Chapter 25: Proxies

Proxy tax choice refers to the idea that one can allocate part of one's tax to a proxy. It is similar to representational democracy.

When people can allocate their taxes directly, three realities immediately appear:

  • Most people don’t want to evaluate hundreds of initiatives.
  • Some people are much more informed about specific domains.
  • People naturally trust certain individuals or groups to make good decisions.

Indirect tax choice is simply a formalisation of something humans already do: “I trust this person/group’s judgment. Allocate my tax the way they allocate theirs.” It’s voluntary, revocable, and granular, unlike traditional representative democracy.

Proxy tax choice is essential for a scalable, democratic, fraud resistant tax choice system. It solves cognitive overload, initiative spam, lack of expertise, small group capture, and voter fatigue.

It preserves autonomy, transparency, accountability, and competition among proxies.

It allows tax choice to work at national scale.

Priority order

Every citizen records:

  • Their own scores on services. It is expected that most services are not scored, which means their score is zero (neutral).
  • An ordered list of proxies. These are references to registered political actors in the system which have made certain undertakings.

This gives rise to the effective score of a citizen on a given service. This equals the first nonzero score, starting with their own scores and then testing each proxy in turn.

Model


type Score = subtype Integer where this ∈ {-2,-1,0,1,2 };

type NonZeroScore = subtype Score where this ≠ 0;

entity Citizen 
{
    Integer id;
    Score score*;          // sparse: only nonzero scores recorded
    Proxy proxies* order;  // ordered list
}

entity Score 
{
    PublicService service;
    NonZeroScore value;
}

entity Proxy 
{
    Integer id;
    NonZeroScore score*;          // proxies also have sparse scores
}

relation EffectiveScore 
{
    Citizen c;
    PublicService s;
    NonZeroScore value;
} where
    // Case 1: citizen has a nonzero score
    (exists Score sc where c.score(sc) and sc.service = s and sc.value ≠ 0
        and value = sc.value)

    or

    // Case 2: otherwise, find first proxy with nonzero score
    (not exists Score sc where c.score(sc) and sc.service = s and sc.value ≠ 0
        and
        exists Proxy p where c.proxies(p)
            and exists Score sp where p.score(sp) and sp.service = s and sp.value ≠ 0
            and p is the first such proxy in c.proxies
            and value = sp.value);

No indirect proxies

Allowing proxies to delegate to other proxies (indirect proxies) would destroy the very property that makes VoTa workable at scale: sparsity. Sparsity is not just a technical convenience. It is a constitutional safeguard, a behavioural constraint, and a structural precondition for the water‑filling allocation algorithm.

Each citizen must directly choose the individuals they trust. Proxies cannot themselves have proxies. This preserves sparsity, preserves accountability, and prevents the emergence of political parties through proxy‑of‑proxy chains.

Indirect proxies destroy sparsity because dense scoring emerges immediately. If proxies could delegate, then for example proxy A delegates to proxy B, proxy B delegates to proxy C, and proxy C delegates to proxy D. Every proxy inherits the scores of every proxy below them. This creates dense score vectors, uniform scoring across proxies, collapse of specialisation, collapse of the priority list into a single dominant proxy. The water‑filling algorithm depends on heterogeneous, sparse scoring. Indirect proxies homogenise everything.

Delegation chains create political parties. A chain of proxies is indistinguishable from a party hierarchy, a faction, or a bloc of coordinated actors. This is exactly the structure VoTa is designed to eliminate.

It would mean responsibility becomes diluted. If proxy A delegates to proxy B, who delegates to proxy C, then:

  • Who is responsible for a misleading justification?
  • Who must maintain the portal?
  • Who must pass competence tests?
  • Who is accountable for dishonesty?

Responsibility becomes untraceable. Accountability becomes impossible.

Direct, personal selection is essential. The citizen–proxy relationship is personal. A citizen is not delegating to an organisation or a chain. They are delegating to a mind they trust, a person whose analysis they value, an individual who has passed competence tests, and someone who signs their name to every justification. This relationship cannot be mediated through a chain.

The constitution requires non‑discretionary, auditable behaviour. If proxies could delegate then the effective score becomes opaque, the justification chain becomes unclear, and the system becomes non‑auditable. Direct selection keeps the mechanism transparent.

An upper bound on the number of proxies

An upper bound on the number of proxies that a citizen can use is necessary because of cognitive load. Citizens should not be expected to manage long lists. A small number (e.g., 3–5) is cognitively manageable, easy to audit, and easy to maintain.

It prevents proxy inflation. Without a bound, citizens might add dozens of proxies, treat proxies like a “portfolio”, and dilute the meaning of trust. A small upper bound forces citizens to think carefully about who they trust.

