Thanks, @qwerty - Liquid Democracy is what I was trying to describe above - I didn't know about it. Clearly, someone else has got a lot further down the trail than I had! I will have to study this further.

Why use a blockchain? it adds many needless cycles for no clear security gains and due to the ledger, makes it incredibly easy to reverse up who voted for what.

I'd still favour direct democracy over liquid.

re blockchain ..I like it and believe it is the future of voting on line "what the blockchain brings Decentralization & Open Participation: Publicly Viewable Records: Highest Data Integrity Available:(for public ledger)" add trust of the process. Re reverse up, I think that can be solved and here are a couple of options I have seen so far http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/25624/blockchain-based-polling-voting-systems

However it is not immediately essential as any e-voting would suffice so is not a deal breaker.

I have thought of a couple of similar scenarios that need consideration

a) A group of delegated representatives who are technocrats holding considerable voting power due to their expertise decide to railroad an agenda of their own on different issues and against the principals of those they are representing...how do we deal with this? is it covered in liquid democracy model? Would any decision by the representatives be open to challenge and a Veto from the whole electorate as a check and balance?

b) A large group of active dissidents mange to accumulate a large voting block by fair means or foul and use this to pass legislation clearly against the interests or principals of Asgardia . Once again a challenge to veto this would be a safeguard.

We could also consider using direct democracy as the "2nd house".. delegates/ representatives pass legislation which is then offered to a direct vote for ratification before being enacted. In the UK this is common practice and a bill may be passed in the lower house rejected by the upper and shuttle back and forward for alteration a number of times between Houses before being passed in its final form.or abandoned.

ADD ..a recent article on blockchain voting Jan 11 /17 "Given public wariness around e-voting, Kaspersky set a high bar for system designers. The contest asked for solutions that could ensure voter privacy, safeguard against voters being pressured to cast a ballot, prohibit the publication of interim results (illegal in some places), account for votes left blank and allow for a recount if required.

Contest organizers especially wanted to ensure the blockchain systems would be able to surmount what is perhaps the highest hurdle facing e-voting. That is, the public’s reluctance to try something new." Not perfected but getting there http://www.govtech.com/security/Will-Blockchain-Based-Election-Systems-Make-E-Voting-Possible.html

There are two great videos on youtube that summarize the difference between Representative Government (what we call democracy and see today in the world) and true Democracy. The audio is in Spanish, but there's subtitles in english, chinese and some other languages as well.

What is a representative government and why what we live in (in most nations) is not democracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8vVEbCquMw

What is the true democracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoP_mSIHqTY

We must have a true democracy as the form of government in Asgardia. Since we are starting from scratch and our population isn't enormous, it is perfectly possible to make it work. I think it is the best option of government we have.

TL;DR: There's no true democracy in the world today. Watch the videos to understand true democracy, and why we should adopt it.

@qwerty, Thanks for all your explanations, but one question arised: where in Germany is liquid democracy in action (other than internally in the pirates party)

"In addition to its application within political parties, Liquid Feedback has also been used at the county municipal level in a region of Germany called Friesland. The pioneering Council of Friesland enlisted the help of Interaktive Democratie e.V. to apply Liquid Feedback in their decision-making process, which is now called “Liquid Friesland.” Liquid Friesland has been running for several years. It gives local community members a way to propose policy ideas and directions, which are then voted on by people using the software."

"In addition to the Pirates and Friesland, the Italian Five-Star Movement has also applied Liquid Feedback. With 25% of the national vote, the Five-Star Movement is currently a significant political force for change and a serious adopter of Liquid Feedback."

""Liquid Democracy e.V. has used their Adhocracy software in a number of contexts, including government and various youth development and youth inclusion projects. The highest profile example is its application within the Enquete-Kommission Internet und digitale Gesellschaft des Deutschen Bundestages (Federal Parliamentary Commission on the Internet and Digital Society). "

Thank you, I didn't know about liquid friesland, as I live in Bavaria, which is quite a world of it's own.

http://bollier.org/blog/principles-liquidfeedback#comment-1050

Food for thought - just as a pure democracy cannot operate with fewer than a critical number of active participants (70?) we may only be able to operate a liquid democracy if there are more than a certain number of people. Assuming only 1% of our current 161190 citizens want to get into politics, how many active participants are required for this system?

