I'm not incredibly familiar with CA, but I'd argue you probably have some provisions for direct democracy, akin to referenda or people-proposed laws in some European countries. The main system is still fundamentally representative in nature.
Yes, but the point is that allowing people to directly petition the government via gathering signatures, which then triggers a public vote of the citizens, does not lead to quagmire. Far from it.
When done offline, no. When done online, though, it's a whole different ballgame. Even limited automation of electronic voting has been proven extremely unreliable and prone to fraud. This is not a big deal when consequences are limited (i.e. petitions, non-binding surveys etc), but when actual legislative action starts depending entirely on a few electrons, then it's a scandal waiting to happen.