It prevents proxy cartels. If citizens could list 20 proxies, then a cartel of proxies could coordinate, citizens would unknowingly delegate to a bloc, and sparsity would erode. A small bound prevents this.

Legal requirements on a proxy

A proxy is a single citizen of the state who must sign a contract when they register as a proxy. This requires them to:

  • Pledge allegiance to the state. That they will prioritise conformance to the constitution, rule of law, and act in the interests of the citizens of the state.
  • Be truthful and honest in all matters related to their role as a proxy.
  • Not withhold important information about any service for which they give a nonzero score.
  • Maintain an up to date portal which gives a thorough and detailed analysis of every service for which they provide a nonzero score. This must include analysis of budgetary information, performance of the service, conflicting or competing services, environmental impact etc. It must provide a justification for the score which is given, and a signed declaration, that it is their honest opinion, and they have done due diligence, to knowledgeable and accurate.
  • For any service for which they give a positive score, define the set of citizens they claim to be better off because of the service.
  • For any service for which they give a negative score, define the set of citizens they claim to be worse off because of the service.
  • Perform the required competence tests which verify knowledge and understanding for each service for which they give a nonzero score.
  • Perform the required competence tests which verify knowledge and understanding of the constitution and rule of law.

A proxy is a political actor with no discretionary authority and no access to tax funding. Their only power is the influence citizens voluntarily grant them through the priority list. Because of this, the system must ensure that they are trustworthy, they are transparent, they provide justification for every nonzero score, and they maintain a public portal that allows citizens to audit their reasoning. These are not behavioural hopes; they are preconditions for being a proxy.

Proxies must be individual human beings. This is necessary for proxies to remain accountable, and transparent. Groups dilute responsibility and enable irresponsibility through anonymity.

Responsibility is only meaningful at the level of a person. A proxy’s influence comes from their competence, their analysis, their honesty, their signed undertakings, and their personal reputation. All of these are properties of a person, not a collective. A group cannot take a competence test, sign a declaration of honesty, be held personally accountable for withholding information, be meaningfully punished for dishonesty, experience consequences in a way that changes their future behaviour. Groups diffuse responsibility. Individuals bear it.

The locus of responsibility and suffering is the individual.

Groups create anonymity and moral hazard. If proxies could be organisations, no one person is accountable for a false justification, a misleading analysis, failing competence tests, or violating the constitution. This creates a moral hazard. Groups can act irresponsibly because the consequences fall on no one in particular.

Groups can become political parties. Allowing group proxies would recreate the very thing VoTa is designed to avoid: factions, party discipline, ideological blocs, opaque internal decision-making, and capture by donors or internal elites.

A group proxy is indistinguishable from a political party. A political party is indistinguishable from a proto‑government. VoTa is designed to eliminate both.

Individuals can be audited; groups cannot. The proxy contract requires personal competence tests, signed declarations, analysis, and responsibility for truthfulness. These requirements cannot be satisfied by a collective entity without collapsing into fiction.

Sparsity is not an incidental convenience in VoTa. It is a structural requirement, and the rule that proxies must be individuals is one of the strongest levers to guarantee sparsity at scale. The water‑filling algorithm, the priority‑list mechanism, and the entire architecture of proxy influence all depend on the fact that most scores are zero. If scores were dense, the system would collapse computationally, politically, and conceptually.

Sparsity is essential for the water‑filling algorithm. The water‑filling algorithm allocates tax revenue by sorting services by total score, filling their budget requirements in descending order, and allowing “neutral” tax (from citizens who scored zero) to flow into underfunded services. This only works if most citizens score very few services, most proxies score very few services, and the total score vector is sparse.

If scores were dense every service would have a nonzero score from every proxy, every citizen would inherit a nonzero score from their proxy chain, and the total score vector would become nearly uniform. The greedy ordering would lose discriminatory power, the algorithm would allocate almost everything proportionally, and the system would behave like a soft version of representative democracy. Sparsity is what makes the water‑filling algorithm meaningful.

Sparsity is essential for priority‑ordered proxies. The priority list works because citizens rarely score services, proxies rarely score services, the first nonzero score in the chain is usually from a proxy who has genuine expertise. If proxies scored everything the first proxy in the list would dominate all services, and the priority list would collapse into a single “representative”. Citizens would effectively be voting for a party, the system would drift toward representative democracy. Sparsity is what keeps the priority chain granular, meaningful, and competitive.

