[pp.int.general] Agora Voting System for a Liquid Democracy at FOSDEM

[Kenneth Peiruza]

Hi Boris,


Yes, what he describes is basically direct/liquid democracy with a MP
proxy, and Spanish law says nothing about how do the MP's make their
decision, so, you are wrong with your guess, at least
with Spain.

In fact, most times the party makes the decision and all their MPs act
as dumb voting-robots, and it's really hard to get a really free vote in
our parliament. They name it "party discipline", and it's how it works
here, at least 99% of times.

It's so crappy that one gay conservative MP voted against gay rights and
gay marriage 'cause PP (Partido Popular, the conservatives) voted so.

Last time I saw a free vote in a Spanish institution, it was in the
Catalan Parliament, in the vote about forbidding bullfighting in
Catalonia, and bullfighting got forbidden, something like 9 moths ago.



Regards,

Kenneth

On 19/01/11 23:33, Boris Turovskiy wrote:
> Hi Eduardo,
> 
>> Well the idea is that the elected members of parliament act as a proxy
>> for the people voting via Internet.
> Well that idea is exactly the opposite of what any parliamentary system
> is designed to do. For example, §138 of the German Grundgesetz
> (Constitution) specifically states that "a member of Parliament is bound
> only by his conscience" - I'm sure there are similar rulings in most
> democratic states. It implies that neither the party leadership nor
> anyone else is entitled to order a MP how to vote. Of course, if a MP
> votes against what his voters want he probably won't get re-elected.
> Moreover, while Liquid Democracy challenges some postulates of
> representative (parliamentary) democracy, even in a LD system a
> "delegate" exercises his vote by free will (it's just the the process of
> delegation is more fluid and not limited to a ballot once every 4 years,
> and that every participant may choose not to delegate at all but to vote
> directly).
> What you describe is basically direct democracy with a technical proxy.
> 
> Best regards,
> Boris
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