&gt;There are several problem with direct democracy: (1) Most people are not expert at things like foreign policy, economics and so on. (2) Many people can be heavily influenced to vote either way by creating powerful PR campaigns. (3) Most people have no time or capacity to digest tons of dense information to get the background. (4) Some information needed to make decision must remain classified.<p>In addition to 1-4, I think there is another problem: (5) Individuals with a higher stake in the outcome have no way to express their greater interest (an individual might have a higher stake in gay marriage being legalized, but his vote counts the same as someone mildly opposed).<p>Systems like Quadratic Voting (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&#x2F;sol3&#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=2343956" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&#x2F;sol3&#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=2343956</a>) solve (5) by allowing voters to pay N*N dollars for N votes (25$ for 5 votes, 1,000,000$ for 1000 votes) and redistributing the funds collected per-capita to each voter after the vote is finished.<p>I wonder if you could meld Delegative Democracy with Quadratic Voting?  What if individuals can buy N votes (expressing their interests appropriately) AND delegate their votes to another (allocating their interests to those most capable of making decisions)?<p>Delegative democracy seems to solve 1, 3, and 4.  Quadratic voting seems to solve 5.