Forcing proxies to be individuals protects sparsity. A group proxy (e.g., a political party) would have many members, distribute the workload, and easily produce dense scoring. They could score every service, maintain a full portal, pass all competence tests collectively, and justify everything with pooled labour. This would destroy sparsity instantly. An individual proxy, by contrast, must personally pass competence tests, must personally write analyses, must personally sign justifications, must personally maintain a portal, and must personally accept accountability. This creates a natural, constitutional friction: scoring, analysis, and competence are expensive. Responsibility is personal. The result is exactly what VoTa needs: proxies score only the services they truly understand, citizens score only the services they care about, and the score matrix remains sparse. This is not an accident. It is a structural feature.

Group proxies are dangerous for sparsity and governance. Allowing group proxies would recreate political parties, enable dense scoring, dilute responsibility, encourage ideological scoring, allow coordinated influence, undermine the water‑filling algorithm, and collapse the priority chain into a single dominant proxy. Groups can always out‑compete individuals in labour‑intensive tasks. VoTa depends on the opposite: making influence proportional to personal effort and competence.

Sparsity is not just a computational property. It is a constitutional safeguard. It prevents capture, ideological blocs, political parties, and dominance by a few actors. It ensures proxies specialise, citizens retain autonomy, the water‑filling algorithm remains meaningful, and the priority chain remains functional. The rule “proxies must be individuals” is one of the most powerful ways to enforce sparsity without ever mentioning sparsity in the constitution. 


entity Proxy 
{
    Integer id;
    String name;
    ProxyContract contract;
    ScoreRecord score*;
    Portal portal;

    key {id};

    constraints 
    {
        contract.is_signed = true;
        portal.is_up_to_date = true;
        forall r in score: r.has_justification = true;
    }
}

value ProxyContract 
{
    Boolean allegiance;
    Boolean honesty;
    Boolean disclosure;
    Boolean analysis;
    Boolean is_signed;
}

Cognitive overload

Proxy voting solves the biggest problem: cognitive overload.

Direct tax choice is empowering, but it can also be overwhelming if there are many initiatives, some are technical, some require domain expertise, and some require ongoing monitoring.

Indirect tax choice lets people offload that burden. Instead of reading every proposal, a person can choose:

  • a trusted expert
  • a community leader
  • a charity
  • a scientific foundation
  • a sports analyst
  • a friend
  • a political group

and let them allocate on their behalf.

This is exactly how people already behave in investment funds, shareholder voting, union representation, DAOs and open source governance. Delegation is a natural human strategy.

Proxies reduces the risk of corruption or capture

This is the part that surprises people. Indirect tax choice actually raises the barrier for any group trying to misuse funds. Why? Because a proxy must earn trust, maintain a public reputation, attract followers, make transparent allocations, and avoid suspicious behaviour.

A criminal organisation cannot easily become a trusted proxy, attract thousands of followers, hide its allocations, and avoid scrutiny.

So indirect tax choice strengthens the system’s integrity.

Delegation can be granular and flexible

People could delegate at different levels:

  • Full delegation:
    “Allocate all my tax the way you do.”
  • Category delegation:
    “Allocate my sports tax the way you do.”
    “Allocate my science tax the way you do.”
    “Allocate my arts tax the way you do.”
  • Initiative level delegation:
    “Vote for this specific initiative on my behalf.”
  • Weighted delegation:
    “50% follow you, 50% I allocate myself.”

This flexibility is what makes the system scalable.

How this differs from representative democracy

Representative democracy delegates all power for years to one person with no granular control and no revocability until the next election.

Indirect tax choice delegates only what you want for as long as you want to anyone you choose with instant revocability and full transparency.

It’s representation without the downsides of representation.

An upper bound on how much of one’s tax can be delegated to a proxy

An upper bound on how much of one’s tax can be delegated to a proxy is an interesting design question.

A proxy is like a politician. A proxy studies initiatives, takes competence quizzes, maintains a public scoring profile, attracts followers, builds reputation, and acts as a “public intellectual” or “micro representative”. They are politicians in the sense that they aggregate preferences and provide expertise, but they are not politicians in the traditional sense because they have no coercive power, they cannot pass laws, they cannot impose taxes, they cannot be paid with tax, they cannot regulate, and they cannot force anyone to follow them. They are purely advisory, and citizens can revoke delegation instantly. Still, delegation must be designed carefully to avoid proxy capture.

A cap on proxy delegated tax might make sense because it could:

  • Prevent proxy monopolies: If 80% of citizens delegate 100% of their tax to one charismatic proxy, that proxy becomes a de facto “super representative”. A cap prevents this concentration.
  • Preserve individual agency: Even if someone delegates 90%, they still have 10% to express personal priorities.
  • Reduce systemic risk: If a proxy is compromised, corrupted, or hacked, the damage is limited.
  • Encourage pluralism.

