Keeping with the times

There’s more to voting online than convenience and an appearance of modernity, however. “All reasonable indicators point towards digital democracy having a positive impact on participation and engagement,” said Chowdhury.

That’s particularly true of younger adults. “When it comes to young people, the digital natives to whom instruction manuals are nothing but a nuisance, it does make sense that digital democracy would have an impact on them,” said Chowdhury. “It’s not a case of young people being lazy, which is a patronising claim at best; it’s a case of the process not capitalising on where they are at.”

Our own government is attempting to address that and even advertised its EU referendum argument via Facebook, while also flooding our letterboxes with the paper version. Imagine a politician who keeps his campaign promises, has no ego and can never lie. This impossible fantasy could come true – but it does mean ditching humans for software.

Blockchain is the digital ledger behind virtual currency Bitcoin, which allows one person to send coins to another over the internet without either party needing to trust each other: the list is transparent and verifiable.

In Australia, the newly formed Flux party entered 13 senate candidates in the July federal election, but its manifesto was a little unusual: it had no policies, while any elected politicians couldn’t vote via their own conscience. Instead, they must follow the input of members, who would