Democracy is a difficult business. Direct Democracy, the kind practiced in Athens, is fairest but needs to be done in communities small enough to fit into a single space, and with a highly engaged populace with plenty of free time. Modern forms of Representative Democracy are simpler to run, but we all know, far from perfect. You probably don’t agree with your representative on all issues, forcing compromises. You may want to withdraw support between election cycles. Wasted votes are endemic. The list goes on.
There are some who believe that democracy can be shifted online – that’s probably unfeasible at present, but there is one proposal that is worth investigating right now - it’s called Liquid Democracy.
Liquid Democracy is “direct democracy for people who know they’re not experts on a subject, but know of people that they trust who who know more about a subject than themselves“. It’s currently used by several branches of the Pirate Party, particularly in Germany. Their dedication to transparency, and nifty tech skills, have led to this form of democracy being used in order for their elected representatives to instantly get feedback on proposals from the membership.
There are two main factors which differentiate liquid democracy from representative or direct democracy.
- A citizen may transfer their voting power to a proxy or proxies (and this delegation can be revoked at any time)
- Voting occurs on issues, not just candidates for representation
Personally, I favour Liquid Democracy systems as a supplement to policy making and conferences. Hear me out.
Every Liberal Democrat member downloads a piece of software. The Pirate Party use one called Liquid Feedback. It’s rather too technical for many, including myself, and the interface isn’t exactly easy on the eyes, but the API has been released openly so new front-ends for desktop, browser or smartphone could be developed.
Any member can submit a proposal. If it receives a certain level of support (the pirates use 10%), then it becomes an official proposal. People can debate its merits, and submit counter-proposals.
Each individual has one vote on any given issue – they can choose to directly support one or other of the proposals on any given issue. Their vote counts towards the total.
But what if you don’t know enough about a given issue or policy field? Say, the Health and Social Care Bill or health policy in general. In that case, you delegate your vote to a trustee, who is effectively a proxy voter. For example, I know nothing about an upcoming debate on nuclear power, or generally about further education policy. My friend Alice studied engineering and knows a lot about nuclear power plants, and my friend Zachary is a teacher at an FE college. I trust their opinions on the issues and we’re largely in agreement. I, on the other hand, am a policy wonk for foreign relations. I can delegate
a) my vote on the single debate on nuclear power to Alice [Issue Delegation]
b) my vote on all debates relating to further education to Zachary [Subject Area/Category Delegation]
c) If I had a period of inactivity, or simply trusted another member hugely, I could offer a Global Delegation, where they would vote on all issues on my behalf.
I would be notified automatically when they vote, and if I don’t agree, I can either talk to them and one can attempt to persuade the other, or else I can withdraw my vote (either from the issue, from the policy category, or permanently).
When a foreign policy vote comes up, five of my friends agree with and trust me enough on foreign policy to make me their trustee on this issue, and two friends agree wholeheartedly with me and I vote for them in total. When a debate starts up on Syria, I have a voting power of 8 – my two complete votes, five on this policy, and my own. Eventually, during the debate I become respected and people trust my opinion. Three others decide to give me their vote for the single issue, pushing my total up to 11.
It would work a little like in this image:-
Illustration Liquid Democracy via Wikipedia
This system is not only being used by the Pirate Party. An alternative system, Adhocracy (more user-friendly than Liquid Feedback) is being used by the German SPD and the federal Parliament is using Adhocracy for a commission on digital policy.
What do you think? I feel that this would be an excellent way to supplement Liberal Democrat policy making and conferences.
- We could all take part, from wherever we are in the country.
- It’s reasonably cheap to produce and maintain,
- It’s far more responsive, providing instant feedback and response.
- It’s open and transparent, provides records of debates etc.
- It builds cooperation within the party.
- It helps keep all members engaged on all issues.
- It produces immediate accountability.
- Decision-making will be largely well-informed, with ‘experts’ responsible for recommending votes…
- …while still keeping to the principle of one person one vote.
- It keeps the grassroots and the upper echelons of the party in constant touch…
- …which helps engage with the members and keep our elected officials accountable.
I’m fascinated by this topic and I’d love to get as much feedback as possible on this topic. We need to work out and develop a lot of this concept, so feel free to comment below with your views. I respond to all comments.
- Do you know how we’d trial it?
- Would it be anonymous?
- How would we prevent selling votes?
- How would we deal with corruption?
- How would we deal with votes being coerced?
- How would people be able to ‘meet up’ with the people who may want to give them votes?
- How would we select proposals?
- How would we select categories?
- Would it be on-going, or build to an online conference of sorts?
- Will people respond to it?
- Would it be secure?
- Will it help combat voter apathy?
- Will it really keep the grassroots engaged?
- Would voters get compensation?
- And keep the leadership accountable?
- Who will be allowed to vote? All members, just elected representatives, open to all supporters…?
- How do we detect and deal with cycles? Do we need to?
- How would we break down voting on proposals vs clauses vs amendments etc
- Will the individuals with the most votes go mad with the power?
- Would our ‘executive’ have the ability to over-ride Liquid Democracy voting?
- Will Liquid Democracy someday remove the need for our Representative Democracy?
[this is the main link that's going around Twitter at the moment]
NEW: Does it answer these 76 reasonable questions to ask about any technology?