People might choose multiple proxies for different domains if they cannot give all their tax to one.

However, a cap might not be necessary. There are strong arguments against imposing a constitutional cap:

  • Delegation is voluntary and revocable: If a proxy behaves badly, followers can instantly withdraw. This is unlike representative democracy, where you’re stuck for years.
  • Proxies have no coercive power: They cannot force spending; they only influence scoring.
  • The water filling algorithm dilutes individual influence Even a large proxy cannot force an unpopular initiative to be funded if the population scores it negatively.
  • Transparency is a natural check: All proxy allocations are public. All initiative scores are public. All funding flows are public. Bad behaviour is visible.
  • People naturally diversify: Most people will choose different proxies for:
    • science
    • sports
    • arts
    • local services
    • environmental issues

This naturally prevents concentration.

The middle path is a tunable constitutional parameter. Instead of hard coding a limit, the constitution could include a parameter defining the maximum fraction of tax that may be delegated to a single proxy, adjustable by supermajority vote or initiative. This gives the system flexibility, adaptability, democratic control, and protection against unforeseen dynamics.

A more elegant alternative is domain based caps. Instead of capping total delegation, the delegation per domain could be capped. Example:

  • You can delegate up to 80% of your science tax to a science proxy
  • Up to 80% of your sports tax to a sports proxy
  • Up to 80% of your arts tax to an arts proxy

This prevents a single proxy from dominating everything, while still allowing deep trust in domain experts. This mirrors how people trust doctors for medical decisions, engineers for infrastructure, economists for budgets, and coaches for sports. It’s intuitive and natural.

This is a system where:

  • proxies are optional
  • delegation is revocable
  • transparency is total
  • scoring is sparse
  • water filling stabilizes funding
  • competence checks prevent noise

In such a system, proxy caps are not strictly necessary, but they can be a valuable safety valve.

A bridge between direct democracy and representative democracy

Proxy support is a bridge between direct democracy and representative democracy. In VoTa, it does something neither system has ever managed to do well: it lets people choose representation without forcing it on anyone. It is a powerful answer to the classic critique that “direct democracy can’t work.”

Proxies solve the biggest practical objection to direct democracy The standard argument against direct democracy is that people don’t have time or the expertise, they won’t read the proposals, they will vote emotionally, and they will be overwhelmed. VoTa’s proxy system answers all of these in one stroke: If you don’t want to participate directly, you can delegate instantly, reversibly, and granularly. This removes the burden without removing the power.

Proxies are optional, unlike representatives In representative democracy you must choose someone and you’re stuck with them for years. They can vote against your interests, they can be captured by lobbyists and they can accumulate power. In VoTa you can choose one proxy, or several or none. You can revoke delegation instantly or or override them on specific issues. It’s representation without the coercion.

Proxies are domain specific, not universal rulers. This is where VoTa is fundamentally different from traditional politics. A proxy might specialize in health, infrastructure, sports, science, local services, or environmental issues. You can delegate 100% of your science tax to a science proxy, or 40% of your sports tax to a sports proxy, or 0% of your arts tax if you want to score those yourself. This is far more nuanced than electing one person to speak for you on everything.

Proxies are transparent and accountable in real time. In representative democracy you don’t know how your representative votes until after the fact. You can’t revoke your vote, you can’t see their reasoning and you can’t see their conflicts of interest. In VoTa every proxy’s scoring profile is public and every allocation they influence is visible. Every initiative they support is logged and every conflict of interest is detectable. A follower can revoke instantly. This is representation with full auditability.

Proxies defuse the “mob rule” fear. Critics of direct democracy often worry about uninformed voters, emotional voting, populist waves, manipulation, and low information decisions. But in VoTa non-zero scores require competence checks. The proxies can absorb complexity and voters can rely on experts. The domain specialization prevents emotional spillover and the water filling algorithm smooths noise. It’s direct democracy with expert scaffolding.

Proxies make the system accessible to everyone. Different people want different levels of involvement. Some want to score everything themselves, some want to score only a few domains, some want to delegate everything, and some want to mix and match. VoTa supports all of these. This flexibility is what makes the system scalable.

The proxies don’t replace direct democracy. They complete it. They give the busy citizen a way to participate, and the expert a way to contribute. The system stays sparse and stable. The public can avoid overload. VoTa becomes a hybrid system. It simultaneously provides both direct and representational democracy and each person can choose what's best for them. It’s the first system where representation is a choice, not a constraint.

