Maurice Ali
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 8483
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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 Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2026 1:26 pm Post subject: FOF Advocacy Inc. Advocates for the Worldwide Vote! |
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FOF Advocacy Inc. Advocates for the Worldwide Vote!
By Maurice Ali
The internet is one way the majority of the world is connected. As of July 2024, 67.1 percent of the global population or 5.45 billion were online and 4.5 billion use smartphones (Statista). If you take out children too young to use the internet, that percentage gets even higher. Thus, the internet is one of the best ways to achieve social inclusion, but how could we get all these people together in one online location? One way would be a smartphone application, and many exist today that service billions of people daily. But for our purposes we would need an application that could bring the world together in a new form of social application focused on the betterment for all globally. The result of this effort would be social inclusion, and a way to achieve social cohesion is by consensus of that group on important global issues of interest to all; and with consensus you would have solidarity to achieve those goals that flow from consensus.
We at the FOF Advocacy Inc. believe that the general public should have a voice at the United Nations. At the United Nations many stakeholders will contribute there, but the most important stakeholders are all the actual individuals who are affected by the decisions made at the United Nations. They deserve to have all their voices heard and this could be done through an application on smartphones potentially giving everyone on earth a vote through a popular vote on global activities at the United Nations. The International Association of Independent Journalists Inc. made a report on this very subject (“Improving the Online Participation of the General Public at United Nations Events”) and the information that follows is from that report and updates. Our social application is called the “Worldwide Vote” and the idea behind it has been around for years, but only in the past few months has the pragmatic logistical problems been overcome to truly have an inclusive global social space to achieve solidarity, social inclusion and social cohesion. By making an application (Worldwide Vote) available on Android devices and iOS devices, we have achieved true penetration to all those people in the world who are online. The applications in both application stores are the most effective way for the general public to have a voice on global issues. Right now, Google Play (Google Play Store) has 3.7 million applications and the App Store (Apple App Store) has 1.7 million applications for a total of 5.4 million applications servicing 99.3% of all smartphones in the world. Such an application would be downloaded by a smartphone user to their device and opening the application would allow that user the ability to vote in a popular vote on global issues. The people downloading the application from these stores know that the application they download has been vetted and safe for them to use. Contrast this with website use which has 1.13 billion websites and who knows what sorts of potential malware is present at these websites. So having these iOS and Android applications available to all smartphone users is a huge step forward to a true worldwide vote! Having said that, you can still vote online at worldwidevote.org, or side load the application (from a download at worldwidevote.org) into smartphones running “de-Googled” operating systems for those that like that option. Social cohesion comes with a common issue or problem to be solved. The first vote question on our application was: “Do you support the idea of permanent ongoing participation of the general public at the United Nations in all aspects of United Nations activities?” Our vote showed that 73.8% (up slightly from 72.34% before the applications were officially added to the iOS and Android stores) from a sample size of 904 votes, would endorse this form of public participation at the United Nations.
That desire for more participation, through a worldwide vote such as we have here, could now be used for better policy making in the future at the United Nations. Therefore, this “proof of concept” example has now been shown to work! Solidarity for this statement comes from a vote and consensus on the issue and attempting to get the results to where it matters. A worldwide vote through smartphones includes people who would never get direct participation or a voice on global issues at the United Nations. Therefore, the Worldwide Vote is socially inclusive; participation has social cohesion because of its activities such as the vote, and solidarity by the vote results being delivered to a place that matters to be used for better policy making. In addition, this provides every individual with a sense of empowerment and self-determination. With the recent addition of the App Store application (Worldwide Vote at the Apple App Store), we could now show “proof of concept” of a vote and how it would work. People would vote on the proposition in question in whatever method was easiest for them. The votes would then be tabulated. The results would then be delivered to the United Nations through a stakeholder having access to communicate at the United Nations such as a non-governmental organization with consultative status, and the results could be used for better policy making at the United Nations. This would be the current way to make this work. Of course, many would question the accuracy and possible bias that a non-governmental organization (for example) might have, so we propose that the United Nations itself hold the vote. A worldwide vote is a good thing in whatever form it takes! |
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