LIquid Democracy MOVEMENT! Lets make this Happen!

[integral]

Quick 2 min videos.

 

 

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Direct democracy is when every citizen can vote on each issue directly, this allows people an equal voice, independent of whom they are. Direct democracy has a number of drawbacks. Firstly many people don’t have the time or energy to continuously vote on single policy issues, also many people don’t feel informed enough to take the decisions, meaning they may not vote, this means that voting can become a privilege of those with free-time and confidence in their knowledge. The Second problem is that where direct democracy and popular assemblies, can work well in smaller and less complex communities, such as in ancient Athens, modern nation states are incredibly complex.

Representative Democracy has been the answer to the problems of direct democracy. People relinquish their vote to specific individuals through elections who represent them on the national stage. There are many problems with a representative democracy, as we can see here in the UK, those politicians who act as chosen representatives won’t necessarily vote with their constituents on specific [and even more general] issues, they certainly are unlikely to be able to vote with each individual constituent as large scale consensus is near enough impossible. What’s more, politicians can become bogged down in partisan politics, corrupted by power and divided and detached from the people they are representing. Additionally, this can lead to apathy on the part of the electorate.

Liquid Democracy is a combination of both.  In a liquid democracy people can vote on specific issues [direct democracy] as well as delegating their vote to an individual that represents them [representative democracy]. In a liquid democracy, politicians [optional] would also be able to delegate their vote to others, perhaps based on expertise levels. This is an issue by issue choice that individuals can make, so they do not need to vote directly on every issue simply because on one issue they felt they did not want to delegate their vote. Liquid democracy also involves a much richer system of communication and feedback between politicians and citizens, encouraging dialogue and trust. There are a number of possible issues with liquid democracy, a few; being the increased complexity of voting system that would need to be fairly technology reliant; limited engagement from the electorate on specific issues, which might limit any increase in real democracy; and also that it has never been tried on a large scale, so many issues remain unforeseen and unforeseeable.

https://ncdd.org/13854

Democracy 2.0

 

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Choice of role: Members of the democracy can either passively act as an individual or actively act as a delegate. This is different from representative democracies, which only use specific representatives. This way, delegates can be selective about their participation in different areas of policy.

Low barrier to participation: Delegates do not have much difficulty becoming delegates. Most notably, they do not have to win competitive elections that involve costly political campaigns.

Delegated authority: Delegates act in processes on behalf of themselves and of individuals who choose them as their delegate. Their power to make decisions varies based on their varying support.

Privacy of the individual: All votes by individuals are kept secret to prevent any form of coercion by delegates or other individuals.

Accountability of the delegates: In contrast to the privacy of the individuals, the formal decisions of delegates are typically made public to their voters and the broader community to hold them accountable for their actions.

Specialization by re-delegation: Delegates are able to have both general authorities delegated to them from individual voters and specialized authority re-delegated to them from other delegates to work on their behalf.

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Examples

Google Votes

Google has experimented with liquid democracy through an internal social network system known as Google Votes.[24] Google Votes was primarily used to delegate votes for internal food-related decisions.

Pirate Parties

Pirate Parties, parties focusing on reducing online censorship and increasing transparency, first came around in Sweden in the year 2006.[6] Pirate Parties in Germany,[25] Italy, Austria, Norway, France and the Netherlands[26] use liquid democracy with the open-source software LiquidFeedback.[27]

Specifically in the case of the Pirate Party in Germany, the communication with citizens uses tools and platforms similar to conventional parties – including Facebook, Twitter, and online sites – however, they developed the "piratewiki" project. This is an open platform opened to collaborative contributions to the political deliberative process.[28] "Liquid Feedback" was the platform used by the German Pirate Party since 2006, which allowed users to become a part of inner party decision making process.[27][29]

Argentina

Recently, virtual platforms have been created in Argentina. Democracia en Red is a group of Latin Americans who seek a redistribution of political power and a more inclusive discussion.[30] They created Democracy OS, a platform which allows internet users to propose, debate and vote on different topics. Pia Mancini argues that the platform opens up democratic conversation and upgrades democratic decision making to the internet era.

Demoex / Direktdemokraterna

The first example of liquid democracy using a software program in a real political setting involved the local political party Demoex in Vallentuna, a suburb of Stockholm: the teacher Per Norbäck and the entrepreneur Mikael Nordfors [sv] used software called NetConference Plus. This software is no longer supported after the bankruptcy of the manufacturing company, Vivarto AB. The party had a seat in the local parliament between 2002-2024, where the members decide how their representative shall vote with the help of internet votations.[31] Since then, Demoex and two other parties have formed Direktdemokraterna.[citation needed]

Industrial Workers of the World

The Industrial Workers of the World is an international labor union that uses liquid democracy[citation needed], as well as other types of democracy. Local branches elect delegates to attend the annual convention in which referendums are constructed. This union is also developing apps that facilitate liquid development. Enforcement is needed since the process allows voting to take place but the convention is unable to enforce decisions.[32]

Civicracy

An experimental form of liquid democracy called Civicracy was tested at the Vienna University of Technology in 2012. It created a council of representatives based on a continuous vote of confidence from participants, similar to modern parliaments. It has not yet faced real implementation.[33]

LiquidFeedback

This is an image of LiquidFeedback's platform.

LiquidFeedback is a software that is used for political opinion formation and decision making. The platform combines both representative democracy and direct democracy. LiquidFeedback allows governing bodies to gain insight on what their body is looking for or what they need. LiquidFeedback relates to Liquid Democracy in that it allows for individuals to push their ideas without fear or opposition to do so. Individuals can vote on issues themselves or delegate that vote to those that they see fit.

