RxC Voice

RxC Voice - a social technology for dynamic deliberation and governance

Check out the Github repo or chat with us at voice@radicalxchange.org

Deliberative decision-making for your organization

RxC Voice is a social technology web app which allows groups to vote on collective decisions in a more decentralized way. It combines new governance methods from liquid, deliberative, and radical democracy so group members can share trust, ideas, and preferences with each other.

Using RxC Voice to make group decisions can help to:

• Identify stakeholders fluidly and democratically
• Surface ideas and sentiments from group members
• Engage group members in conversation about their values and priorities for the group
• Focus and build on areas of group consensus
• Democratically determine a clear ranking of group members’ ideas or proposals

When you use RxC Voice, you will discover fertile grounds for collective decision-making in your organization. Read more about the mechanism design to see how Voice can be tailored to fit the needs of your organization.

Mechanism design

Delegation

The Delegation Stage determines who can participate in the decision at hand. In its default configuration, this stage results in a fluid delegation, and a matching fund boosts the influence of delegates who are trusted by other members of the group.

Default configuration

• Each participant (called “delegate”) receives 99 voice credits upon initializing the process. They will use these voice credits to vote in the Election stage–but that comes later on.

• During the Delegation Stage, delegates have the option to transfer any number of their voice credits to other delegates.

• Delegates also have the option to send voice credits by email to someone who is not yet on the delegates’ list.

• There are two crucial “twists” to the Delegation Stage:

  • A delegate must have at least 25 voice credits to participate in the subsequent stages of the process, Deliberation and Election.
  • A pool of voice credits will match all transfers according to the Quadratic Funding formula.

Other configurations

• Fixed delegation - delegates are not allowed to invite new people to participate.
• Egalitarian delegation - delegates are not allowed to transfer their voice credits to other delegates, leaving everyone with an equal number of voice credits.

Deliberation

In the Deliberation Stage, the delegates collectively design a final ballot to vote on. In its default configuration, the Deliberation Stage uses a tool called pol.is to engage the delegates in conversation about the decision at hand and steer the group toward areas of consensus rather than disagreement. The final ballot is curated directly from the delegates’ submissions–a crucial detail in decentralized governance.

Default configuration

• The delegates all participate in a Polis conversation about the decision at hand. Each delegate can contribute items to the ballot by submitting “comments.”

• Delegates also have the opportunity to “agree” or “disagree” with other delegates’ comments – this gives the group detailed information about where there is consensus and disagreement.

• At the end of the Deliberation Stage, an appointed curator will analyze the conversation results and curate the delegates’ suggestions into a coherent list of voting items for the Election. The curator will publish a statement explaining how that list reflects the delegates’ contributions in the Deliberation Stage. The group will have a chance to approve or disapprove the curator’s choices in the Election Stage.

Other configurations

• Predetermined ballot - in some cases, the choices to vote on are clear from the beginning. If your use case doesn’t require a mechanism for surfacing proposals from the group, you can skip the Deliberation Stage entirely and move on to Election with a predetermined ballot. Alternatively, you may use the Deliberation Stage to hold a debate about the choices on the ballot, either using pol.is or some other deliberative technology.

Election

In this stage, the delegates express which ballot options they like best using Quadratic Voting.

Default configuration

• A “Ballot Ratification” option is automatically added to each ballot.

  • With this particular ballot item, delegates can express whether or not they feel that the ballot fairly and accurately represents the contributions in the Deliberation Stage.
  • At the end of the Election, if the sum of effective votes for the Ballot Ratification option is less than zero, the results of the Election are nullified and a new ballot must be curated and voted on.

• If the ballot gets approved, the group will publish the Quadratic Voting results ranking the priorities by the sum of their effective votes.

Other configurations

• Predetermined Ballot - you may exclude the “Ballot Ratification” option if it is not necessary.

Who benefits from Voice?

Companies and governments

Firms, nonprofits, and governments are the critical organization of our shared lives. Voice helps sustain and grow legitimacy in a rapidly changing world.

Internet and blockchain communities

Decentralization can be tricky. Voice helps coordinate projects that have no central authority or infrastructural point of failure.

Social movements (like RadicalxChange)

Activism takes a strong community. Voice helps dynamic groups identify unifying interests.

Join the RadicalxChange Discord

Discuss new social and technological developments and stories from RxC Voice on our Discord server!