Democracy method

Liquid democracy with measurable preference intensity

Liquid democracy lets people vote directly or delegate to someone they trust. Nicolas adds quadratic voting so delegated decision-making can also measure how strongly participants support or oppose each option.

Start a decisionSee the mechanism

Nicolas mechanism signals

These concepts follow the mathematical contract used by the app.

Convex cost

cost = c * sum a_ij^2

Voice budget

sum a_ij^2 <= B

Outcome rule

shifted softmax over support

What liquid democracy solves

Liquid democracy sits between direct and representative democracy. Participants can vote directly on issues they understand while delegating influence where someone else has more context.

That structure helps groups avoid the false choice between everyone voting on everything and a fixed representative making every decision.

What Nicolas adds

Nicolas lets participants delegate credits for a specific decision, while excluding the delegation whenever the delegator votes directly.

The delegate controls one combined budget, and the app records the support, opposition, costs, and outcome probabilities generated by the decision.

Where it fits

Liquid quadratic voting is useful for teams, communities, co-ops, and governance groups where expertise is distributed and preference intensity matters.

Nicolas does not provide a political-party platform, deliberation forum, blockchain protocol, or public election system.

Use cases

Where this decision model helps

Delegated expertise

Route voice credits to trusted peers on technical or context-heavy decisions.

Direct override

Let participants vote directly when they care enough to override an active delegation.

Transparent cost accounting

Keep quadratic cost and controlled credit budgets visible even when control is delegated.

FAQ

Is Nicolas liquid democracy software?

Nicolas supports liquid delegation inside quadratic voting decisions. It does not provide a full political-party platform or public governance stack.

What is liquid delegation?

Liquid delegation lets a participant route decision power to another participant while retaining the ability to vote directly in contexts where they want to decide themselves.

How is Nicolas different from ordinary liquid democracy?

Nicolas combines delegation with quadratic voting, so the decision records costly support and opposition rather than only delegated yes-or-no voting.

Keep reading

Continue with adjacent concepts and practical Nicolas workflows.

Quadratic votingLearn how voice budgets and squared vote costs measure preference intensity.Workplace democracySee how delegation and intensity-aware voting can support democratic workplaces.