The Principles of LiquidFeedback

233 Pages·2014·1.47 MB·English

by  Jan Behrens

The Principles of LiquidFeedback
Jan Behrens
Axel Kistner
Andreas Nitsche
Bjo¨rn Swierczek
Berlin · 2014
Copyright (cid:13)c 2014 Interaktive Demokratie e.V.
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All rights reserved.
Written by: Jan Behrens
Axel Kistner
Andreas Nitsche
Bj¨orn Swierczek
Graphics by: Bj¨orn Swierczek
With a foreword by: Dr. Will Derks
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1st edition (January 2014)
Interaktive Demokratie e.V.
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“The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy,
but the best weapon of a democracy
should be the weapon of openness.”
Niels Bohr
This is a DRM-free PDF version of the book for
personal academic use or personal use in conjunction
with ownership of the print version of this book.
Distribution prohibited.
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Foreword
“Thetimestheyarea-changin’”—thussangpopiconBobDy-
lan in the 1960s. We know now that he was right, but his was a
linear change at a relatively slow pace. Driven by modern tech-
nology,wefindourselvestodayinthemidstofatransitionthatis
taking place in a much faster, exponential fashion: The process-
ing power of all the computing devices with which mankind is
now blessed doubles every eighteen months. Although only two
decadesagostillquiteunimaginable,thisnew,transitionaltech-
nology is presently pervading all sectors of society in every nook
and cranny of the globe, and it is profoundly changing nearly
everything it encounters in ways that we are only beginning to
understand.
At the same time we are witnessing what could be called the
finaldemiseofthenineteenthcentury,or,moreprecisely,ofthat
century’ssystems,institutionsandstructurescreatedtocaterto
the needs of a bygone age. Among these may not only be the
nation-state, the workers’ union, the church, the nuclear family,
monogamy, matrimony, the newspaper, the book, print-literacy,
theuniversityandaninternationalpowerequilibriumdominated
by the West, but also the political party and even representa-
tive democracy. Certainly in Europe and the United States, but
alsoinotherpartsoftheworld, representativedemocracyshows
alarming signs of deterioration, of getting bogged down and be-
coming ossified. There is growing consensus that, as a system of
government, it is weakening to the point of exhaustion. Repre-
sentative democracy seems unable to live up to the expectations
we once had, it increasingly meets with scepticism from citizens
who feel detached and disenfranchised—it is, in short, in a crisis
of legitimacy and efficiency. Something similar, no doubt, could
be said about the political party, which is among representative
democracy’sprincipalbodies,butwhichtodayisalsoamongthe
world’s most distrusted institutions, often lacking in vision and
ideology and no longer able to aggregate the hopes and aspi-
rations of the citizenry in an era of much less conformity than
the one in which this classical, patriarchal and relatively closed
institution was once conceived.
Nowadays, we are confronted with a whole range of negative
andpositiveresponsestothismajordevelopment. Politicalpop-
ulism, for example, is now discernible all across the Northern
hemisphere, to some extent providing a valid diagnosis though
without offering a feasible remedy. Technocratic “solutions” are
rife as well—meant to enhance representative democracy’s effi-
ciency but at the same time invigorating its legitimacy prob-
lem. On the national level this is exemplified by the creation
of so-called “quangos” (or quasi-autonomous NGOs), which im-
plement legislation without being democratically accountable;
the United Kingdom has now more than a thousand of them.
On the supra-national level equally unaccountable and undemo-
craticbodiessuchastheEuropeanCommissionhavebeencalled
into being. Some see the answer to representative democracy’s
ailment—alsocalledthe“democraticfatiguesyndrome”—insor-
tition or lot-drawing (rather than, or in combination with, elec-
tions): a means to select citizens for public office that was used,
for instance, in classical Athens and in various Italian republics
suchasVeniceduringtheRenaissance. Numerousinitiativesare
also being taken across the globe to involve citizens directly in
politics and political decision-making, even in connection with
constitutionaldraftingprocessessuchasinIceland, Irelandand,
most recently, the United Kingdom.
To the casual observer all this trying, groping and exploring,
all this trial and error, may be bewildering, but what seems
certain is that we are on the brink of a new era and that
democracy is on its way to becoming more direct, participa-
tory and deliberative. The technology that today is changing
the world so profoundly and quickly is coming to democracy’s
aidinthisrespect,asmoreandmore(freeandopensource)soft-
wareisbecomingavailablethatfacilitateswhathasbeendubbed
“strongdemocracy”—ademocraticsysteminwhichcitizensgov-
ern themselves to the greatest extent possible.
Inthisfascinatingdevelopment,LiquidFeedbackstandsoutas
the most promising technological break-through to date. Based
on a broad range of specific forms of knowledge and expertise
