March 16, 2019
Introducing Liquify + in.dividual Identity
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Liquid Center is a resource for voters and congressional representatives to learn about, and implement liquid democracy - a new way for citizens to take control of the legislative process.

If you’re not familiar with liquid democracy, you might enjoy reading our 60-second overview, or a longer explanation of why fixing the legislative process is so important.

Liquid democracy can be implemented immediately, without any existing laws being changed, but it does require that we use technology to solve two main challenges:

1. Citizens and representatives need a way to communicate, and a place to securely record votes across various issues.
2. Citizens need a way to identify themselves online, such that one person cannot create multiple accounts.

Introducing Liquify

Liquid Center’s flagship application is Liquify, available for demonstration at https://liquify.us. It is the primary tool that Liquid Center affiliated representatives will use to communicate with voters.

Voters can signal whether or not they want individual bills to be made into law by selecting YES/NO in Legislation in Progress.

Additionally, Liquify provides a way for citizens to stack-rank the most important problems they face, along with corresponding solutions/initiatives in the Liquid Agenda.

This allows Liquid Center’s representatives to introduce corresponding bills, so that congress’ priorities unequivocally match those of the American people.

in.dividual Identities

Liquid Center is also developing a separate identity solution, which will live at https://in.dividual.me, and ensure that all Liquify users are unique human beings.

Here’s the proposed signup flow:

- Users upload a picture of their face, but can otherwise remain anonymous, with no requirement to submit personally identifiable information (not even a name)!
- Users schedule and engage in a ~3min video chat with a Liquid Center team member or volunteer.
- Users whose faces appear to match their picture are approved, and asked to enter an email address to serve as a username, and to choose a “home” district.
- Users can login to Liquify without a password, by clicking on an emailed invitation, which starts an authenticated session.
- Compromised accounts or lost access to email requires the registration process to be started over again.
- Frequent changes to one’s “home” district may require additional information to be submitted to Liquid Center.

Transparency and Decentralization

Maintaining the database that will store users’ votes is a large liability. Modern encryption techniques provide enough security (in terms of obfuscating how any one individual voted), but maintaining the set of keys which decrypts that data is another liability.

Recognizing that there is nothing we can say to assure skeptics that Liquid Center is not tampering with votes, or advancing a secret agenda (we’re not, and we don't), all that is left, is to operate our organization in the most transparent manner possible.

In the future, you can expect a lot more articles outlining specifics on this topic, including discussions about replacing in.dividual with a self-sovereign identity solution on a decentralized network, like Ethereum. At present, we believe the public is not ready to manage their own private keys, but that this shouldn’t stop the advancement of liquid democracy.

Written By:
Justin Tuttle
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