VoTa doesn’t force a choice between direct and representative democracy. It doesn’t even require society to agree on which model is “better.” Instead VoTa lets every individual choose the democratic mode that fits their life, their values, and their cognitive bandwidth, and the system still works. That’s an extraordinary property.

Direct vs. representative democracy is usually a zero sum fight. In traditional systems:

  • If you choose direct democracy, everyone must participate directly.
  • If you choose representative democracy, everyone must accept representatives.
  • If you choose hybrid systems, they still force uniformity (e.g., referendums for all, elections for all).

These models assume society must pick one structure. VoTa breaks that assumption.

VoTa is pluralistic by design. Every citizen can choose:

  • full direct democracy (score everything themselves)
  • partial direct democracy (score only what they care about)
  • full representational democracy (delegate everything to proxies)
  • domain specific representation (different proxies for different tags)
  • dynamic representation (switch proxies anytime)
  • zero representation (stay neutral with 0 scores)

This is not just flexibility. It’s democratic self determination at the individual level.

The system doesn’t break when people choose differently. This is the real magic. Even if 20% participate directly, 50% delegate to proxies, 25% mix direct and delegated scoring, and 5% remain neutral, the water filling algorithm still remains sparse, remains stable, respects domain boundaries, funds popular services, suppresses unpopular ones, and avoids noise and manipulation. VoTa is robust to heterogeneity.

This eliminates the classic criticisms of direct democracy. Critics usually say people won’t be informed, don’t have time, will vote emotionally, and direct democracy doesn’t scale. VoTa answers all of these. If you don’t have time then delegate, if you don’t feel informed then delegate. If you want to be hands-on then score directly and if you want to mix then mix. No one is forced into a model that doesn’t fit them.

It eliminates the classic criticisms of representative democracy. People complain that representatives don’t listen, break promises, get captured by lobbyists, are unaccountable between elections, are geographically constrained, and are forced into party structures. VoTa fixes all of this. Proxies are revocable instantly, must publish all scoring, cannot hide their behaviour, cannot be captured without losing trust, are not tied to geography, can be individuals or groups, and they compete in a free marketplace of ideas. Representation becomes voluntary, transparent, and competitive.

The system remains coherent even without conformance. This is the part that’s genuinely revolutionary. Most political systems require uniform participation, uniform representation, uniform voting rules, uniform districts, and uniform ballots. VoTa requires none of that. It’s a non uniform democracy that still produces stable funding, meaningful prioritization, resistance to manipulation, high sparsity, and a strong signal to noise ratio. The system is self stabilizing.

VoTa doesn’t choose between direct and representative democracy. It dissolves the distinction. It lets the engaged be engaged, the busy delegate, the experts advise, the localists focus locally, the generalists think broadly, and the apathetic remain neutral. And the system still works because proxies are transparent, scoring is sparse, tags structure the space, competence checks filter noise, the water filling algorithm smooths everything. VoTa respects individual choice without sacrificing collective coherence.

Sparse scores

The entire stability of the water filling algorithm depends on having a large “neutral mass” of 0 scores. If too many people give non zero scores too easily, the score matrix becomes dense, noise overwhelms signal, and the algorithm loses its elegant behaviour. The good news is that VoTa already has several structural features that naturally keep 0 scores abundant, and you can reinforce them with a few constitutional design choices.

The competence check requirement is already a powerful sparsity filter The rule that a citizen must read the initiative, and pass a short quiz before assigning a non zero score is one of the strongest mechanisms for preserving sparsity. It ensures that non zero scores are meaningful, casual or emotional scoring is discouraged, bots and mass manipulation are blocked, uninformed scoring is filtered out, and 0 remains the default for most initiatives. This alone guarantees a huge number of 0 scores.

Proxies naturally preserve sparsity. This is a subtle but important point. When people delegate to proxies they stop scoring most initiatives themselves, they inherit the proxy’s sparse scoring profile, proxies tend to specialize in a few domains, proxies don’t want to score everything, and proxies must pass competence checks too. So delegation reduces, not increases, the number of non zero scores. Proxies act like “score compressors”.

Tags (unary predicates) keep the scoring space structured. Because services are tagged, voters only see relevant initiatives, proxies only score within their domain, competence quizzes are domain specific, and domain based delegation caps can apply. This prevents people from scattering non zero scores across unrelated domains. Tags create semantic sparsity.

Constitutional review prevents tag abuse. If someone tries to mis tag an initiative to attract more scoring, the review process catches it, the initiative is rejected or corrected, voters see the correct domain, and proxies don’t get tricked. This prevents “score inflation” through misclassification.

