Liquid democracy

Every member can vote directly on any issue or delegate their vote to someone they trust, by topic, and take it back at any time. Delegates can pass votes on further.

The idea combines direct and representative democracy. Bryan Ford's 2002 paper on 'delegative democracy' set out a modern version; software made it practical for organisations. Transitive delegation means a few trusted members may end up carrying very many votes.

• Germany's Pirate Party used LiquidFeedback for internal opinion-forming around 2010–2013.
• Some DAOs let token holders delegate voting power to representatives.

Kling and colleagues (2015) found that a small number of 'super-voters' held substantial delegated power in the Pirate Party system. Secret ballots are hard to combine with visible delegation chains, and participation tends to decline after the novelty wears off.

Liquid democracy is used inside parties, organisations and online communities. It has not been adopted for binding public elections anywhere in the atlas's records.