The Flux Party proposes the blockchain technology to replace the old political model of representative democracy. They are going to take part in the autumn elections with six “robot” senator candidates. 

Claiming that democracy in its current form is full of drawbacks and does not, in fact, represent direct opinion of the voters, two Australian bitcoin enthusiasts Nathan Spataro and Max Kaye have been looking for an alternative solution. By co-founding The Flux Party they aim to use bitcoin’s blockchain to deliver the party members’ votes directly to the parliament, without any party intermediaries. The Flux plans to have six senators elected who would not act at their discretion, but will simply communicate decisions of the party’s majority on proposed legislation. Votes on every bill are to be casted online via blockchain.

“If they didn’t have to be senators, if they could just be software or robots they would be, because their only purpose is to do what the people want them to do,” Max Kaye told Reuters.

The process is supposed to be organised as follows: bitcoin-like tokens are allotted to all party members with the right to use them, trade or grant to those interest groups that are trustworthy enough to vote as proxies. Flux senators act according to the distribution of votes: if, say, 80% of the party vote for a bill, five senators say “yes” and one “no”, representing 20% of those who are against.

Kaye claims that with the possibility to grant voting tokens to non-party members, the decisive power for some crucial specific issues can be conferred to real professionals – scientists or economists that should certainly improve the quality of the legislation.

However, critics already point at “human factor”: since there is no legally binding mechanism to make a senator vote as indicated by party members, a politician could easily neglect the system and vote at his will. Others call this attempt to transform the political system simply “naïve” and too “tech-driven” to function well.

The Flux Party was registered with the Australian Election Commission in January 2016 and its current membership reaches 1,009 people.

Anna Lavinskaya