On Rational Delegations in Liquid Democracy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a game-theoretic model of liquid democracy to analyze when voters find delegation rational, examining equilibrium existence and group accuracy, supported by simulations on social networks.

Contribution

It presents the first formal game-theoretic framework for rational delegation in liquid democracy, analyzing equilibrium conditions and their impact on group accuracy.

Findings

Pure-strategy Nash equilibria exist under certain conditions.

Delegation strategies influence group accuracy significantly.

Simulations show network structure affects delegation outcomes.

Abstract

Liquid democracy is a proxy voting method where proxies are delegable. We propose and study a game-theoretic model of liquid democracy to address the following question: when is it rational for a voter to delegate her vote? We study the existence of pure-strategy Nash equilibria in this model, and how group accuracy is affected by them. We complement these theoretical results by means of agent-based simulations to study the effects of delegations on group's accuracy on variously structured social networks.