A constitutional requirement can be added for minimum sparsity. A clause can be included like: “A citizen may assign non zero scores to no more than X% of initiatives in any given period.” This is a soft cap that ensures people stay selective, he score matrix stays sparse, the water filling algorithm remains stable. X can be tuned: maybe 5%, maybe 10%. This is similar to how some voting systems limit the number of preferences.

Alternatively, domain-based caps can be used. Instead of a global limit, the constitution can say: “A citizen may assign non zero scores to no more than Y initiatives per tag domain per period.” This is elegant because it respects domain structure, it prevents over scoring in one area, it keeps proxies from overreaching, and it preserves sparsity in each domain.

The constitution can also use a “score budget” per citizen. This forces people to prioritize. It’s simple, intuitive, and mathematically clean.

A single mechanism isn't required. There is already a stack of sparsity preserving features:

  • competence checks
  • proxies
  • tags
  • constitutional review
  • optional delegation caps
  • optional sparsity caps
  • optional score budgets

Together, they create a system where 0 scores are abundant, non zero scores are meaningful, noise is minimized, manipulation is expensive, and the water filling algorithm behaves beautifully.

A proxy who assigns maximum positive or maximum negative scores to every service is exactly the kind of pathological behaviour the system needs to guard against. VoTa already has several structural features that make this behaviour self defeating.

This behaviour is dangerous. A proxy who gives +2 or −2 to everything destroys sparsity, injects noise into the scoring matrix, misleads followers, undermines domain specialization, risks distorting the water filling algorithm, and behaves like a demagogue rather than an advisor. This is exactly the kind of proxy the system must discourage.

The system already contains natural defenses. Several features you’ve built make this behaviour unattractive or impossible:

  • Competence checks: A proxy must pass a quiz for every non zero score. If they try to score everything they must pass hundreds of quizzes, they must justify every score publicly, and they will quickly fail or burn out. This alone prevents mass scoring.
  • Public scoring: Followers can see every score, every justification and every domain they touch. A proxy who scores everything looks unserious and loses trust.
  • Reputation pressure: Followers will abandon a proxy who is noisy, inconsistent, ideological rather than thoughtful, and not domain focused.

This is a natural market like correction.

Proxy scoring of services is public

Requiring proxies to make their scoring public is an important structural decision in VoTa. It transforms proxies from “politicians with power” into transparent, accountable, revocable advisors. It also directly supports the goal of ensuring enough 0 scores for the water filling algorithm to behave properly.

Public scoring turns proxies into open algorithms, not opaque politicians. In representative democracy, politicians vote behind closed doors, negotiate in private, can be influenced by lobbyists, can drift away from their promises, are hard to monitor, and cannot be revoked until the next election. In VoTa, proxies publish every score they assign, publish their reasoning, publish their domain focus, publish their conflicts of interest, and can be unfollowed instantly. This is representation with full transparency and zero coercive power. It’s a fundamentally different creature.

Public scoring naturally preserves sparsity. Because proxy scoring is public proxies cannot score everything and they must justify every non zero score. They must pass competence checks and maintain a reputation for selectivity. Therefore, they must avoid “score inflation” and specialize in only a few domains. This means proxies tend to produce sparse scoring profiles, which their followers inherit. So public scoring is a built in sparsity mechanism.

Public scoring makes proxies self limiting. A proxy who scores too many initiatives, assigns non zero scores casually, spreads themselves across too many domains, gives contradictory scores, fails competence quizzes, or behaves erratically will lose followers immediately. This creates a market pressure toward domain specialization, thoughtful scoring, minimal non zero scores, consistent reasoning, and high quality analysis. The system rewards precision, not volume.

Public scoring protects against manipulation and capture. Because every score is visible, a proxy cannot secretly boost a corrupt initiative and they cannot hide conflicts of interest. They cannot be quietly captured by a special interest group. Therefore, they cannot mislead followers, or inflate scores without scrutiny. This is the opposite of traditional politics, where influence is often invisible. Public scoring makes manipulation expensive and risky.

Public scoring stabilizes the water filling algorithm. The water filling algorithm relies on sparsity, meaningful non zero scores, domain structure, and predictable scoring patterns. Public scoring ensures proxies don’t flood the matrix, followers inherit sparse patterns, noise is minimized, domain boundaries are respected, and the algorithm fills buckets in a stable order. It’s a structural guarantee of good behaviour.

Public scoring turns proxies into transparent, accountable, self limiting participants whose behaviour naturally preserves the sparsity and stability the system depends on. It solves:

  • the “direct democracy can’t scale” objection
  • the “people won’t be informed” objection
  • the “proxies might become politicians” objection
  • the “score matrix might get too dense” objection
  • the “manipulation might occur” objection

And it does so without coercion, elections, fixed terms, opaque power, or back room deals.

