From P2P Foundation

= http://upgradedemocracy.org/

Description

"The Dynamic Democracy Initiative envisions a future in which citizens represent each other on the topics they know best. Many of the failures of our current democracy stem from a centralized, “one-size-fits-all” form of representation; we anticipate a world where legislation is crafted not by a few politicians, but by a broad network of people who have been entrusted by others to advocate on their behalf.

To bring about this ambitious vision, we’ll start with a more tangible goal: building great, open-source software that helps groups of all sizes discuss, debate, and decide on collective action. We will experiment with these platforms in organizations that are ready for them, such as colleges, and nonprofit organizations (including our own). Once these systems have been shown to enable thousands of people to fairly and effectively govern organizations, we will build a movement around using these systems in government." (http://upgradedemocracy.org/about/)

Discussion

"Dynamic Democracy is a term used to describe a decision-making process whereby people represent each other in the domains they know best. It is a hybrid between direct democracy (in that each person can vote on every issue) and representative democracy (in that some people attain more influence by representing others). However, unlike representative democracy, there are no elections; each person decides who to delegate (or “proxy”) their vote to, and can revoke it or delegate it to someone else at any time.

Software to enable full-fledged Dynamic Democracy (which includes proxy voting as well as system for writing and deliberating on legislation) does not yet exist, although proxy voting prototypes have been built or are being built currently. There are a number of potential variants resulting from the rules of a given DD system (such as whether or not a person’s vote can be delegated to someone else by their representative), and as such, two Dynamic Democracy systems could function very differently from one another." (http://upgradedemocracy.org/about/)

More Information

• Definition of Dynamic Democracy
• Learn more about Dynamic Democracy in the FAQ, at http://upgradedemocracy.org/faq
• Upgrade Democracy is a coalition of teams and organizations working on tech-based solutions to systemic problems in governance / group decision-making.
• LayerVote is a software project of the Dynamic Democracy Initiative that aims to demonstrate the utility of proxy voting. It is currently in open-source development.
• Swayy is a software project of the Dynamic Democracy Initiative that aims to enable a virtual legislative process, using The Sway Method. It is currently in the concept stage.