= Liquid Democracy in Brazil: A Possible Reality (in the short term!) =

''This is a translation from the Brazilian Portuguese of the article at http://helderribeiro.net/?p=180 which first made public the idea for Open Parliament.''

== What is it? ==

Liquid Democracy is a method of group decision making that works more or less as a ''"direct democracy for people who know they are not experts in a subject, but know people in whom they trust and who know more about this subject than they do"''.

It is much more democratic than [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy representative democracy] (the one we have in Brazil today, with MPs, senators, councilmen), and more feasible than a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy direct democracy] where everyone votes on everything. As in a direct democracy, the question can be answered by everyone, but in the case of Liquid Democracy, the answer may be ''"I vote whatever this guy votes"''. Each person can choose "advisors" to certain subjects, as MPs do today. 

For example, you know nothing about Brazil's energy matrix and its needs, but you have a friend who is an electrical engineer who does and whose views are very similar to yours, so you choose her as your "advisor" in matters of energy: unless you vote directly, you will add to the weight of her vote. She may, on certain areas, not be completely sure about a specific issue: she is an electrical engineer, they are an oil exploration bill. But she knows a geologist who is an expert in oil exploration and has the same values she does, so she delegates her vote. The geologist's vote now aggregates the weight from you and the electrical engineer. 

In subjects that interest you most and about which you understand best, you vote directly. 

If you simply are not interested in ''anything'' and do not want to spend your time with it, just delegate everything. That's how we all forcefully do today, with someone voting for us without our intervention, with the exception that in this case, the ones voting for you are people you know and with whom you can talk personally if you need, and you do not have to wait 4 years if you want to change them. 

=== Important: ===
There is no mandate. If you are not satisfied, you can change the advisor ''at any time''. 

=== Very important: ===
You can '''always''' vote '''directly'''. It does not matter if you delegated your vote on a particular subject. If you go and vote directly, the delegation does not count in that particular voting: your vote is worth 1 (plus the number of people who have delegated to you) and the weight of your advisor's vote is decreased by that same quantity. As you can see your advisor's vote before the time's up, if you disagree with it you just go and vote yourself.

== How do we do it? ==

We dissolve legislative bodies country-, state- and city-wide, create a website for the proposal and voting of bills and establish that this is the only way by which these two things can be done, right? 

Not so fast... Nobody will take up arms, no one will dissolve anything. Like I said, this is a ''feasible'' revolution, not a distant and utopian dream. 

One way that some Swedes found to do this was to create a party (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoex Demoex]) and elect a proxy councilman who votes for whatever is decided by members of the party through an online system of liquid democracy. Okay, they started with only one chair, but have already achieved some pretty good results. The idea is very good and [http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2006/10/361955.shtml seems to have been tried in Brazil (pt)] (I couldn't find much about it). But I have a different idea that does not involve electing anyone. 

== Open Parliament ==

We create a website with the system of liquid democracy, we take the agenda before each voting session and we throw the topics there. We discuss, delegate, vote. We are our own parliament, and each of us a member. Simple as that. 

What difference does it make?, you ask. Just me and you? Not much. Now imagine 10% of the population (or even only of São Paulo) using it. MPs start to pay attention. We would start to have influence. I can imagine a MP, on the eve of a House session, looking up the website to see what you and I voted. Now imagine 30%. Then 50%. Only a fool would ignore us. Without having elected any proxy MP ourselves, '''all''' the MPs, little by little, would join the discussion and would be voluntarily our proxies. After all, seeing that a giant portion of the electorate is voting a certain way on the site, who would dare to vote the opposite way in the House?

Oh, of course: after they vote, we compare their choices with ours. "73% of five million users of the Open Parliament voted against a certain bill; 340 of 513 deputies voted in favor in the House. These are the Members who voted in favor: X, Y, Z." 

And after you have a number of votes registered on the site, we can make [http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2006/10/361955.shtml custom comparisons (pt)]. You go to X's profile (House representative, perhaps the one you chose at the last election) and there it is: in 70% of votings, X voted ''different'' from you. Hm ... would you vote on them in the next election? You may want to consult the list of all MPs, ''sorted by how similarly to you they voted''. Choosing a representative for how well they represented you, and not by their campaign, who would imagine huh? 

But something is missing for this to be a true parliament. So far, we're just voting on a bill drafted by the members. Why not create our own? 

If [http://tuliovianna.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/democracia-digital-direta-ja/ Túlio Vianna's proposal (pt)] becomes law, we'll be able to produce a bill collaboratively on the site itself (wiki?), discuss them and forward them to the House for vote. For that we would need more or less 1 million supporters. You see, it is not so much as people may think. Orkut has more than 30 million users in Brazil (you could even ask your friends on Orkut to sign). Like any other project voted in the House, it would come to us once it reached the week's agenda, and it would go to the House with the weight of our votes. 

And even if Túlio Vianna's proposal does not pass, all we need is more or less a million real signatures on paper. The preparation and discussion can still be made on site. After that, each person prints the text, signs it and mails it to the NGO which will manage the Open Parliament. The NGO collects signatures and forward the bill to the House. Done. 

