12Liquidfeedback - Interactive Democracy

http://liquidfeedback.org/

("instant democracy" is a meme we used from some time ago reflecting convergent ideas)

LiquidFeedback is an open-source software, powering internet platforms for proposition development and decision making.

LiquidFeedback is an independent open source project published under MIT license by the Public Software Group of Berlin, Germany. The developers of LiquidFeedback have joined together in the Interaktive Demokratie association to promote the use of electronic media for democratic processes.

Concepts

• Liquid Democracy | The basic idea is a democratic system in which most issues are decided (or strongly suggested to representatives) by direct referendum. Considering nobody has enough time and knowledge for every issue, votes can be delegated by topic. Furthermore delegations are transitive and can be revoked at any time. Liquid Democracy is sometimes referred to as Delegated or Proxy Voting.
• Proposition development process | Structured feedback is intended to organize communication between an initiative and the voters. Initiatives shall get an idea how successful a proposition is likely to be and what to change in order to gain more support. Likewise voters can try to influence propositions by their feedback or instigate a new initiative with an own proposition if they so wish.
• Preferential voting | We neither want to force people to compromise in case they may not want this nor encourage them to vote based on majorities and chances rather than political objectives. In order to allow voters to express preferences we implemented a very advanced voting system based on Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping (CSSD) also known as the Schulze method. | Read more…
• Interactive Democracy | LiquidFeedback introduces a new communication channel between voters and representatives, delivers reliable results about what the participants want and can be used for information, suggestion, or directive depending on the organizational needs and the national legislation.

Application Fields

• Political parties | Along with associations this is the original purpose of LiquidFeedback. It is meant to empower the ordinary members of main stream political parties making these parties more attractive to citizens and democracy stronger. Vanguard: Berlin Pirate Party
• Associations/NGOs | LiquidFeedback allows all members to participate not only in voting but also in developing ideas while board members understand what the majority really want and can make responsible decisions based on the “popular vote“. Vanguard: Slow Food Germany
• Government/Civic Participation | LiquidFeedback is an offer to participate in any question of particular interest to the individual citizen. People will participate if they think it makes sense and representatives at least acknowledge the will of the participants. Vanguard: Friesland County
  
• Economy/Corporations | Visionary boards are interested in unleashing the creativity of their employees. This use case takes a special position as there we are not talking about democratic systems. The board will have the last word and reliability of results can be subject to a risk assessment. Vanguard: Synaxon AG