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This isn't a different voting system; it's only a special case of the current system. Keep in mind, in your system it's got to be possible to NOT delegate your vote; it has to be possible for everyone to just vote on their own without delegation. In that case, what happens? You haven't really specified the voting system, just an additional feature that a voting system might take on.

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That's true - if everyone votes on their own, it's direct democracy.

I was thinking about an essentially identical system to yours some years ago and I came up with an amendment to prevent direct democracy (if desired): nobody can vote for themselves unless they have at least X votes; if not then they must delegate.

Similarly you could try to assemble everyone who has at least X votes into a parliament (if you pick X appropriately), though I'm worried that the cutoff for getting into parliament might cause a chain of tactical redelegations which never stabilizes.

Thanks for these insights, both are interesting. I've thought about the same thing with the parliament, but I fear there are problems with that. If it turns out that there is a fairly stable selection at the top it might work and should make the voting more efficient.

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