National Civic Survey · 2026

What if your vote
was their vote?

The Liquid Democracy Project is a nationwide research study examining what would change if elected representatives were required to carry the verified majority of their constituents on every vote — and publish their alignment score publicly afterward.

Why this matters — national data
67%
Dissatisfied with how Congress represents them
71%
Say donors have more influence than constituents
68%
More likely to support a rep with a mandate commitment
20 Qs
~12 minutes · anonymous · open data
The problem

Representation has drifted

Across every level of government, Americans report a widening gap between what they want and how their representatives vote. The Liquid Democracy Project is measuring that gap — and testing a model to close it.

Accountability gap
58%
of respondents say their representative rarely or never publicly explains their votes after the fact.
Access gap
73%
report no accessible platform exists for ongoing constituent input between elections.
Trust gap
64%
don’t trust that their input — when given — is ever read, counted, or considered.

“What would American governance look like if every representative was required to carry the verified majority of their constituents on every vote — and publish their alignment score publicly afterward?”

— The research question driving this study
How it works

The liquid democracy model

Step 01
Constituent pre-vote
Before each official vote, constituents cast verified pre-votes on every upcoming motion via a free, address-verified platform.
Step 02
Majority determined
The platform tallies responses and publishes the verified constituent majority position publicly before the official vote.
Step 03
Rep carries the mandate
The representative casts their official vote carrying the constituent majority. Exceptions require a published written explanation.
Step 04
Score published
A real-time alignment score shows exactly how often they followed through — visible to every constituent, permanently on record.
The survey

21 questions. ~12 minutes.

The survey is live, interactive, and anonymous. You vote on real upcoming policy motions and see the national tally in real time. Your responses are added to the open dataset immediately.

Section 2
Live Votes
Vote YES, NO, or Abstain on three real upcoming policy motions. See the national tally after each vote — and how the liquid democracy model would carry your position.
Section 4
Accountability
Six rigorous questions about the model itself — the trade-offs, failure modes, trust requirements, and what you’d do if your representative ignored the mandate.
Section 5
Open Data
All responses are anonymized and published. Demographic data disaggregates findings by age, race, income, education, and political views — for free, for anyone.

Add your voice to the
national dataset

Anonymous. Open to all US residents. Takes about 12 minutes. Your responses are published as open data at ldproject.org/data the moment you finish.