Proxies must maintain a public portal

Requiring proxies to maintain a public, continuously updated portal is an important way to keep them transparent, trustworthy, and resistant to the classic failure modes of representative systems.

A proxy’s portal becomes their “social contract” with followers. A proxy isn’t a ruler. They’re a voluntary advisor. Their legitimacy comes entirely from clarity, consistency, transparency, reasoning, and trust.

A public portal is where they articulate:

  • their political philosophy
  • their domain expertise
  • their scoring principles
  • their ethical commitments
  • their conflict of interest disclosures
  • their long term goals

This is the proxy’s “constitution”, and followers can evaluate it at any time.

Public justification keeps proxies honest. Because proxies must explain their scoring they can’t hide self interested decisions, quietly support corrupt initiatives, score impulsively, contradict themselves without being noticed, or drift ideologically without losing followers. This is the opposite of traditional politics, where representatives often act in ways voters never see. In VoTa, every score is public, and every score must be justified.

Public portals reinforce sparsity and stability. A proxy who scores too many public services risks appearing unfocused or unserious. So the portal requirement naturally pushes proxies toward sparse, thoughtful scoring. This is exactly what the water filling algorithm needs.

Public portals protect against manipulation and capture. Because everything is visible, a proxy cannot be secretly influenced, hide conflicts of interest, quietly shift their scoring, be captured by a special interest group, or mislead followers. Any suspicious behaviour becomes obvious. This is a structural anti-corruption mechanism.

Public portals help citizens choose proxies intelligently. A citizen can browse proxy portals to find someone who matches their values:

  • a science first proxy
  • a local community proxy
  • a sports focused proxy
  • a fiscal conservative proxy
  • a social justice proxy
  • a technocratic proxy

This makes delegation informed, not blind. It also encourages a healthy ecosystem of diverse proxies.

Requiring proxies to maintain a public portal transforms them from opaque representatives into transparent, accountable, self limiting advisors. This requirement:

  • reinforces sparsity
  • stabilizes the water filling algorithm
  • protects against manipulation
  • supports competence checks
  • helps citizens choose wisely
  • encourages domain specialization
  • prevents proxy monopolies
  • makes the system auditable
  • answers the critics of direct democracy

Scoring proxies

If proxies can only gain followers but the public has no structured way to express negative sentiment, then bad faith proxies can linger, proxies can misbehave without immediate reputational cost, the system loses a key feedback channel, and citizens feel powerless to “push back”.

So there should be a way to express negativity toward a proxy, and it can be done by allowing citizens to score a proxy on their political views. A citizen can update their score over time. Importantly, when a citizen scores a proxy in this way, they must tick a box to declare that the score is entirely on how they score the proxy as a political actor, and not on any other basis.

A proxy has both a number of followers and an average score. A negative average score suggests the people on average think the proxy does more harm than good. It is possible a proxy has many followers, perhaps because they are already famous for non-political reasons, but their average score is poor because of their political views.

The portal for a proxy shows their number of followers and average score over time, so people can see trends. For example, it may prompt people to understand why the number of followers suddenly dropped dramatically.

Unfollowing a proxy is immediate, public (in aggregate), reversible, meaningful and low friction. A proxy who loses followers rapidly sends a strong signal to the public.

Scoring proxies give the public a structured, constitutional way to punish bad faith proxies without interfering with the funding algorithm.

They provide:

  • accountability
  • transparency
  • anti corruption pressure
  • reputational feedback
  • protection against capture
  • a way to filter out low quality proxies
  • a way to reassure critics of direct democracy

And they do so without distorting initiative scores, breaking sparsity, harming the water filling algorithm, or creating political factions.

Proxy political parties

A proxy must be an individual human.

Otherwise it is likely proxies would become large, organized groups, and resemble political parties rather than individual representatives. And political parties have the capacity to score everything, pass every competence check, and maintain a full spectrum policy platform.

Locality

VoTa doesn’t have electoral districts, so it avoids gerrymandering entirely, but proxies can still behave like localist political parties, prioritizing their region because that’s where their followers (and therefore their influence) come from.

VoTa has no analogue to gerrymandering. Gerrymandering exists because representation is geographically allocated, districts determine political power, and boundaries can be manipulated. VoTa eliminates all of that because proxies are chosen voluntarily, representation is not geographic, influence is proportional to followers, no one draws boundaries, and no one controls who can follow whom. So the classic “map manipulation” problem simply doesn’t exist. That’s a huge win.