rangingfrommathematicstostate-of-the-artvotingtheory,Liq-
uidFeedback constitutes a coherent, sophisticated and visionary
tool for solid participant-driven proposition development and
decision-making processes. Small wonder that it has already ac-
quired a certain international reputation and is now being used
to facilitatedemocratic processes invariouscountries, in diverse
contexts and in a variety of organisations, including political
parties.
This book, written by the inventors of LiquidFeedback them-
selves, will guide even readers who are not very tech savvy
through all its astonishing possibilities while providing a real
understanding of all the practical and theoretical considerations
that constitute the basis for its design and use. In The Last
Vote,hisrecentlypublishedanalysisofthetrialsandtribulations
democracy is presently going through, senior journalist Philip
Coggan states: “If there is one region of the developed world
where democracy seems to be most threatened, it is Europe.”
ThecomingintobeingofLiquidFeedbackandthepublicationof
this book suggest that we need not despair, that help is under
way and that there is hope for democracy, even in Europe.
The Hague Dr. Will Derks
December 2013 Netherlands Institute for
Multiparty Democracy (NIMD)
Get the print version of this book at:
http://principles.liquidfeedback.org/
Contents
1 Introduction 13
1.1 Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.2 Democracy vs. Republic and a new approach . . 14
1.3 Project LiquidFeedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.4 Prospects and impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2 Liquid Democracy 21
2.1 Democracy and division of labor . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 The principles of Liquid Democracy . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1 Delegated voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.2 Topic-based delegations . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.3 Transitive delegations without restrictions 24
2.2.4 Revocation of delegations at any time . . 25
2.3 Implementation in LiquidFeedback . . . . . . . . 26
2.4 Common misconceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4.1 The myth of circular delegations . . . . . 28
2.4.2 Delegations and “one man – one vote” . . 30
3 Open ballot vs. secret ballot 39
3.1 Verifiability of voting systems . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 Verifiability of non-electronic voting systems . . . 39
3.2.1 Voting by show of hands . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2.2 Secret voting using a ballot box . . . . . . 41
3.2.3 Secret voting using distributed ballot boxes 42
3.2.4 Secret postal voting . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3 Verifiability of electronic voting systems . . . . . 43
9
10 CONTENTS
3.3.1 Open electronic ballot . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3.2 Voting computer type I . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3.3 Voting computer type II . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 The “Wahlcomputerproblem” . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.5 Modern alchemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6 Scope of LiquidFeedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.7 LiquidFeedback for the public . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4 LiquidFeedback and a fair process for decision-
making 59
4.1 Structured discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.1.1 Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.1.2 Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1.3 Free discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2 Fairness and scalability through Liquid Democracy 63
4.3 Collective moderation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.4 Unlabeled groups of alternative initiatives . . . . 64
4.5 Deadlines and full disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.6 Issue states . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.6.1 Admission phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.6.2 Discussion phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.6.3 Verification phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.6.4 Voting phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.7 Different policies for different kinds of decisions . 69
4.8 Subject areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.9 Determining the necessary quorum . . . . . . . . 71
4.10 Protection of minorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.10.1 Harmonic Weighting . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.10.2 Proportional Runoff Algorithm . . . . . . 79
4.10.3 Sorting issues in discussion, verification,
and voting phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.10.4 Noisy minorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.10.5 The importance of Liquid Democracy for
the protection of minorities . . . . . . . . 85
4.10.6 Rivaling alternatives vs. change requests . 86
4.11 The Independence of Clones Criterion . . . . . . 87
4.12 Preferential voting for the final decision . . . . . 91
4.12.1 Schulze Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92