. As many writers simply copy information from other articles, they become confused and misled as well. All towns and cities in the US have access to the internet.

However, 1 in 4 have older DSL broadband, not high-speed broadband and out of 124 million households, reportedly about 265,000 (0.2% of households or 2.7 out of 1000) still use dialup. At least in the summer of 2021. [8] All of the government and media commotion is about assuring high-speed broadband access to everyone. The FCC has increased the standard of broadband internet to 25 Mbps for download speeds and 3 Mbps for upload. [9] According to the FCC's own broadband speed guide, that allows about three people at a time to stream HD videos or 8 people at a time to stream standard definition videos. Social media requires only about 1 Mbps, well within the old DSL internet speeds. [10]

Our Citizen Governance Websites would use much less than even social media because very little information is displayed on a page at one time with no pictures. Therefore, a Citizen Governance Website could be used even at dialup speeds. And of course, it could be used through a smart phone or any device that can access websites on the internet. Therefore, the access availability issue of high-speed internet that is now being called broadband is not a concern for our Collaborative Democracy.

Computer literacy and access

However, not all adults use computers or smart phones, especially those over 65. According to Statista, 75% or 3 in 4 people over age 65 used the internet in 2021. Of those aged 50 to 64, 95% reported using the internet. Ages 30 to 49 reported internet use at 98% and those younger at 99%. [11] Those who don't use it may choose not to use it, not be able to afford it, or be physically or mentally incapable of using it.

If anyone wished to participate in solving issues in our Collaborative Democracy and they did not or could not access the internet, they would need to go to a library or school where computers with internet access were available to the community free or ask for help from a friend or a community resource. People could volunteer to help others at schools, churches, and civic organizations in evenings using the schools' or the helpers' laptop computers or tablets to allow others to participate where desired just as they help them to vote now.

No identifying information with submissions

If we want true equality in our country where every voter has an equal voice, we must stop identifying ourselves by categories and groups. Statements and information documents submitted during our democratic solution process should be assessed on their own merit by citizens regardless of whether the submitters were professors from a prestigious university, Hollywood or media celebrities, CEOs of large corporations, elected officials, previous Federal Council members, male or female, people of any particular color, sports stars, billionaires, or the children of billionaires. Therefore, no personal identifying information would be displayed or reported with statements and information documents. Any such information submitted would be removed. Demographics would only be used to ensure that every group affected by an issue was notified of the opportunity to participate.