Quadratic Voting in Action

Democracy has been a work in progress since classical antiquity. Today, political life can at times feel like nothing more than raising one’s arm, before being entirely drowned out. This is, in part, because the simple system of “one person, one vote” does not sufficiently capture the nuances of our preferences.

Into the tradition of democratic progress enters a novel collective decision-making mechanism called Quadratic Voting (QV). With Quadratic Voting, voters can not only signal what they want, but also how much they want it. A simple system of tradeoffs ensures that strong preferences get recognized; while preventing the loudest voices from dominating the political landscape. One of the most interesting features of QV is that passionate minorities can outvote indifferent majorities - enabling greater compromise and more legitimacy.

Over the past year, Quadratic Voting has been tried and tested in multiple arenas. Paula Berman, founding member of Democracy Earth Foundation, chairs a panel with instigators of democratic change using QV: Max Kuck, Ben Henderson, and Ruth Catlow and Sarah Friend to discuss the challenges and successes of their initiatives to democratize decision-making.

Speakers

Artist, curator and researcher of emancipatory network cultures, practices and poetics. Artistic director of Furtherfield, a not-for-profit international community hub for arts, technology and social change founded with Marc Garrett in London, in 1996. Co-editor of Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain (2017); curator of the touring exhibition New World Order (2017-18); runs the award winning DAOWO arts and blockchain lab series with Ben Vickers, in collaboration with Goethe Institute; principal investigator for the blockchain research lab at Serpentine Galleries. Director of DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab, a Furtherfield initiative which exists to mobilise research and development by leading artists, using blockchain and web 3.0 technologies for fairer, more dynamic and connected cultural ecologies and economies.

Ben Henderson is the Director of Operations and Cabinet Affairs for Governor Polis. Graduating with his Masters in Public Administration from Arizona State University, Ben has spent his career focusing on improving social outcomes using math and science. He began his career as a Fiscal Analyst for the Arizona Legislature, worked in community and economic development for downtown Phoenix, and subsequently served as the Deputy COO for Governor Doug Ducey where he helped design and implement the Arizona Management System. Most recently Ben served as the Deputy Director for Budget in the Colorado Office of State Planning and Budgeting before taking on his current role. He currently lives in Denver with his dog and girlfriend and enjoys hiking and marching band.

Sarah Friend is an artist and software engineer, specializing in blockchain and the p2p web. She is an alumni of Recurse Centre, New York, and an organiser of Our Networks, a conference on all aspects of the distributed web in Toronto. Previous exhibitions include: Screensavers, Piksel Festival, Bergen; Seasons of Media Art, ZKM Centre for Media Art, Karlsruhe; Remembering Network, Radical Networks, New York; Crypto Grows on Trees, Devcon V, Osaka; Scaffolds I can no longer see, Interaccess, Toronto (2019). She has been the recipient of the 30 Under 30 Developers In Canada award, the GDC Scholarship for Women in Games and the Blockchain Art Commission from Furtherfield and Neon Festival. She has spoken at Transmediale, Berlin; The New School, New York; and Interaccess, Toronto, amongst others. Her work has been featured in The Art Newspaper, Art the Science, Motherboard and Spike Art Magazine.

Max started in the business world and consulted corporates on how to utilize digital trends & technologies. Stumbling upon Blockchain made him think about new concepts and possibilities on how to coordinate as people. As part of deora and LeapDAO he builds and explores decentralized OrgTech solutions for small scale to any scale communities.

Paula Berman heads up the Ambassadors Program for Democracy Earth Foundation (DEF), where she works with leaders in more than 10 countries to create local movements around liquid democracy. Prior to her work with DEF, Paula’s history was one of social hacktivism: acting as Team Captain of Code for Curitiba, a group of hacker activists working to make public management better through technology, and leading the creation of Politikei, a software platform connecting citizens with Brazilian City Councils. In 2017 she was named a Young Leader of Civic Technology by Stanford University and the US National Democratic Institute. Based in Brasil, Paula speaks Portuguese, Spanish, English and Hebrew.