Enhance OpenGov Liquid Democracy with Multi-Staged Delegation Capability

[Vikk]

Enhance OpenGov Liquid Democracy with Multi-Staged Delegation Capability

Objective

To enhance voter participation and decision-making efficiency in Polkadot’s governance, this forum discussion post suggests implementing a multi-level liquid democracy model, allowing for nested delegation within the existing single-level delegation system. This approach enables participants to delegate voting power to knowledgeable representatives who may then delegate further, creating a flexible and scalable decision-making structure.

Background & Rationale

Polkadot’s current delegation model allows a one-level delegation, which, while beneficial, limits engagement to direct delegators only. Multi-level delegation, as proposed in liquid democracy models, has been shown to reduce voter abstention and enhance outcomes by allowing votes to cascade through trusted, knowledgeable intermediaries. Research from Warwick University shows that such a structure is cognitively accessible, with more efficient equilibria compared to direct or purely representative systems. Moreover, this system aligns with DAO principles, supporting active participation even from those less informed or actively involved in every governance decision.

Proposed Structure

1. Multi-Level Delegation!

Implement a multi-tier delegation system where any voter can delegate their voting power to a representative who, in turn, can further delegate if they choose. This creates a chain of expertise and trust, enhancing both governance efficiency and inclusivity.

The proposed multi-level delegation structure should look like the following image, from Wikipeda on Liquid Democracy:

In this multi-tier liquid democracy each representative can either vote directly or delegate further, creating a network that supports informed decision-making. This structure ensures a flexible and transparent system where every vote counts and experts can guide decisions for the community’s benefit.

2. Safeguard mechanisms to maintaining fair voting power distribution

To avoid centralization risks, introduce mechanisms that cap individual delegates’ power, ensure transparency, and allow users to recall or reassign their votes as necessary. Regular reviews and potential identity requirements could help sustain decentralized power distribution.

Expected Benefits:

• Improved Voter Participation: Liquid democracy can lower the abstention rate by allowing participants to defer decisions to trusted parties without fully disengaging.
• Efficient Decision-Making: By utilizing informed and trusted delegates, Polkadot governance can achieve more balanced and effective outcomes.
• Alignment with Polkadot’s Mission: This model supports decentralized, fair governance by encouraging participation at all knowledge levels while protecting against centralization.
• Coherent Sub-DAOs Collaboration: Sub-DAOs of Polkadot can unite their voting power to higher level DAOs.

Challenges & Mitigations:

• Centralization Risk: Transparent delegation tracking and delegate accountability measures, such as power caps and regular reviews, would mitigate potential risks.
• Technical Complexity: Multi-level delegation requires enhancements to Polkadot’s governance tech stack to ensure scalability and ease of use, necessitating a phased approach and ongoing audits.

Conclusion

A multi-level liquid democracy model in Polkadot would create a more inclusive, efficient governance structure while aligning with Polkadot’s core values of decentralization, meritocracy and active community participation. Implementing this system would strengthen Polkadot’s governance by enabling a fairer approach to delegation that balances voter involvement in governance.

This forum post was created by Polkadot Hungary DAO in the spirit of developing Polkadot’s on-chain democracy. We hope that the community will find the topic raised interesting and useful. We would like to initiate a discussion on this topic with the community. If the suggestion gains support, the community should propose a Wish for Change referendum to enhance OpenGov by introducing multi-stage liquid democracy. This would involve requesting the Web3 Foundation to conduct research and asking the Technical Fellowship to deliver the upgraded code based on the Web3 Foundation’s findings.

[wabkebab]

Reading the research article I find that “Liquid democracy” is represented as this:

Under liquid democracy, a voter chooses whether to vote themselves or to delegate
their vote to another voter (potentially someone more knowledgeable on a particular issue).

I don’t think that differs very much from the current voting system ( direct vote and representative/delegation vote).

For the nesting delegation implementation, I don’t see the actual benefit of increasing the complexity of the current model. What is the problem that are solving introducing the delegation layers?

Related to:

Centralization Risk: Transparent delegation tracking and delegate accountability measures, such as power caps and regular reviews, would mitigate potential risks.

In the end, it will be a delegatee that will be voting for all his delegators no matter if it is a horizontal structure or vertical structure behind him. It is on delegators responsibility to know on who is delegating ( and it is better to have as less intermediaries as possible IMHO), as delegating is a trust based political action.

Sometimes I think as more complex it is, more excited we are.

[Vonyi]

What is the problem that are solving introducing the delegation layers?

It is different from current system because we as Polkadot Hungary we don’t have the option to delegate our votes to another DAO. Let’s say we want to vote together with with another DAO on certain topics and we would like to delegate everything that is delegated to us.

By allowing token holders to delegate their votes to more knowledgeable or trusted parties, those who might not have the time or expertise to vote on every referendum can still participate indirectly. This can significantly boost overall voter turnout and engagement within the network.

and it is better to have as less intermediaries as possible IMHO

If you check the research article what you’re saying is true when infinite levels of liquid democracy is enabled power can concetrate in centralized ways.

What our point was to open discussion about this topic. With current structure delegating is way too expensive for liquid democracy to work effectively. However after governance moves to its own system parachain a 2-3 level liquid democracy would increase voter participation in our opinion. And the research article finds the same result that with efficient coordination liquid democracy will lead to more participation and improve decision quality.

[wabkebab]

@Vonyi

By allowing token holders to delegate their votes to more knowledgeable or trusted parties, those who might not have the time or expertise to vote on every referendum can still participate indirectly. This can significantly boost overall voter turnout and engagement within the network.

This is already solved with delegation. I understand the situation and the problem that this particular implementation of liquid voting solves, but I dont not see how it can improve participation, boost voter turnout and engagement (as delegation system is already in place). It solves an specific problem, yes but also doesn’t solve the problem that one of the “midlevel” delegates does the same that actually is happenening.

IMHO, what people actually doesnt have is time, and as we are not professional politicians that are paid by engaging in Polkadot politics, the involvement on openGov, tends for most of the people short in time. Coordinating between DAOs,sub-DAOS and delegators will increase the coordination overhead.

On the practical side, do you have a calculation of how much this will cost and how many times will be used a year?

[cesarMx]

Great idea, Vikk!

In the part where you mention some mechanisms to limit the power of each delegate, ensuring transparency and allowing users to revoke and reassign their vote delegation, you mention that on-chain identity and periodic review of the votes could be some of these mechanisms. But who will oversee these votes? Could we say that the community would do it, or perhaps form a fellowship committee responsible for reviewing and supervising the delegates to maintain balanced behavior?

[wigy]

Hi Daniel!

The benefits of splitting delegation based on topics (opengov tracks) is already a huge complexity compared to voting blue or red on all political questions, right?

Liquid democracy is for people who are informed, but do not want to spend all their time analyzing proposals, so they want to delegate their power to someone who thinks similarly, but spends their time on that. The current system lacks 2 features:

• I want to temporarily vote differently than whom I usually delegate to.
• As someone who gained trust of many delegators, I want to express clearly and honestly that some topics I do not have enough experience to form an informed decision in, but I can find someone who might match the preferences of my delegators.

So this multi-staged delegation allows smaller communities to gradually build up the number of their experts and who trusts them still can delegate their power easily.