LiquidFeedback

LiquidFeedback is free software for political opinion formation and decision making, combining aspects of Representative Democracy and Direct Democracy - liquidfeedback.org .

The front end is written in Lua (Lua (programming language)) while the back end is written in PL/pgSQL. Both parts are released under the MIT License. There is also an API available which allows external applications to add additional features to the program.

Unlike Loomio, the LiquidFeedback API is quite comprehensive but not yet fixed. It allows external applications to add additional features to the program - dev.liquidfeedback.org

Its most important feature is the implementation of a delegated voting system (liquid democracy) which is to establish a new form of political representation and participation that takes into account the knowledge disparity of its participants - wikipedia

LiquidFeedback helps groups (such as societies or organizations, political or not) make decisions, without the limitations of a traditional Internet forum.

It aims to create an accurate representation of the opinions held by the members of the group without them being distorted by social hierarchies and knowledge disparities. Each individual is encouraged to further their own initiatives within the limitations set by the operators.

The proxy voting feature creates power structures similar to representative democracy, even though delegations can be withdrawn at any time.

This is necessary to produce results that reflect the mood of the majority, even when they don't find the time to participate in person, in order to avoid the domination of extroverts, which is the problem that regularly arises with grassroots democracy - pages.de

LiquidFeedback provides several mechanisms to protect minorities. Even though decisions are finally made by majorities (see also: Majority rule), the software allows:

minorities and even individuals to present their point of views, minorities of a certain size to put their proposals to the vote.

In this context, all text contributions are sorted in a way that a proportional representation of the minorities is assured.

Depending on the integration of the software, this may empower minorities to put their viewpoints to discussion directly at the top level of an organization without the necessity to go through a hierarchy.

The proposition development process can be summarized as follows:

LiquidFeedback is an independent open source project published under MIT License by the Public Software Group of Berlin, Germany.

The developers of LiquidFeedback have teamed up in the Association for Interactive Democracy to promote the use of electronic media for democratic processes.