LiquidFeedback is free software for political opinion formation and decision-making. The software aims to incorporate insights from social choice theory to aggregate opinions more effectively. Among its main features is the implementation of liquid democracy.
Description LiquidFeedback helps groups (such as societies or organizations, political or not) make decisions inclusively, without the limitations of traditional governance methods. It also differs from a general Internet forum by providing a proposition development process that integrates deliberation and voting. LiquidFeedback was originally designed for political parties and other organizations, but has evolved to be used in civic contexts as well.Cindio, Fiorella De, and Stefano Stortone. “Experimenting LiquidFeedback for Online Deliberation in Civic Contexts.” Electronic Participation Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013, pp. 147–158., doi:10.1007/978-3-642-40346-0_13. It aims to create an accurate representation of the opinions of the group's members, without them being distorted by social hierarchies and knowledge differences. Each individual is encouraged to promote his or her own initiatives within the scope set by the operators. This scope may be the democratic self-organization of the group or the submission of proposals to elected representatives.
The online platform allows participants to vote on matters themselves. In addition, participants are given the option to delegate their vote to a selected individual if they feel that individual is better suited to make the decision.'Hara. “Internet Use, in- and Exclusion in Decision-Making Processes within Political Parties.” EPrints Soton, ACM, 22 May 2016, eprints.soton.ac.uk/392649/ The purpose of this is to allow those who are most knowledgeable about a particular topic to make the decision. Since not everyone is equally invested in all issues, one participates in what they are interested in, but for other areas one gives their vote to someone acting on their behalf. This mechanism is known as liquid democracy and allows for a division of labor among participants. This helps to produce results that reflect the mood of the majority, even if they cannot find the time to participate in person, thus avoiding problems that regularly arise with grassroots democracy.
LiquidFeedback allows participants not only to vote on initiatives, but also to help improve them. The platform allows users to interact with each other to improve initiatives and gain the necessary majority.Rucco, Federica. “Validità Ed Efficacia Della Deliberazione Elettronica. L'uso Di LiquidFeedback Nel Partito Pirata Italiano. (Italian).” Sociologia Del Diritto, vol. 44, no. 2, May 2017, p. 103. Edb.Mendoza, Nicolas. (2015). Liquid Separation: Three Fundamental Dimensions within LiquidFeedback and other Voting Technologies. JeDEM - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government. 7. 45-58. 10.29379/jedem.v7i2.408. In addition to the standard bottom-up (member- or citizen-initiated) process, LiquidFeedback offers a "polling mode" that allows public administrations to consult constituents on proposed actions.
Features
LiquidFeedback focuses on combining deliberation and voting in an integrated process of informed decision making. The software is designed to enable democratic self-organization of defined medium to large groups, such as associations and political parties.Rosa, Rosanna De. “The Five Stars Movement in the Italian Political Scenario. A Case for Cybercratic Centralism?” JeDEM - EJournal of EDemocracy and Open Government, vol. 5, no. 2, 2013, pp. 128–140., doi:10.29379/jedem.v5i2.218. It is also used to power participatory platforms to promote civic engagement. To this end, it combines a number of features.
Proposition development process The proposition development process can be summarized as follows: user driven, self organized process (collective moderation, no request commission necessary) every member can start an initiative assessed constructive feedback (support, suggestions, implementation assessment) initiators decide about implementation no fundamental opposition within an initiative every member can start an alternative initiative alternative initiatives define the issue and are voted upon together using Schulze's method The process has four phases: Admission - measure if there is significant interest in discussing a topic (called "issue") Discussion - improve initiatives, weigh pros and cons, consider alternatives Verification - identify viable voting options, protect against political hacks (last minute changes will not go unnoticed) Voting - determine the winning initiative The first three phases generate the set of feasible ballot options. These are then voted on.
Policies To allow different values for process timing (duration of the phases) and supporter quorums, and to allow the possibility of supermajority requirements for certain decisions, LiquidFeedback allows its users to have so-called "policies" for different kinds of decisions. The results can be used for information, suggestion, directive, or as binding decisions depending on the organizational needs and the national legislation.
Liquid democracy The ability to transfer votes to more knowledgeable users can stand out as a benefit because everyone wants what is best for their community. Parties using LiquidFeedback have demonstrated that vote delegation is a solution to creating a better society. Only LiquidFeedback allows votes to be transferred without the need for an extreme reason.Vlachokyriakos, Vasilis, et al. “BallotShare: An Exploration of the Design Space for Digital Voting in the Workplace.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 41, 2014, pp. 433–443., doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.024. The ability to transfer votes without an excuse needed benefits all by making sure the decision needed by society is not hindered by those that do not know everything about a proposal.
