Question: Just wondering about the idea, what if stack exchange platform would be used for candidates to answer citizens questions.

Some changes would need to be made to the platform.

* Only eligible voters can ask questions.
* Only eligible voters can vote on questions and answers
* Only candidates can answer questions.
* Community moderators would merge duplicates but there should be limitations on what can be done.
* No need for "accept" feature, people can vote for their favourite answer

*just a few basic rules of top of my head, details of the system are not part of the question*

That obviously poses the problem of user verification.

If we ignore/solve the user verification problem. **What would it take to convince politicians to actually use it?**

The idea came to me recently as I read an AMA with one politician and he answered only the questions that had a positive answer and anything inconvenient was completely ignored.
Often debates are being accused of having prepared questions.
Additionally, if you watch videos analysing debates, often they focus on candidates charisma and wits rather than their answers to decide who "won".

It would truly allow anyone to ask questions and highlight ignored issues if a question with a lot of votes has no answers.

Possibly there could be accusations of hackers manipulating scores and other content but I think that is a weak argument to avoid answering a question if any politician ever cared.

Answer: 
It doesn't work, because it doesn't fit the model:

> 
> Ask questions, get answers, no distractions
> 
> 
> 

A politician isn't interested in answering the question. A politician wants to get votes.

> 
> Good answers are voted up and rise to the top.
> 
> 
> 

But if questions and answers are partisan, then "popular answers rise to the top". That is different.

Moreover the world is not the USA. That seems to have been forgotten in this proposal.

And I'm not going to prove my eligiblity or otherwise to vote (which could mean me telling about my immigration and felon status) to Stack Exchange.

This proposal is a non-starter.
There is no way to verify that Biden or Trump are actually answering questions under that format. A benefit of the live debates is that voters get to see their candidates respond to questions in real time and in their "own words." Granted, the answers are rehearsed.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that a candidate was becoming a bit slow in the noggin. A debate would demonstrate to the voters that the candidate may not be able to manage the affairs of a nation. Long, rambling, incoherent responses and an inability to formulate a real answer to a question are big red flags. Really, electing that person puts his committee of unelected "handlers" in charge and makes the candidate a mere figurehead.

Not to mention that a known-senile president would give his party a great excuse to remove him at their convenience and elevate his VP to the top. He also would make a great fall guy for any serious scandals that would almost certainly result from such an arrangement. I guess the various options available to party leadership create potential benefits for the party elites.

This is all just hypothetical...of course.