Abstract
The objective of this paper is to capitalize on the experiences of LiquidFeedback, providing insights that can be helpful for future developers of voting technologies. The condition of LiquidFeedback as a digital platform carries dramatic implications in terms of its ability to perceive, secure, and make effective the political expression of the community. Beyond the hype, can the LiquidFeedback platform accurately perceive the political will of participants? As a voting technology, is it socially located in a position from where it can meaningfully change the state of affairs of society? Is it configured so that it guarantees fairness and safety from both public and private perspectives? As a result of the conjunction of interviews and critical analysis, three fundamental dimensions to all voting technologies are proposed: Expressivity, Influence, and Integrity.
Highlights
This research project aims to advance the understanding of voting technologies, through a series of in-depth interviews with individuals of diverse profile within the development of LiquidFeedback
This paper is interested in liquid democracy as a voting technology
Voting technologies need to provide the community as a whole, and the participants as individuals, with guarantees that address the diverse vectors of attack that could compromise either the public or the private integrity, and the conflicting interests of different sectors of society
Summary
This research project aims to advance the understanding of voting technologies, through a series of in-depth interviews with individuals of diverse profile within the development of LiquidFeedback. The research, conducted in Germany during the summer of 2013, was structured in an open-ended way. Through our conversations our interviewees would suggest us to talk about an emerging topic with another individual who had better knowledge of the topic in question. In this way the thread of this research took shape on its own, leading us from topic to topic, from person to person. This led us to talking with users, advocates, developers, and so forth. This open-ended approach, directed mainly by the dialogues and findings in the field, feedback from the process itself, as well as the way the material is read in the analysis, owes primarily to Actor-Network Theory (Latour 2007)
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