Liquid democracy is an innovative voting model that’s been tested at Google and elsewhere, but is still unknown to most people.
It’s far more flexible and responsive than the representative model.
Liquid democracy enables each person to vote directly on policy whenever she chooses, while also leveraging the expertise and judgment of trusted friends and leaders to shift the burden of decision-making away from those who don’t want it.
Liquid democracy is most easily understood by watching this short video.
In essence, it’s a system of revocable proxies, assignable by issue area, and transferable, subject always to the will of the individual voter.
Imagine that our voter, Jane P. Smith, finds climate policy too complex to follow personally. So she grants her proxy for all votes pertaining to climate to someone she chooses, such as Al Gore. Similarly, if she’s confused by banking policy, she may select Elizabeth Warren as her proxy on banking issues. Let’s say Jane is a teacher, and chooses to vote for herself on education matters. In the event that Al Gore’s votes on climate questions begin to disappoint her, Jane can revoke her proxy at will, and grant it instead to someone else she trusts, such as Bill McKibben.
Proxies are transferable. Jane’s friend Walter may entrust some or all of his proxies to Jane (or to anyone else he chooses); Jane can then assign both Walter’s proxies and her own, however she chooses, or vote directly, both on her own behalf and his.
With liquid democracy, billions of individuals like Jane and Walter can vote directly on policy whenever they choose; or, they can rely on trusted proxies whenever they prefer.
When anyone accepts another person’s proxy, the votes cast by the proxy holder are made transparent to the proxy grantor(s). This information is revealed “downward”, only to those who granted the proxies, not to anyone else (unless by choice of the grantor or grantee). Anyone who accepts a proxy agrees to this limitation on the secrecy of their vote. Individuals who receive only a few proxies may still keep their votes secret from everyone else, while public figures may campaign for influence by revealing their voting records to everyone.
Voters, knowing how votes are cast on their behalf, can now revoke and/or reassign their proxies at any time. Technology enables this to happen instantly and frequently; the resulting dynamic flow of proxies gives “liquid democracy” its name.
An optional design feature is vote reversibility. If adopted, it offers several benefits: if Jane finds that her proxy has voted unfaithfully, or if she simply disagrees, or if she changes her mind, she can reverse her vote up until the prescribed deadline for the given question. This also provides additional protection against coercion in the event that her anonymity is compromised.
With technology, votes can be cast and tallied instantly, enabling quick responsiveness to emergent needs. Votes can be publicized in advance and held open for a number of days, weeks, or months, to enable widespread awareness and participation.
Liquid democracy can scale to any size, while responding to current needs far more efficiently than our present system, and also reflecting people’s priorities more faithfully.
Liquid democracy on a blockchain is no longer theoretical. It is currently being built.