The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy (Digital Barricades)

by Paolo Gerbaudo

One of the innovative features of LiquidFeedback is the mechanism of delegated, or proxy, voting, which it derives from the philosophy of ‘liquid democracy’, whose initial concept was proposed in 2000 by an anonymous internet user going under the name of Sayke. This means that users can delegate their votes on various issues to a person they trust on that area of expertise, as explained by Andreas Nitsche, one of the developers of the platform: The basic idea: voters can delegate their vote to a trustee (technically a transitive proxy). The vote can be further delegated to the proxy’s proxy thus building a network of trust. All delegations can be done, altered and revoked by topic; e.g. I myself vote in environmental questions, Anne represents me in foreign affairs, Mike represents me in all other areas – but I can change my mind at any time. A dynamic scheme of representation takes place. Anyone can select their own way ranging from direct democracy to representative democracy. Basically, one participates in what one is interested (or expert) in but for all other areas gives their vote to somebody acting in their interest. One may make a bad choice once in a while but can change their mind at any time.