BoldlyRide

Some of the political parties in France are using the internet for their party primaries:

"Though many French parties were on the Web in the last presidential elections in 2002, the impact of political sites has skyrocketed during this campaign, helping change the way politics are done here. "

All geared to making even quicker surrenders possible. After all, those rifles that have never been fired and only dropped once, still cost money to produce.

"Socialist candidate Segolene Royal has made her Web site the cornerstone of a campaign based on what she calls "participative democracy," with users invited to take part in a host of online forums and debates. Royal, a former minister, drew on online feedback in drafting her platform, which she released chapter by chapter on the Web site.
"Politics must be based on the realities of people's lives," Royal has said. "

But here are some interesting "realities" from later in the article:

"UMP members have been issued security codes that allow them to access the polls on its Web site, though it would be hard to throw a race with only one candidate."

"Most of France's 40 million voters are not party members and thus not eligible to vote in primaries. "

So the primary has one candidate and most voters are ineligible to participate anyway -- now that's democracy in action.