Shared decisions in Omniforum
This page goes deeper into what the What is Omniforum page says briefly about shared decisions: how a consultation differs from a vote, how we want to grant the right to vote without biometrics, which principles always apply and why the results of votes are to bind the foundation only gradually.
No vote or consultation is taking place today. The Omniforum prototype is under construction, and everything we describe below is at the design stage.
This is one of the most difficult parts of the whole undertaking, so we write openly about what is within reach and what we will have to work on for a long time.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 8.
Facts, values, hypotheses#
Not everything is settled by a vote. The manifesto distinguishes:
- facts and feasibility: verifiable evidence decides, not a vote; a single person who demonstrates an error in a calculation or a security gap can stop a mistaken assumption;
- opinions, goals and values: the question of what world we want; here every person is an equal point of reference;
- hypotheses and visions: we treat predictions of effects as hypotheses, and bold ideas get a place with a marked condition, “what would have to become possible for this to work.”
Alongside the overall result we want to show how the issue is assessed by researchers and practitioners in the given field and by the people who will feel its effects, based on information provided voluntarily, separately from the secret ballot.
More: manifesto, section 5.1.
Consultation and voting#
The foundation's statute allows votes and consultations on the direction in which projects develop, and for votes it requires anonymity and confirmation that each voter is a different person. Hence the distinction:
- A consultation is a request for opinions without verifying participants, open to everyone. Because someone may have several accounts, we treat its result as a voice in the conversation, not a measurement. The board announces in advance how it will treat the result.
- A binding vote concerns shared resources. Anyone who wants to take part in it joins the decision-making community voluntarily and free of charge and obtains a voting credential through one of the transparent verification paths.
As long as a trial does not confirm that each voter is a different person, we call it a consultation, not a vote within the meaning of the statute.
More: statute, § 8, Omniforum whitepaper, section 8.1 and Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 2.
How to obtain the right to vote#
We are designing several paths to the right to vote. None of them requires biometrics. Everything needed to vote is to be free; you will keep the certificate of your right to vote in the free part of Suveria, your private space for working with digital intelligence, separate from the ballot.
The first official path is to be the European digital identity wallet, because it makes it possible to confirm the right to vote remotely, from home, without handing protected data over to the foundation. At first, therefore, binding votes will be open to people from European Union countries, as those countries make such wallets available. For people from other countries, conversation and consultations are open from the start, and we will add a path to the vote once we find a way without biometrics and without a central database.
Paths we want to study:
- A state document with a chip or a digital identity wallet, provided that the chosen system makes it possible to confirm the voting credential without handing protected data over to the foundation. An application on your phone would read the chip of a passport or ID card, check the state's signature and create a zero-knowledge proof on the device, that is, a confirmation that “I am on the list of eligible voters” without revealing who you are. If this cannot be ensured, we will not base a binding vote on this path.
- In-person meetings held in many places at the same time, with rules that make it difficult for one person to collect several voting credentials.
Each voting credential is to get a unique credential tag, so that a new document of the same person does not give a second vote. We would calculate the tag from data that does not change, but with an additional secret, because a number such as the Polish PESEL on its own could be guessed by checking all the possibilities. That is why the tag is to depend also on a secret component split among independent parties, or on the signature of the chip itself; we will decide this before choosing a technology.
Combining paths leaves the risk that the same person obtains additional voting credentials. At the beginning we accept this risk consciously, so that as many people from all over the world as possible can join; the goal remains a system in which one person has one vote. A refusal of admission comes with a justification and a route of appeal.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, section 8.3 and manifesto, section 5.2.
Principles that always apply#
These are project principles that we will write into the voting regulations.
- A conversation prepares a decision, but does not replace it: publishing a thought, supporting an idea and voting on spending are separate steps.
- The question put to a vote is proposed by the proposer, and its wording is open to comments for an announced period.
- Before a vote we announce the question, the list of eligible voters, the deadline, the rules for changing a vote, the method of counting the result and the validity threshold, as well as what happens in the case of a tie or a failure and how one can appeal.
- The absence of a vote is not consent.
- No one gets more votes for a payment, wealth or a position they hold.
- A spending proposal requires the “green path” from the manifesto, that is, a chain of connections that shows the plan's grounding in facts and the community's agreement to the choices behind it. We set the threshold of agreement in advance according to the importance of the matter, the scale of the spending and whether the effects can be reversed.
- Before casting a vote, everyone sees a short, accessible summary of positions, objections and sources, published in advance. The parties to a dispute can report that their position was left out, and we then show their own account next to it.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 8, section 8.3 and manifesto, section 5.3.
Difficult matters: three steps#
- An open issue map in Omniforum, in which anyone can take part.
- A randomly selected advisory assembly: a group of people drawn from the register of eligible voters in a draw whose result anyone can check for themselves on the basis of publicly announced data. It receives time, materials and the opportunity to talk with the authors of proposals; it advises, it does not decide.
- A vote of all eligible voters.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, section 8.4.
Gradually and carefully#
Voting will gain binding force gradually: first trials without financial consequences, then real decisions about a small, separate pool and about actions that can be reversed, and we extend the scope only after checking the results and safeguards. Before the first trial with real money we announce the maximum amount, the result that would stop it and a route of appeal to people independent of the board. After each trial we publish a summary.
Until then the foundation operates in the agile phase: the board makes ongoing decisions, chooses to ask the community for its opinion on important matters and publishes a justification for every important decision. The results of votes and consultations are formally advisory. For a result to formally bind the foundation, a change to the statute is needed, described in the statute change register as Z4.
Fully launching the further pillars (open designs for durable objects and contact with nature) requires three conditions together: voting that ensures one effective vote for the same person, funds for six months of maintaining Suveria and Omniforum, and a decision by the community. We will consider the first condition fulfilled only when the paths that allow additional votes are replaced by a uniform system and trials confirm this.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, section 8.5, Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 2 and manifesto, section 6.3.
What this will not ensure#
- A zero-knowledge proof confirms membership among the eligible voters, and in protocols such as Semaphore it also detects a second use of the same voting credential. It will not, however, check whether one person has received two different voting credentials. No single technical solution will replace checking the whole process.
- We want everyone to be able to change their vote until the end of the vote. This is meant to make vote buying harder, because whoever paid could not check whether the voter had changed their mind; it requires, however, an appropriately built whole protocol, not just a button. We are considering a known voting scheme (MACI), in which changing a vote is possible and the vote buyer does not know which vote is the final one. It has a weakness: the coordinator can see the votes, so we would split the key among independent parties, so that the foundation alone could not read an individual vote.
- None of this will protect against someone who controls the device, the voting credential or the voter themselves until the vote closes.
- This too is a project principle that we will write into the voting regulations: no one loses the right to vote because of their views or for criticizing the foundation and the board. Anyone who cannot use any path still takes full part in the conversation and in consultations, and we keep looking for further paths.
How to fully reconcile one vote per person without a central identity database, secrecy and access for the whole world, we do not yet know. “This may take a long time, and we say so plainly.”
More: Omniforum whitepaper, section 8.2, section 8.6, section 8.7 and manifesto, section 5.2.
Read it and tell us what you think#
You will find the full description in the Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 8, and in the manifesto, chapter 5. If something puzzles you or seems wrong, highlight that passage in the document and use the “I have a comment” button, or write to salve@novusignis.org.