New England has direct democracy for town government in many towns. Which means that anybody can go to town meeting where we decide on the budget and zoning laws and pretty much anything in the town. There are committees that figure out the important bits, and there's a board of selectmen and various other elected boards, but it's the people who actually get to decide.
It's a bit of a zoo. Because anybody can get up and object to something and make an amendment -- and they do! And then they object to the meeting moderator's call of the voice vote and make us all have a standing vote. But, it is still kind of cool, despite everything taking way longer than it ought to. We were there for five hours on Monday night and four hours on Tuesday night.
Of course, in some ways it's really "non-representative democracy", because a lot of people don't go, because it's not convenient for them to be awake until midnight (it wasn't really convenient for me, but I stayed anyway), or they just don't care enough to spend their evening sitting around the high school auditorium listening to people drone on about this or that planning board initiative.
(and give “Future Voter” stickers to any kids who come with their parents)