Nevertheless many proxies will naturally develop local priorities. A proxy based in a city, or a rural region will attract followers from that area, understand local needs, score local initiatives more strongly, justify their scoring in local terms, and build a reputation as a “local champion”. This is exactly how political parties behave. They build geographic bases of support. But here’s the key difference: in VoTa, localism is voluntary, transparent, and competitive, not imposed by district boundaries.

Localism emerges naturally because people tend to trust someone who understands their region, shares their lived experience, knows local infrastructure issues, and understands local culture. So proxies with a local focus will attract local followers. This is healthy. It’s a form of organic representation, not engineered representation.

This doesn’t become gerrymandering. A proxy cannot redraw boundaries, exclude voters, dilute other regions, monopolize representation, force anyone to follow them, gain power through geography. Their influence is purely proportional to voluntary support. There is no structural mechanism for geographic manipulation.

The real risk is not gerrymandering. It’s over localization. A proxy might over prioritize local services and under prioritize national or global services. They might score everything local as +2 and everything non local as 0 or negative. This could distort funding if many people follow them.

One safeguard is to utilise tags Local, Regional, National and Global. Proxies must justify their scoring within those domains. A proxy who always maxes out “Local” and ignores “National” will look biased. Followers can see this instantly.

Another safeguard is the proxy’s scoring profile, which is visible to everyone. If a proxy behaves parochially it’s obvious, documented, easy to compare with other proxies, and followers can leave instantly. This is the opposite of opaque political parties.

A possible safeguard is domain certification. A proxy must be certified to score in:

  • National Infrastructure
  • National Health
  • National Science
  • etc.

A purely local proxy may not qualify for national domains.

VoTa avoids gerrymandering entirely, but it still allows local representation. That’s a feature, not a bug. Localism becomes voluntary, transparent, competitive, accountable, and revocable. And with the right guardrails, it never becomes manipulative, monopolistic, geographically coercive, or structurally entrenched. You get the benefits of local representation without the pathologies of district based politics.

Proxies cannot receive tax funding

The Non Discrimination Principle (NDP) is one of the deepest constitutional constraints in Vota. Proxies cannot receive tax funding as though they were a public service, because proxies are inherently discriminatory actors.

The NDP applies to state functions, not to voluntary associations. The NDP says the state cannot discriminate between citizens. Public services must be available to all on equal terms. Public funds cannot be allocated to entities that serve only a subset of the population.

Proxies, by definition serve only their followers, express particular ideologies, prioritize certain regions or values, discriminate in scoring, and are accountable only to those who choose them. They are not universal. Therefore they cannot be funded by tax revenue. This is a clean, principled boundary.

Proxies are private actors, not public services. A proxy is a voluntary advisor, a political interpreter, a scoring agent, a public intellectual and a micro party or political organization. They are not infrastructure, healthcare, education, emergency services, environmental protection, or national defense. They do not provide non excludable, non rivalrous public goods. So they cannot be funded as such.

Funding proxies would violate the NDP in multiple ways. If proxies received tax funding:

  • They would be funded by people who do not follow them: This is coercive and discriminatory.
  • They would gain structural advantage over other proxies: This violates neutrality.
  • They would become quasi state actors: This undermines the voluntary nature of representation.
  • They could become entrenched like political parties: This recreates the failures of representative democracy.
  • They could use public money to influence public scoring: This is a conflict of interest.

So the NDP forbids it.

Proxies must be self funded or voluntarily funded. This is the clean solution. Proxies can be funded by donations, memberships, subscriptions, crowdfunding, volunteer labour, philanthropic support, or think tank like structures. But never by tax revenue. This keeps them independent, competitive, accountable, and non coercive. It prevents the emergence of state funded political parties.

This also protects the water filling algorithm. If proxies were tax funded, they would have incentives to score everything, they would inflate their activity to justify funding, they would distort sparsity, they would create noise, and they would push ideological agendas with public money.

By keeping proxies outside the tax system, we preserve sparsity, stability, neutrality, trust, and clean signal extraction. The algorithm remains pure.

This also prevents “proxy capture” of the state. If proxies could receive tax money, they could become entrenched, form cartels, dominate public discourse, suppress new proxies, and behave like traditional political parties.

The NDP prevents this by keeping proxies voluntary, competitive, transparent, revocable, and non state actors. This is essential for long term health of the state.

This separates the state (which must be neutral) from proxies (which are inherently non neutral). The NDP enforces this separation.

  • Public services get tax funding.
  • Proxies get voluntary support.
  • Citizens choose their own democratic mode.
  • No one is forced to fund someone else’s ideology.
  • The system remains fair, neutral, and non discriminatory.