Liquid democracy, also called "delegative democracy", is a model for democratic consensus that combines both direct voting with personally-designated proxy voting.
Participants preselect designated representatives, called "delegates". These can be changed at any time. Then, whenever an issue comes up for a vote, each individual has the choice to vote directly. But if they don't vote directly — because they don't have the time, feel qualified, or any other reason — their delegate gets an extra vote on their behalf.
These additional votes can be passed transitively. Thus, if 5 people delegate to Alice, who's delegated to Bob, and neither Bob nor his 5 constituents choose to vote, Alice could vote for all 7 of them.
This system has the property that it can recreate the expert-driven ideal of elected representative democracy, while simultaneously allowing direct participation for individuals that want to be more involved.
Timeline
People
Camilo Casas
David Ernst
Further reading
Delegative Democracy
Bryan Ford
Academic paper
Google Votes: A Liquid Democracy Experimenton a Corporate Social Network
Steve Hardt, Lia C. R. Lopes
Academic paper
Liquid Democracy: True Democracy for the 21st Century
Dominik Schiener
Web
The Internet Party: How technology can disrupt politics and re-invent government
Rohan Dixit
Web
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
Liquid Democracy: Governance for the 21st Century
Oct 4, 2017
Companies
Democracy Earth
Santiago Siri
IAGREE LIMITED
Ed Dowding
United Kingdom
Represent.me
Liquid US
David Ernst
San Francisco
LiquidFeedback