On top of voting and creating decisions, they are also able to create various propositions. LiquidFeedback allows the ability to create bills and establishes stronger democracy, giving people the ability to fight for their respective policies safely. This ultimately leads to the protection of minorities as it allows them to present their views and propose their vote.

LiquidFeedback is not beneficial in the sense that it has created disparities and separation among members of the German Pirate Party. The German Pirate Party is a political party in Germany founded in September 2006. The party has gained votes to influence four different state parliaments, being Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, and Schleswig-Holstein. The party supports current civil rights throughout the web and oppose the data retention policies instituted in Europe.

The opposition has highlighted that because the software records individuals' votes, it also allows for hackers to gain information on political tendencies and other unique information that can prove detrimental if in the wrong hands.

The benefits of LiquidFeedback is that, as stated earlier, it gives more people a voice. The ability to delegate votes allows for more educated votes to take place. On top of that, there could be instances where voters cannot vote due to extreme circumstances. Overall voting turnout can increase through instituting this policy and platform.

LiquidFriesland

A unique example of using Liquid Democracy tools can be found in one of the local governments in Germany - Friesland (LiquidFriesland [de]). The structure of governance of the county of Friesland is established through the federal and the state laws, to be more precise through the German Constitution and the Charter of Lower Saxony. Friesland is a county, governed by the County Council and the County Commissioner, which are elected by the inhabitants of Friesland. The County Council is considered to be the main governing body of the county, representing its citizens. The County Council and its committees make decisions that concern all spheres of life in Friesland. The initiative to propose certain policy actions and administrative decisions belongs to: 1) the County Commissioner; 2) the fractions of the County Council; 3) the citizens.

Two options for bringing LiquidFriesland into life by 2012 (both are open source software and can be easily modified and distributed, which is a big advantage):

LiquidFeedback that was built on the principle of delegated voting. It has a lot of additional features and it was being implemented in the Pirate Party since 2009. However, being initially developed as a delegation platform, it does not provide a clear structure for presenting initiatives.

Adhocracy that was built on the example of a discussion board. Suggestions, changes and comments are clearly distinguished. Delegation appears in the later version in 2010.

The implementation and the use of the LiquidFriesland platform was clearly dominated by the bureaucratic style of communication and working procedures. The citizen participation on the platform was inscribed in the hierarchical structure, where suggestions on the platform were regarded as inputs for the bureaucratic black box, but by no means as part of the decision-making process inside it. The communication with main stakeholders – the users of the platform – was being structured according to the same logic and was not rebuilt in the course of the project.

No regulation was planned to be initially adapted to allow local politicians to conduct the process of legal drafting on the LiquidFriesland platform. As for the delegation aspect of LiquidFriesland, it has never been specified in any regulatory documents.

No more than 500 citizens registered on LiquidFriesland and activated their accounts. Only 20% of the activated users logged in to the platform and only 10% have shown some activity on LiquidFriesland.

Liquid Democracy Wiki

 

The idea we are supposed to vote once every few years on a representative is archaic. This system does not work and has proven itself to be a popularity contest, where the beauty pageant contestants are chosen by the powerful. 

Maybe we can have a debate discussing the pros and cons of this system?

Is this realistic? What would it take to change the US political system?

To be clear a liquid democracy is also digital, so imagine an app on your phone where you can see and vote on individual government issues, as well as delegate your vote to any representative that you trust. If that representative abuses his power, his power can be taken away easily in real time vai the app. No delay. 

It would also be possible to divide your 1 vote to many people you support, voting can be done anonymously and all voters must be government verified vai that app, bots are not allowed to vote. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by integral

[Opo]

Conservative men would force their wives to give them their votes. 

[integral]

@Opo Sounds illegal? Like forcing someone to vote is illegal today, also this is probably already happening in the current system. There would be no difference. lol

[Opo]

13 minutes ago, integral said:

@Opo Sounds illegal? 

Are you from a big city? 

The law in villages is not that enforced. 

14 minutes ago, integral said:

@Opo Like forcing someone to vote is illegal today, also this is probably already happening in the current system. There would be no difference. lol

It would be smoother. 

But I guess it wouldn't be that much of a difference. 

Well that depends on the place. 

I'd wait to implement this until they die. 

[integral]

9 minutes ago, Opo said:

It would be smoother. 

Would it? Liquid democracy means voting on individual issues, not just representatives, that means daily or weekly voting can take place. More opportunists, more freedom. 

[DocWatts]

I know that a lot of (kind of dumb) people are Single Issue Voters, who always cast a Vote for one party or another because of an emotionally charged issue (abortion, gun rights, etc). Maybe if a Liquid Voting System could help to disrupt that sort of practice by giving people more choices on where to influence policy rather than it being an either or choice between the policy platforms of two candidates or parties, it could be a really good thing.

[Opo]

1 hour ago, integral said:

Would it? Liquid democracy means voting on individual issues, not just representatives, that means daily or weekly voting can take place. More opportunists, more freedom. 

I meant on something else, but it's not that big of a problem. 

This could be a good long-term goal. 

[integral]

A problem that will likely come up is marketing manipulation. Spreading misinformation to sway voters into supporting deceptive policies. This is already happening, but its gong to get worse. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by integral

[Opo]

2 hours ago, integral said:

A problem that will likely come up is marketing manipulation. Spreading misinformation to sway voters into supporting deceptive policies. This is already happening, but its gong to get worse. 

Hm, why do you say that? 

I was thinking that most of that manipulation is happening on the tv and when the old generations die off and people move to internet it will get better.