"Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives and not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process." (See http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml for more Ten Key Values of the Green Party)

Popular belief in the United States suggests that the form of government we currently have is accountable to the people; that it's democratic because we can vote. It is supposedly accountable to the people not only through elections, but also through direct observation and transparency. This may appear to be so, however, the Green Party of Nevada knows this system can be better. Unlike other political parties who simply want to gain power within the current system, the Green Party of Nevada seeks to change the system in order to encourage increased understanding of the electoral system which will, in turn, lead to higher rates of citizen participation.

For the Green Party of Nevada, public participation doesn't stop with voting. In fact, the Green Party of Nevada encourages people to get involved in many more ways, such as letter-writing, phone-calling, running for office, participating at local levels of government, organizing and participating in community groups, and much more. The Green Party of Nevada not only encourages people to participate, but we encourage those not directly participating to keep track of the decisions being made and to make sure elected officials are making decisions that are best for the community they represent.

The Green Party of Nevada doesn't stop there. We understand the complex lives of people living in the United States. We are discriminated against based upon our race, sex, sexual-orientation, ability, age, class, and other forms of oppression, exploitation, and domination. We work over forty hours each week and still barely make enough to keep our families healthy and comfortable. We are routinely discouraged from participating in the electoral political system and we don't have time to make truly informed decisions and run for office. And so, we seek to change this. We have to change this, otherwise we will not have the grassroots democracy that's needed to make the United States a positive example of democracy throughout the world. The Green Party of Nevada is most concerned with bringing politics into the home so that everyone, including ourselves, may become involved with the decision-making process that's currently sculpting our society.

From the Green Party of the United States Platform:

1. To ensure transparency in government, lesser bodies such as neighborhood boards and county governments must have subpoena power over state governments, which, in turn, should have subpoena power over the national Congress.

12. We support citizen involvement at all levels of the decision-making process and hold that non-violent direct action can be an effective tool.

17. Vote-counting software codes manufactured by private corporations have been deemed proprietary, banning public review of the means by which elections are determined. Therefore, to protect against fraud, voting machine source code must be open for public inspection and verification before and after an election.

See our platform: http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/democracy.html#316380 for specific information regarding ideas on how we plan to improve and encourage grassroots democracy.