Epitome is an online direct democracy platform for societies of
every demand or size. It enables the full and non-exclusive
participation of citizens and members through an appealing and
abundant design.

Epitome is not a closed and final product but a collection of
numerous, out-of-the-box options and systems for societies and
communities to customize to their accord.

All the features in this system and all its subsystems are optional
and configurable and can be activated or deactivated as decided
by the people.

Epitome is and will always be free and open source. Anyone can
review and contribute to the development.

Core Characteristics

Accessibility. Epitome is designed to provide means of participation for people with special needs.

Adaptability. Epitome continuously scales and adapts according to the population size initially
implemented and automatically adjusts through time in line with the changes in the factors of the
society.

Democracy. Epitome can function as a complete direct democracy platform without the need of
representatives or delegates. Additional option for proxy (delegate) voting, polls and top-down
management are provided as well.

Flexibility. Every part and system included in Epitome is configurable not only upon its installation,
but its settings can be put under referendum for the population to decide.

Inclusiveness. Everyone can use it provided that the community rules are followed. In this system
the focus lies more in the quality of the ideas and less in the individuals behind them.

Innovation. Systems and instruments provided in the platform are built to enable the smooth
transition of nations, by including ground-breaking components which promote the democratic
ideology.

Liberation. Epitome is libre software; free as in free speech.

Openness. The open source nature of this platform allows it to be built by everyone, for everyone;
in a sense, a Democracy in practice.

Resilience. Abuse such as propaganda, spam, explicit language, bribing, selling of vote’s etc is
filtered out by peer evaluation.

Security. The verification system provides an innovative and secure way to validate votes which
greatly impedes system penetration through feedback, statistical analysis and surveying.

Versatility. Countries, universities, corporations, unions and in general any form of community
can use Epitome as their decision making tool with a multitude of options.

Voting Characteristics

White Voting 

An additional information, though which people may seek to provoke thinking or protest.

Ranked Voting

The result will be decided through methods such as the First-past-the-post or more complex
methods such as the Condorcet or the Borda .

Proxy Voting

Users will have the option to delegate their voting power to another member whom they trust to
make an informed decision in their place.

Ability to Change Vote Before Deadline

Votes are able to change before the deadline of the proposal, dealing in some degree with the
problem that arises with people that are threatened to vote by their environment and giving them
the option to change their vote later on.

Polls

Users will have the option through a different system, to host unofficial opinion polls

Voting Verification

Voting ticket
Each user has a hash key; a “voting ticket” for each referendum whether he participates or not.

When a user votes, his ticket, along with the time that he cast the vote and his IP address are
recorded in the system.

Upon the ending of the voting, the sum of the users who voted and the users who did not vote,
must be equal to the total number of registered tickets.

Post-Voting
Users will be surveyed after some time to confirm the information from the referendums.
Statistical significant deviations from previous referendum characteristics will alert the system
analysts for integrity inspections.

Infiltration Attempts
An infiltrator trying to vote by using random tickets, will use keys that won't exist in the registered
user database
If he attempts to vote for users who did not vote, the system will register a vote when the actual
user is offline
If he attempts to change already registered votes, a re-check from citizens will alert a mismatch.

Vote Confirmation
Users will be able to check their voting decisions in an access point. That way they won’t be able to
prove their decision and sell their vote.

Proposal Submission Details

Academic Contributions
Joint stands and proposals from university boards, laboratories or research centers will provide
expert opinions on proposals or issues

Super-Majority
Requires a majority larger than 50% for the proposal to be accepted

Level of Participation
Set a minimum level of participation in order for it to get accepted.

Intra-Proposal Amendment System

Proposal Lock
To avoid resubmission of policies, proposals fall under subjects that are selectable through the
submission process. After a policy has been accepted, a lock on the subject is placed.

Values
Whenever a proposal contains numerical values, users will be able to change the values on the
proposal with their own. The final values will be the statistical average of the total values submitted

Amendments
A user can choose to make a new proposal, or amend existing ones, with his amendments also
undergoing an evaluation by the citizens viewing the proposal. After the collaborating period has
reached a deadline, users can decide whether or not the proposal is mature enough to undergo
voting or the deadline needs extension.

Proposal Submission Control

Cycles

Users will not be able to directly submit proposals towards the entire population; that would
create a lot of chaos and spam even in medium sized societies.

The system of Cycles is a process through which a proposal is submitted to a small random
population sample and if it is supported by that portion, it moves to the top and is promoted to
the next Cycle, with a greater portion of population. In the default model, the first Cycle than
someone can submit a proposal is 0.1% of the population.

A citizen is able to submit proposals only to that portion of the population. If it is supported by
the people, it moves to the next Cycle, which includes 1.5% of the population. The next two Cycles
are 5% and a final 15% of the population. If the proposal reaches the top of that it is submitted for
voting by 100% of the population.

Favor

In the Cycle system, a submitted proposal is supported by users granting Favor. A new submission
begins with an initial value of Favor, 100 in the default model, and that value disintegrates by time.

The ratio of disintegration in the default model is proportionate to the size of population and it is
equal to Population x 10^(-8) or the hundreds of millions of population by hour (that is in a population
of 200 million, the rate would be 2 per hour).

Proposals that reach 0 Favor are automatically removed, while the top favored proposals in each
Cycle advance to the next Cycle.

Political Capital

A user will have a time limit after the submission of a proposal before he can submit a new one.
This is called Political Capital, and the user can have a maximum of 1 submission at all times, even
if he has not submitted anything new for multiple turns.

This political capital is estimated by a flat value and a value proportionate to the population size,
with societies of bigger population size having increased time limits. In the default model there is
a flat limit of 3 months plus the population number in milliseconds.

Comparison between China and Greece

With the aforementioned model, in China with a population of 1,355 billion, a citizen could submit
a proposal once every 246 days, in a group of 1,355 million people, and his submission, if not
favored by anyone would last for 7 hours, with a favor disintegration rate of 13,55 favor per hour.

In Greece, with a population of 11 million, a citizen could submit a proposal every 91 days, in a
group of 11 thousand, and his submission, if not favored by anyone would last for 37 days, with
a favor disintegration rate of 0,11 favor per hour.

Epilogue

This is a call for people to unite with us in being a part of the solution. Everyone is welcome,
regardless of skill or background. Come and join a family of people dedicated to a noble purpose.
Grant us the ideas that only you can uniquely generate and aid our endeavor towards
the prevalence of Democracy.

Thank You

http://democracy.foundation/epitome