We abolish congress at the federal and state levels, local issues are directly voted on, etc. All issue voting, from top to bottom. In general, how much time would I actually spend voting if I wanted to vote on every issue the government faces? Meaning, how much do all my representatives vote on stuff now?
I doubt that this is a GQ.
Who decides what is an issue (and how are they appointed)?
I doubt that it’s a GQ, also.
As a practical matter, you might wind up spending less time voting than the number of issues would suggest. Unless there are strict laws regarding delegation of your voting rights, imagine this scenario:
In a market economy, businesses would spring up providing proxy services that you could give general directions to, and allow to vote for you on most things. They would compete with each other regarding how trustworthy they were about representing your interests, the quality of periodic reports they would make to you, and how easy it would be to specify exactly how they were to vote on any specific issue you wanted to pay particularly close attention to. We would be back to a representative system where you would select, and probably buy, your representative directly rather than voting for them in a formal election. The potential for skullduggery within the proxy businesses seems frightening. OTOH, at least they are being bought above the board instead of surreptitiously like happens now. I imagine they would advertise in ways rather similar to insurance companies.
I’ve just been spinning this off the top of my head here. The thought’s actually sort of intriguing.
I’ts not the voting so much as understanding the issues. It would nearly be a full time job. :dubious:
The township I work for has a planning commission, a township board, and a zoning board of appeals. Each meet at least monthly, and generally have at least one substantial vote per meeting. Add on county, state, and federal governments. Probably the state and federal governments are where the numbers get huge, since committees probably do a lot of voting. If you just mean approving or denying bills, the number would be substantially less.
Here’s the thing: If by “every issue” you mean every little thing, then you’d spend all your time. I’m a zoning administrator, it is my full-time job to issue permits, issue violations, answer questions of law, and so on.
So, what do you mean by “every issue”?
I mean we eliminate representatives. Are you elected to vote for people? 
That is an extraordinarily difficult question to answer, because changing to a direct democracy means that many of the functions of a legislature would probably have to go away for necessity’s sake. For example, I don’t see how the public could hold committee hearings on legislative issues. The ability to offer amendments to a proposed law would have to be curtailed, otherwise folks could be voting constantly.
You should note that in Massachusetts, there is a full time state legislature. See here for a schedule for your senate… it seems remarkably active, with quite a few votes and hearings and such. It appears that being a Massachusetts state legislator is a full time job, which indicates to me that the citizenry would be quite busy under a direct democracy.
So abolishing a representative government system directly accountable to the citizens and replacing it with a representative corporate system directly accountable to the share owners is the way to go?
No, but then, the President is elected and he doesn’t vote on issues and has a major role in deciding them. The Fed is appointed, but they vote on issues. Various regulatory agency members are appointed and make decisions, I’m sure some have committees that vote and some don’t. What about the courts? Would they be democratic? How about the Army Corps of Engineer decisions & regulations?
If we go by some of the rhetoric flying around the township where I work, even decisions to grant special use permits to businesses should be subject to referendum, and therefore “democratic.” I would imagine that every permit would get at least one vote to decide whether it is big enough to warrant a vote.
If you’re just talking about the final approval/denial of bills and resolutions before elected bodies, then you could get by without that much time—issue research notwithstanding—but if you’re talking about all the decisions that are made by non-elected officials and all the decisions that go into getting a bill to its final vote, then we’re talking about a lot of time.
Yeah, I see the problem here. It isn’t just a matter of replacing representatives, but replacing the appointment mechanism, as well. (I’m trying to avoid the “…and be aware of the issues” time.)