Another remarkable feature of the liquid democracy implementation in LiquidFeedback is that default power structures emerge. On different levels there are default delegations, as a fall-back solution. On the other hand, a participant can become active at any time, which automatically suspends the respective delegations. These characteristics lead to the fact that the delegation behavior of the participants and thus the (often topic specific) power structures, are subject to learning effects.Behrens, Jan, et.al. "The Temporal Dimension in the Analysis of Liquid Democracy Delegation Graphs." The Liquid Democracy Journal on Electronic Participation, Collective Moderation, and Voting Systems.l, no. Issue 7, 24 September 2022. Interaktive Demokratie published a video on liquid democracy and how it works in LiquidFeedback.
Deliberation The purpose of the deliberation in LiquidFeedback is to allow participants to better understand the pros and cons of a proposal (called an "initiative" in LiquidFeedback). During deliberation, proposals can be improved based on suggestions from other participants. It is also possible to work on alternative proposals that address the same issue. Preference aggregation algorithms ensure that minority positions get a fair share of attention based on the number of participants who support them. The same mechanism protects against overrepresentation of vocal groups.Nitsche, Andreas. "Algorithms for Good." The Liquid Democracy Journal on Electronic Participation, Collective Moderation, and Voting Systems.l, no. Issue 7, 24 September 2022. Deliberation takes place during the LiquidFeedback process phases of admission, discussion, and verification.
Collective moderation The LiquidFeedback process does not need a moderator with special rights. Instead, the entirety of all participants' actions can be construed as collective moderation. Some publications call this approach algorithmic moderation. The process encourages constructive behavior and is contingent upon a majority of participants being in favor of constructive debate. It is not necessary for this majority to be in agreement with one another with regard to the issues under discussion.
Preferential voting LiquidFeedback successfully determines what voters want by using the "Schulze mathematical method", which takes into account how people perceive a situation rather than a simple yes or no.Parycek, Peter. Proceedings of the International Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government 2015: CeDEM15. Donau-Universität, 2015. This provides a more accurate depiction of how people see certain situations.
Utilizing the Schulze Method enables individuals to express their genuine preferences without the need to evaluate which alternative has the best chances of winning. In other words, the presence of similar ideas in different options neither benefits nor harms the original idea, ultimately avoiding any encouragement for tactical voting. If there is only one initiative without alternative initiatives, LiquidFeedback voting becomes a binary decision where participants simply choose between approving the initiative and maintaining the status quo.
Protection of minorities LiquidFeedback provides several mechanisms to allow a proportional representation of minority positions. Although decisions are ultimately made by majorities (see also: Majority rule), the software allows
minorities and even individuals to present their point of views, minorities to get attention according to their actual site (as measured by current support).
The sorting of competing initiatives, for example, is conducted through the Harmonic Weighting algorithm, which employs the identical counting scheme utilized in Thiele's elimination method. The same mechanism is used to prevent vocal groups from causing harm to other minority groups, by ensuring that they do not appear to be more significant than they actually are.
Decentralized operation In July 2018, the first prototype of a decentralized LiquidFeedback was released by the Association for Interactive Democracy.Behrens, Jan. "LiquidFeedback Goes Blockchain." LiquidFeedback Goes Blockchain | Interaktive Demokratie, interaktive-demokratie.org/news/2018/20180727-LiquidFeedback-goes-Blockchain.en.html. The software, which uses a consensus-finding algorithm between nodes based on a proof-of-stake scheme, is called LiquidFeedback Blockchain. In a publication, they discuss a roadmap to a decentralized LiquidFeedback, including decentralized accreditation, and the practical implications of Arrow's theorem for open electronic voting in a decentralized setting.Kistner, Axel, et al. "The Liquid Democracy Journal on Electronic Participation, Collective Moderation, and Voting Systems." The Liquid Democracy Journal, no. Issue 6, 27 July 2018.
History LiquidFeedback was co-written by Andreas Nitsche, Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner and Bjoern Swierczek. The software incorporates the concepts of Liquid Democracy, Proposition development process, Preferential voting or the Schulze method, and Interactive Democracy into the operation of the software. The software was first published in October 2009 by Public Software Group e. V. after being suggested by some members of Germany's Pirate Party unsatisfied with conventional means of political opinion formation. Despite this motivation, its developers are fully independent from the users of the software and they allow the software's usage by other parties and organizations. The first stable version of its back end was released in April 2010.