== Cutting the middleman ==

We can create projects ourselves and send them to the House. We can influence the House to vote the way we vote. We are a full Parliament. 

When we have this type of control, we will ask: do we really need a House? Do we really need to spend this huge amount of money paying members, advisors, secretaries, janitors, drivers, etc.? It doesn't really make much sense. Let's keep only the Open Parliament and cut the rest. 

== Why is it going to work? ==

Like I said, this is not a utopia. Okay, the part where we cut the middleman might be. But voting bills like any Member - ''and having our vote heard'' - and creating our own laws are things that depend on very little: software (free software, of course) and users.

There will be, of course, the need for a big effort by some people for the site to be created: programmers, designers, people willing to test and give feedback. 

There will also be a great effort so that the site has a significant adoption. We need communicators to spread the word and attract new users. We need journalists, political commentators and engaged citizens to stimulate discussion on the site and give it life. 

Maybe it'll be too much trouble to get involved and difficult to convince new people to register, right? 

Wrong. As in all sites with user generated content, the ones who develop and publish the site and who generate most of the content are a tiny fraction of the total number of users (think You Tube). Most of them interact very little, contribute almost nothing and still can take advantage of it. And even so, vibrant and rich communities are built. 

The most disinterested and lazy citizen will have to do very little. It will not be so hard to convince them to get involved. "Just create a login and choose some friends to vote for you." They will receive an email from time to time saying "hey, these things have been voted, are you interested?" and they'll delete it. And then another one saying "this friend of yours voted in favor of this for you, another friend voted against that" and also delete it. But they are, at least in a passive and vague way, informed about what is going on, which is more than we have today. In these emails, some stuff might call their attention. The friend who voted for him can call him up and talk about what is being discussed (something that would never happen with a MP). Even with the minimum of effort there is more democracy. 

== How to get there? ==

We don't need to do everything at once. The site can start up very simple and little by little get new features. 

The first step is to create a simple system for tracking MPs, something similar to Twitter. You go to the "profile" of a member and choose to "follow" their votes (and *only* the votes), either by email, RSS or any other way. Every time he votes on something you receive a notification: "This guy voted X on bill Y". We put the bill's text online for debate, [http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s909/text?version=is&nid=t0:is:17 something like this]. ''The development of this part is already in progress''. 

Then we add a simple system of direct after-the-fact voting (initially, it is easier to deal with bills that have already been voted than with the agenda before the session). You receive "This guy voted X on subject Y, ''what would you have voted?''". You click on the link, you go to the site and vote. With that we can now compare, as mentioned above, your voting history with the politician's. 

The beauty of doing things in this order is that the site will become incrementally more useful. It does not need a giant mass of users at the beginning to make sense. Even if you are the only user, you already benefit from information on politicians, their activities and how much they represent you. 

After that, little by little, we will introduce other features: voting on the agenda ''before'' the plenary session, the system of choice of advisors and delegation of votes, system for collaboratively drafting bills, etc..

We begin first with the House of Representatives because it is the legislative body that provides more information on electronic meetings, votes and members (in Brazil). As for most of the state assemblies and city halls, this information is in paper records, and one needs to actually go there physically to get them. As they begin to be available online too, they will be included on the site. 

== How do I help? ==

As you can see, there is '''a lot''' to be done. We need developers, designers, communicators, lobbyists (to convince the assemblies and municipal councils to make their data available on the Internet), testers, critics, donation managers, lawyers... no matter what you do, you can help us. 

I created a discussion group for those interested. Subscribe at: http://groups.google.com/group/parlamento-aberto. 

== References ==

Contents:
 * Wikipedia:
   * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_voting#Delegated_voting Delegated Voting (en)]
   * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy Delegative Democracy (en)]
   * [http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoex_-_democracia_experimental Demoex - Democracia Experimental (pt)]
 * [http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Liquid_Democracy Liquid Democracy (en)]
 * [http://www.brynosaurus.com/deleg/deleg.pdf Delegative Democracy (article in pdf) (en)]
 * [http://p2pfoundation.net/Decision-Making_Tools Decision-Making Tools (en)]
 * [http://www.opencongress.org/ Open Congress (en)]
 * [http://trac.opencongress.org/ OpenCongress.org Project (en)]
 * [http://legistalker.org/ Legistalker (en)]
 * [http://www.democracia.com.br/ Democracia.com.br (pt)]

Discussion (read the comments as well):
 * [http://tuliovianna.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/democracia-digital-direta-ja/ Democracia Digital Direta Já (Tulio Viana's blog) (pt)]
 * [http://www.trezentos.blog.br/?p=2193 Democracia e Mídias Sociais – Proposta de um novo modelo democrático (Julio Valentim's blog) (pt)]

== Questions? ==

I couldn't cover it all up, or the text would be too long. But please give me your feedback. There are several issues that still need to be discussed (security, anonymity, digital exclusion, etc). And I'll be happy to answer questions. 

''Update: it seems that something has been already developed in the same direction: http://www.democracia.com.br/. There's monitoring and direct voting, but I can not register or access the blog. Is it still active?''