Liquid Democracy, a subset of Delegative Democracy, is a powerful voting model for collective decision making in large communities. Liquid Democracy combines the advantages of Direct Democracy and Representative Democracy to create a truly democratic voting system that empowers voters to either vote on issues directly, or to delegate ones voting power to a trusted party. People may vote directly on any issue they so choose, or assign votes to others that they trust to represent their views on a specific issue. They may portion representation on issues to different individuals. Individuals build reputations based on previous voting record - and by building networks of trust. If a person is unhappy with how someone has voted or is representing their view, they may recall their vote.
Delegative Democracy, or liquid democracy, lies between direct and representative democracy. In direct democracy, participants must vote personally on all issues, while in representative democracy participants vote for representatives once in certain election cycles. Meanwhile, liquid democracy does not depend on representatives but rather on a weighted and transitory delegation of votes. Delegative democracy is a form of democracy whereby an electorate has the option of vesting voting power in delegates rather than voting directly themselves. Voters can either vote directly or delegate their vote to other participants; voters may select a delegate for different issues. In other words, individual A of an X society can delegate its power to another individual B – and withdraw such power again at any time.
Delegative democracy through elections should empower individuals to become sole interpreters of the interests of the community, region or nation. It allows for citizens to directly vote on policy issues, delegate their votes on one or multiple policy areas to delegates of their choosing, delegate votes to one or more people, delegated to them as a weighted voter, or get rid of their votes’ delegations whenever they please.