Related articles
- How the German Pirate Party’s ‘Liquid Democracy’ Works (techpresident.com)
- Liquid Democracy in Context, or, An Infrastructuralist Manifesto (sourceforge.net)
- Liquid Democracy: When, not If (Kuro5hin.org)
- Liquid Democracy (globalfree.wordpress.com)
- Liquid Democracy (brickstarter.org)
- Liquid Democracy (joi.ito.com)
- LiquidDemocracy (communitywiki.org)
- LiquidFeedback: What A Genuine Democratic Process Looks Like (p2pfoundation.net)
- Das Liquid Democracy and the German Pirate Pary (boingboing.net)
- The Liquid Democracy Voting System (twistedmatrix.com)
- Computerized Government (ebtx.com)
- Decision Making (technologyandsocialaction.org)
- Admiration for German Pirate’s Innovation (jaekaygoesforth.blogspot.co.uk)
Would it be anonymous?
I don’t think it should. Conference votes aren’t anonymous.
How would we prevent selling votes?
Not sure you could, except treat it like any other situation where this could arise
How would we deal with corruption?
Same as above – if anything is suspicious &c
How would we deal with votes being coerced?
Again, same as above
How would people be able to ‘meet up’ with the people who may want to give them votes?
People could organise that privately through Skype or Google Hangouts?
How would we select proposals?
10% threshold is high enough
How would we select categories?
Divide into the different Govt departments
Would it be on-going, or build to an online conference of sorts?
Ongoing
Will people respond to it?
I think people will
Will it help combat voter apathy?
Yes
Will it really keep the grassroots engaged?
Yes
Would voters get compensation?
Why?
And keep the leadership accountable?
Yep
Who will be allowed to vote? All members, just elected representatives, open to all supporters…?
Either members who have been a member for a year, or conference voting reps
How would we break down voting on proposals vs clauses vs amendments etc
I’m sure that could be built into the software
Would our ‘executive’ have the ability to over-ride Liquid Democracy voting?
Not on policy, but conference votes don’t bind parliamentarians on how to vote now
Thanks for the comment Harry – I expect Liberal Youth to be initiating Liquid Democracy within the party soon
I also agree that it shouldn’t be anonymous – the argument specific to Liquid Democracy is that people have a right to know where their vote goes! There’s an argument to be made for being anonymous if you aren’t responsible for anyone else’s vote, but as you say, we don’t vote anonymously at conference. It’s not exactly a danger to vote on policy issues, so I would keep it totally open.
True – the issue over selling votes, corruption, coercion… it could easily happen in a back corridor at conference, so it’s not something we can really avoid. Perhaps the online Liquid Democracy format might be able to provide a solution, in detecting such things, but then it can’t see what happens on Facebook etc.
With the “How would people be able to ‘meet up’ with the people who may want to give them votes?” (my poor wording probably) I was thinking about if there was a way to help people meet up. Say I don’t know anything about the NHS, would we have a way for me to find someone to allocate it to?
But a Google Hangout about each issue would probably help me find someone to allocate my vote to quite nicely actually…
Ooh, hadn’t thought of dividing by Govt departments. I would perhaps want to see the option of sub-division – data protection and the inner workings of courts are two very different issues relating to the Ministry of Justice.
We agree on on-going
I think there’s still scope for proper conferences, but I personally favour Liquid Democracy to be on-going as it’d be far more responsive.
Compensation – there is an argument I found online that they should, in order to help them court more members, so I included it. Perhaps if we replaced Westminster with this, but I rally don’t see a point in this for conference level arrangemens.
I like ‘member for a year or conference voters’, that’s great
Nice balance of experience and trust, and wards off subversion.
Good point… I always forget that
Also thinking of, could something like the FCC or FPC over-ride which proposals are put forward? As, from my understanding, the choose which motions go forward to conference today.
Thanks for the feedback Harry
I think it’s a fantastic idea – the LDs need to recapture the leading edge of being a really transformative party outside the grubby mainstream. That’s the only way we will make a ‘black swan’ breakthrough in national politics.
Do you know how we’d trial it? – Maybe in a local area – e.g. Southeast
Would it be anonymous? Does it need to be? Why not make anonymity available but not obligatory.
How would we prevent selling votes? 2 answers – a) what is a vote worth. Probably not much. b) the really radical answer is that we don’t care if people sell votes and we establish a transparent market for votes. It will soon become clear who is selling votes and then we can use the same system to ‘yellow card’ certain infractors.
How would we deal with corruption? By making as much transparency as possible.
How would we deal with votes being coerced? You can’t.
How would people be able to ‘meet up’ with the people who may want to give them votes? It can all be done virtually, using social media.
How would we select proposals? How would we select categories? Use a simple online vote system.
Would it be on-going, or build to an online conference of sorts? Ongoing is probably better.
Will people respond to it? Hope so.
Would it be secure? Depends on what systems you put in place.
Will it help combat voter apathy? Should do.
Will it really keep the grassroots engaged?
Would voters get compensation? Why shoudl they?
And keep the leadership accountable? Absolutely
Who will be allowed to vote? All members, just elected representatives, open to all supporters…? I think all members.
How do we detect and deal with cycles? Do we need to?
How would we break down voting on proposals vs clauses vs amendments etc
Will the individuals with the most votes go mad with the power?
Would our ‘executive’ have the ability to over-ride Liquid Democracy voting? There has to be an over-ride, but it has to be difficult to use.
Will Liquid Democracy someday remove the need for our Representative Democracy? It should do. We need to revolutionise the concept of voting to increase turnout.
This is still operating at relatively small scale – to handle larger quantities you have to have a chaining method. Where A gives their vote to B and B then gives it to C.
Very true Chris – when the concept is applied to larger constituencies (for example, if we applied it at Westminster), it would work so that that happens. There’s no formal limitations on number of transfers – but risks such as fraud would increase.