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> The same exact problem, vote buying, exists in every form of democracy. Secret ballot is supposed to solve that. And has nothing to do with direct, liquid or

> The same exact problem, vote buying, exists in every form of democracy. Secret ballot is supposed to solve that. And has nothing to do with direct, liquid or representative democracy. Sure, liquid voting can solve vote buying by making delegations and individuals' votes secret with software (afaik the problem of a person being able to secretly delegate their vote to another person who is in turn able to vote secretly is basically unsolvable with pen and paper and ballot boxes though, unlike regular secret ballots) But liquid democracy with secret ballot so voters are unaware that another person has delegated voting power to them can introduce a new edge case issue though. Two people have similar views on most issues so each of them secretly delegates their vote to the other person. This means that neither of their votes are cast for any actual proposal they actually both would be likely to support (and anyone else delegating their vote to one of these people also casts no vote) [FWIW I'm talking about a form of liquid democracy similar to that outlined in the paper, where votes are delegated to individual neighbours who in turn may delegate to people they trust, not the form that looks more like representative democracy but you can pick different representatives for different issues)

guerrilla 4y ago
> votes secret with software Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. > Two people have similar views on most issues so each of them secretly delegates their vote to the other person. This means that neither of their votes are cast for any actual proposal they actually both would be likely to support (and anyone else delegating their vote to one of these people also casts no vote) This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate.
- notahacker 4y ago
  > Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. But they're not orthogonal issues (particularly not in the format discussed in the paper, where chains of neighbours may delegate to each other until one person in the chain casts a vote). You can't have a system in which multiple votes are delegated to X and yet the identity of X is indistinguishable from the single votes of Y and Z. > This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate. That depends heavily on mechanism design though. If I'm aware that I've become X's delegate, the objection upthread is sustained because no secrecy exists and it is practical for me to purchase X's vote (and indeed to purchase and validate that I possess the votes of tens of thousands of indifferent voters). If I am simply aware at some stage that I have become someone's delegate and am not made aware that person is X, the level of secrecy means that I may rationally choose to delegate my votes to X without realising the two delegations cancel out.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    > But they're not orthogonal issues (particularly not in the format discussed in the paper, where chains of neighbours may delegate to each other until one person in the chain casts a vote). You can't have a system in which multiple votes are delegated to X and yet the identify of X is indistinguishable from the single votes of Y and Z. This is just one form [1], there are many. The two variables are independent. You can have direct, liquid, representative democracy with or without secret ballot; therefore, they are orthogonal issues. > If I'm aware that I've become X's delegate, the objection upthread is sustained because no secrecy exists As I commented elsewhere, you don't need to be aware that you are anyone's delegate, just that you are a delegate. You don't even need to know how many votes you have to cast. The only thing you need to do is cast the votes that you have, however many, an to whomever they belong, which you need know nothing about. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy
    - notahacker 4y ago
      > The two variables are independent. You can have direct, liquid, representative democracy with or without secret ballot; therefore, they are orthogonal issues. The two variables are not independent because the delegation system destroys the principle feature which makes ballot secrecy trivial (every person casts the same number of votes in the same way over the same time window). Workarounds for this have significant cost (requirement to use "black box" software or requirement for delegation to take place strictly prior to the actual vote and for a person with a lot of delegated votes to fill in potentially hundreds of ballot papers, or requirement for delegates to fill in special multiple-vote ballots which may end up being personally identifiable despite best endeavours to anonymise them). > As I commented elsewhere, you don't need to be aware that you are anyone's delegate, just that you are a delegate. And if you don't know whose delegate you are, you might unintentionally cancel out a vote you would normally delegate by delegating to someone who delegated to you. As I commented in the very next sentence. Individually identifiable delegations or permitting edge cases with cancelling-out delegations resulting in no actual votes cast by a particular group, pick your poison. (I guess you could also avoid this collision by only permitting delegation to a separate class of people who are not allowed to delegate their own votes but that's a completely different system to the one described in the paper which will yield completely different results...)

guerrilla 4y ago

> votes secret with software Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. > Two people have similar views on most issues so each of them secretly delegates their vote to the other person. This means that neither of their votes are cast for any actual proposal they actually both would be likely to support (and anyone else delegating their vote to one of these people also casts no vote) This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate.

notahacker 4y ago
> Any form of voting can use secret ballot or not. Liquid democracy and ballot secrecy are entirely orthogonal issues and neither necessitate software. But they're not orthogonal issues (particularly not in the format discussed in the paper, where chains of neighbours may delegate to each other until one person in the chain casts a vote). You can't have a system in which multiple votes are delegated to X and yet the identity of X is indistinguishable from the single votes of Y and Z. > This isn't something that would happen. One would be made aware one had become a delegate. That depends heavily on mechanism design though. If I'm aware that I've become X's delegate, the objection upthread is sustained because no secrecy exists and it is practical for me to purchase X's vote (and indeed to purchase and validate that I possess the votes of tens of thousands of indifferent voters). If I am simply aware at some stage that I have become someone's delegate and am not made aware that person is X, the level of secrecy means that I may rationally choose to delegate my votes to X without realising the two delegations cancel out.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  > But they're not orthogonal issues (particularly not in the format discussed in the paper, where chains of neighbours may delegate to each other until one person in the chain casts a vote). You can't have a system in which multiple votes are delegated to X and yet the identify of X is indistinguishable from the single votes of Y and Z. This is just one form [1], there are many. The two variables are independent. You can have direct, liquid, representative democracy with or without secret ballot; therefore, they are orthogonal issues. > If I'm aware that I've become X's delegate, the objection upthread is sustained because no secrecy exists As I commented elsewhere, you don't need to be aware that you are anyone's delegate, just that you are a delegate. You don't even need to know how many votes you have to cast. The only thing you need to do is cast the votes that you have, however many, an to whomever they belong, which you need know nothing about. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy
  - notahacker 4y ago
    > The two variables are independent. You can have direct, liquid, representative democracy with or without secret ballot; therefore, they are orthogonal issues. The two variables are not independent because the delegation system destroys the principle feature which makes ballot secrecy trivial (every person casts the same number of votes in the same way over the same time window). Workarounds for this have significant cost (requirement to use "black box" software or requirement for delegation to take place strictly prior to the actual vote and for a person with a lot of delegated votes to fill in potentially hundreds of ballot papers, or requirement for delegates to fill in special multiple-vote ballots which may end up being personally identifiable despite best endeavours to anonymise them). > As I commented elsewhere, you don't need to be aware that you are anyone's delegate, just that you are a delegate. And if you don't know whose delegate you are, you might unintentionally cancel out a vote you would normally delegate by delegating to someone who delegated to you. As I commented in the very next sentence. Individually identifiable delegations or permitting edge cases with cancelling-out delegations resulting in no actual votes cast by a particular group, pick your poison. (I guess you could also avoid this collision by only permitting delegation to a separate class of people who are not allowed to delegate their own votes but that's a completely different system to the one described in the paper which will yield completely different results...)