I would think the same applies to any kind of democracy, If less than 1% participate are any deciions likely to be representative? As in the majority of cases if people are generally happy with their current circumstances they tend not to put effort into support, change, reform or creation unless they feel threatened with loss.. However Asgardia is in formation so we could ask why the lack of participation from 150,000 + registered citizens? A quick look at Constitution in the forum shows top read is 1900 citizens have read a topic , but most are a few hundred. The top posts for a topic is 84 the most number of citizens with input on a topic. less than 0.1% which at the formation stage indicates 99.9% are not too bothered which way it turns out and inferred that they do not yet feel they have anything to lose or strong aspirations.. In the absence of serious support and input to the process we may deservedly stay as a benevolent dictatorship.

I also think the liquid democracy is a good choice.

http://liquidfeedback.org

I'm not keen on any idea that takes my decisive capacity out of my hands. Direct is the only way that really makes sense. Or it'll be just like it is now on Earth.

Certainly, not everyone will be interested in taking part in all of the processes. But there is likely to be sufficient interest in any individual topic to bring to the table those with productive input. With a sufficient time-frame on the discussions previous to voting on and implimenting solutions, everyone that does want to involve themselves can. Things with a wider scope of impact should obviously be advertised as such, to ensure everyone at least knows of it's existence. Considering the lack of desperate rush behind any descision - now or in the near future - this should work out reasonably well. Most people could cover their interested topics in less than a few hours a week, at a time that suits them. It will always be representative of the greater citizens views as even with low attendance it's unlikely that everyone is going to think the same thing is the only solution - and if they do, then maybe it is the most sensible thing. Especially with a panel of "experts" guiding the process. For the people who paid the topic no heed then they had no interest, so their interests are represented always regardless of outcome. It's likely the "experts" will of raised any concerns, if the citizens in attendance havn't spotted them. To address the "critical number of active participants" concerns, the keywords are "active participants" - as long as there's more than three then there's some suitability. It's unlikely to be that low, ever - if there's that little interest, why are we even persuing the notion. There's plenty I'd not involve myself with unless I see it moving in a direction I'd be uncomfortable with, instead allowing those with more interest/education than I in that subject to progress in areas I hold little interest. I do find it disturbing that with 150k+ registered users there's alarmingly little input - or even observation - to these forums. I had geniunely hoped for more. I've personally taken this to be a combination of language barriers, 'tards still trying to use FB, and a small percentile that are "too embarrassed" to provide input as they have found the knowlege previously input "intimidating" and are somewhat unwilling to start something or contribute to for "fear" of comming across as "stupid" - and ofc those who are "just shy".

I fully agree to what you said eyeR (and for me it was a mix of the language barrier and shyness that held me back for a while before posting my proposal, being fluent in english sadly doesn't necessarily mean understanding or being able to formulate law related stuff)

"less than 0.1% [involvement] which at the formation stage indicates 99.9% are not too bothered which way it turns out and inferred that they do not yet feel they have anything to lose or strong aspirations."

I really worry 99.9% of signups are nerds that were attracted to the word 'space' and who would die of starvation within 2 weeks if Asgardia was actually a small Island off Norway.

That strikes me as a disingenuous argument. The Constitutional Convention and Continental Congress was composed of representatives sent by the colonies. They weren't just some guys who showed up and declared they were writing the rules and tough luck to everyone else.

People are probably not especially aware of the forum or of this particular subforum. There's been no announcements on the main page asking people to discuss things here. I wasn't aware of the forum at all until after I received an e-mail about the certificates and came back to the main page.

The signatories were just the authors who submitted it to the states for ratification and the Constitution was subsequently ratified by the states according to their laws over the next few years. IIRC, all 13 were ratified by state legislatures, greatly increasing the number of people directly involved in the voting process.

Are you trying to make an argument against representative democracies in general? I don't think it's a very fair metric to just divide the number of legislators by the number of citizens to get a final result, since that excludes the voters and votes that empowered the legislators to act.