The Independent View: The Pirate Party Tests Liquid Democracy

From this morning's CNN show Global Public Square (GPS) with Fareed Zakaria.

The Swedish “Pirate Party,” founded in 2006, has produced offshoots throughout Europe. The German Pirate Party takes a similar position to that of its Scandinavian predecessor: more data protection and transparency in government dealings, copyright reform… The German Blog YuccaTree explains how this party, which is strongly influenced by web culture, operates.

We always complain about what “they” decide and at the same time, fewer and fewer people are voting, while popular votes, like in Switzerland, often run the risk of being taken over by right-wing populists. The idea of Liquid Democracy came about as an answer to this. The basic idea is that we decide for ourselves what we vote on and for which topics we delegate our voice to a trusted representative. At their federal party convention in Bingen, the Pirate Party decided on a nationwide implementation of Liquid Feedback, a web-based system serving Liquid Democracy.

Now that this system has been tested in a few states, all Party members will receive an account within a few weeks. Every individual Party member can formulate a political idea and submit a proposal to the system. A discussion phase will follow, during which modified versions of the proposal can emerge. If the proposal receives a minimum number of supporters, the proposal is put to a vote. All members are invited to vote. If enough members participate in the vote, which takes place over an extended period of time, and if the proposal receives the majority vote, it is considered passed by the Party.

This increases the speed with which the Party can act and react. It is no longer dependent upon the next party convention to pass resolutions. Rather, a permanent party convention takes place on the Internet. However, no one has the desire or the time or even the ability to constantly take part in some vote. That’s why you can delegate your voice. You no longer elect one representative for the whole Party, but rather transfer your voice to another individual, whom you trust, and then only personally vote in the areas that you’re really interested in, for which you may in turn receive other member’s voices.

For the time being, the system is still experimental. Liquid Feedback was developed for parties and similar organizations and is not suitable for important votes since no secret ballot is possible. Instead, who voted how must always be able to be tracked in order to prevent ballot-fixing. Federal elections will take place in the manner we’re currently used to for a long time yet. The vision for the distant future is that, one day, we’ll be able to decide whether we want to vote on a particular issue ourselves, like in Switzerland, or whether we want to relinquish our voice to our elected representative.

Update
THE GERMAN ARM of the Pirate Party has had success in the state election and gained some seats in parliament. This is the first time that the Pirate Party has gained seats in the German parliament and it is reckoned to have around nine per cent of the seats in Germany's legislative offices. The party has won support amongst younger voters, perhaps unsurprisingly, and these voters apparently have pushed its election tally beyond the five per cent required for a seat. Of course this has lead to some excitement at the Pirate Party. "[A] very important benefit is, that citizens and media are taking parties with access to the parliament much more seriously," Sebastian Nerz, chairman of the German Pirate Party told Torrentfreak.

"A number of times I've heard, 'Your party is not relevant because it does not have members of parliament'. Following this weekend's successes, in this respect the party's position will be greatly improved," he added. Entering the German parliament will also give the party more funds, according to Nerz, and could lead to an increase in support as it appears to be more relevant to voters.

"At the moment the Pirate Party of Germany does not have any paid employees," added Nerz. "Everyone working for the party - including myself - is working in an honorary capacity. In contrast, Members of Parliament are paid for their work. In addition they receive state money to pay for assistants and co-workers. This will enable those Pirates to work full-time for the party, thus giving us much more work force."