The idea of a "Transitive Trust" legislation/representation system is simply this: you pick someone you trust (who picks someone s/he trusts {repeat as necessary}) who then wields your vote. Your vote is actually a conglomeration of votes on different subjects, each of which may be represented by a different group or individual. You might recognize the word, "transitive", from your old elementary math book when it talked about the "transitive quality of equality" saying "if a = b and b = c, then a = c". This is like that: if you trust someone with your vote and they trust someone else, it is assumed that you trust the person that they trust.

Please bear in mind that the actual mechanics are in the early stage of design and that some of the process is streamlined for the purpose of simplifying the example.

Let's pick a sample subject, "high speed train route from Raleigh, NC to Seattle, WA" and three categories from the vote-topic list that might be associated with it: "roads, bridges and highways", "ecology", and "business". The Topic List? Review Board would have been responsible for determining which topics were related to the subject "high speed trains" and what the relevant proportion each of the topics represent. Let's assume that they decided like this:

topic	percentage
roads, bridges and highways	50 percent
ecology and the environment	15 percent
business	35 percent

You might consider yourself to be pretty up-to-date on legislation dealing with business, so you opt to represent yourself on issues related to this topic. (In real life, doing this would require your constant participation and, unless you are an activist, you would probably do better to hand this off to someone else. For the moment, though, let us assume that you are handling your own "Business" vote..)

For issues related to "ecology and the environment, let's assume you opted to let Joe keep up with that issue for you, that Joe represents a number of people, and that Joe delegates 45% of his votes to the National Wildlife Conservatory, 35% to Green Peas, and 20% to Sue. Sue is on vacation this week, so she delegates all her votes--hers plus those that have been delegated to her--to the National Wildlife Conservatory. Sue would have informed those people whose proxies she held that she was on vacation, and it would be up to the people whose proxies she carries to inform people down the line (i.e., Joe would decide whether or not to keep you posted on this small shift in policy for your vote under the "ecology and environment" topic). In your case, that would be Joe and, as Sue was delegating her vote to an organization he trusts, he decided not to bother you. To keep things as simple as we can after mucking things up with the environment topic, let us assume that you have assigned the "roads, bridges and highways" to the Grand Old Party.

Here's how your vote relates to this "high speed train" issue:

category	calculation	final percentage
your business vote	100% of 35% (business)	35%
National Wildlife Conservatory	15% (ecology) of (45% + 20%)	9.75%
Green Peas	15% (ecology) of 35%	5.25%
Grand Old Party	100% of 50%	50%
Total		100%

Let's assume that they came up with only a single proposal and all you are doing is saying 'yea' or 'nay'. Let's further assume that all of your topic-delegated votes elected for 'nay'. Perhaps the route suggested had a stop in your city, but it went through a wetlands area that ecology groups wanted to preserve and the GOP had decided against all railroad projects as a matter of policy. Here is how your vote would be tallied:

category	calculation	final vote
your business vote	nay	0.35
National Wildlife Conservatory	aye	0.0975
Green Peas	aye	0.0525
Grand Old Party	aye	0.5
Total	aye	0.3

This means that, after all is said and done, you are casting three tenths of a vote for "aye". The fact that all of the groups you trusted as more expert than you on particular topics are voting against your actual preference for a 'nay' vote has turned your 'nay' into a lukewarm 'aye'.

In practice, there would be safety measures that would come into play. If you had a "vote e-warning" option set, you would get the calculation of every vote e-mailed to you 48 hours before it took effect, so you could yank your vote back from the people you trusted (and the people they trusted) either on a permanent basis or just for this particular issue. Joe might forward information from Green Peas telling you about how this wetlands area was vital to the economy of Swamptown where you own a piece of property used as a time-share for eco-tourists. For a time, votes could be shuffled and negotiated.

There would likely be several proposals for this issue, and you (and the delegates who have your proxy) would designate your/their order of preference. Full disclosure on how your vote was being employed on this single issue might take several pages to describe. This is why you would probably choose to delegate most or all of your vote to professionals or to organizations that you trust: being a legislator can be a full-time job.

The basic process would go roughly as follows (there is also a Detailed Process Walk-Through):

1. You decide how you want to delegate your vote. This is not a permanent assignment and can be altered for a single issue or for all issues
2. An issue is brought into the Topic Review Committee? for apportionment of how authority for the issue should be delegated. Every group that wants to be part of decision-making on this issue will describe how much their its (from the Topic List?) will ask for inclusion, then one or more apportionment proposals will be put onto the issue ballot. Any Topic Review Representative? team can veto its inclusion in all apportionment proposals
3. Excluding the ((Topic Review Representatives) for the topics on the apportionment proposals, the Topic Review Representatives? will rank the proposals to indicate their preferences
4. an Automatic Round-Robin? tally will choose the final apportionment formula. This also determines which topic representatives may be involved in sponsoring solutions to the issue being dealt with. A solution of "do nothing" is to be engrossed onto the ballot for that issue.
5. between noon and 5pm Central Standard Time after a minimum of 192 hours (8 days) on a day not on a weekend and not named as a federal holiday, a quorum consortium? may propose a solution. A quorum consortium? consists of either:
   • a group of voters and voter delegates which, after multiplication by apportionment fractions, comprises more than 10% of the total vote
   • a group of voters and voter delegates for a single topic which represents more than 25%
6. between noon and 5pm Central Standard Time after a solution is proposed and a minimum of 120 hours (5 days) after that on a day not on a weekend and not named as a federal holiday, if the group still maintains enough voters and voter delegates to qualify as a ))quorum consortium)), the solution will be engrossed onto the ballot for the issue. All voters or voters' proxies used to form the quorum consortium? are then barred from participating in other proposed solutions.
7. between noon and 5pm Central Standard Time after a solution has been proposed and no other solution has been proposed within a minimum of 120 hours (5 days) since the last engrossed solution on a day not on a weekend and not named as a federal holiday, any solution sponsor which retains a quorum consortium? may propose that the ballot be closed. If no other solutions have been proposed by a valid quorum consortium?, within a minimum of 192 hours (8 days) since the motion was made on a day not on a weekend and not named as a federal holiday between noon and 5pm Central Standard Time, the ballot will be closed.
8. between noon and 1PM Central Standard Time on the first day not on a weekend and not on a day named as a federal holiday, each voter delegate shall file notification for all voters whose votes or a fraction of a vote to which the delegate holds the proxy.
9. at noon