Why Voting Does Not Delegate: The Legal Bug at the Basis of False Representative Democracy

Introduction: A Simple Question

Imagine you need to pick up a package but cannot leave home. You call your cousin and say: “Please go to the pickup point and get it for me.” He agrees.

Now, suppose your cousin, instead of delivering the package to you, opens it, sells its contents, and keeps the money. What would you do?

You would probably confront him, demand accountability, and if necessary call the police or sue him. Why? Because you gave him a specific, limited, revocable mandate — and he betrayed it.

In the real world, every form of delegation is governed by precise rules. But what happens when you “delegate” a deputy, a mayor, or a president with your vote?

He can change his mind, vote against your interests, enrich himself, lie publicly — and you cannot revoke his mandate, cannot sue him, cannot even demand that he listen to you.

Why?

The answer is not political. It is legal.

And this answer dismantles, brick by brick, the deception at the basis of what today is passed off as representative democracy.

1. What Does Civil Law Say About Delegation?

In civil law — in every modern legal system, from Mexico to Germany, from Italy to Japan — delegation (or mandate) is a well-defined institution. Article 1703 of the Italian Civil Code, for example, states:

“The mandate is the contract by which one party (the mandatary) obliges himself to perform one or more legal acts on behalf of the other (the mandator).”

From this simple statement derive three non-negotiable pillars:

  1. Specificity: the mandate must concern “one or more legal acts” — not a generic, unlimited power.
  2. Responsibility: the mandatary acts “on behalf of the mandator,” therefore he must act in the interest of the latter, not his own.
  3. Revocability: the mandator can revoke the mandate at any time (art. 1724 c.c.), without having to motivate the decision.

The same scheme is found in France (Civil Code, art. 1984), in Germany (BGB § 662), in Mexico (Federal Civil Code, art. 2546), and wherever there exists a legal system based on personal responsibility.

Furthermore, the person who delegates retains the substantial power. He does not lose control: he exercises it through another, always maintaining the ability to:

This is real delegation: a tool of cooperation, not of abandonment.

2. The Absent Framework: Why Voting, Today, Is Not a Delegation

Representative democracy — in its legally correct form — provides for an authentic delegation: specific, revocable, responsible.

It is a model not only possible, but logically necessary for any society that wishes to define itself as democratic.

However, what today is called “representative democracy” is not such.

It is, in reality, a representative oligarchy: a system in which a minority seizes power under the mask of popular delegation.

When you vote for a candidate, you do not specify any mandate. You do not say: “I authorize you to vote for this law, but not that one.” You do not set limits. You do not define binding objectives.

Your vote is a symbolic choice, not a legal act. There is no contract. There is no obligation. There is no responsibility.

Worse: you cannot revoke the mandate.

If your deputy:

you have no legal tool to intervene.

There is no article of law that allows you to “recall” your representative, as you would do with a negligent lawyer or an unfaithful administrator.

Furthermore, the representative does not face criminal liability for “betrayal of the mandate” — simply because legally the mandate does not exist.

No court in the world convicts a parliamentarian for “having lied to voters.” At most, he can be convicted for corruption — but never for having violated an electoral commitment.

Result?

The citizen does not delegate, but is deceived: he is made to believe he has delivered legitimate power, when in reality every substantial control is taken from him.

3. The Cardinal Principle: “Nemo dat quod non habet”

But there is a second legal principle, even more radical, that completely dismantles the electoral illusion.

It is called “nemo dat quod non habet” — no one can give what he does not have.

It is a pillar of property law in every modern legal system.

If you are not the owner of a piece of land, you cannot sell it.

If you do not have the right to administer an inheritance, you cannot appoint an administrator.

If you do not own an asset, you cannot transfer it.

Now, let us consider the citizen in what today is called “representative democracy.”

In the current system, the citizen does not possess any direct decision-making power.

He does not decide laws. He does not approve budgets. He does not declare war. He does not set taxes.

His only “power” is to press a button every five years — an act that changes nothing in reality, except assigning a seat to someone else.

So: what is he “delegating” when he votes?

Nothing.

Because he does not possess any power to transfer.

Elections, therefore, do not achieve a delegation, but simulate a delegation that does not exist.

It is as if a fraudster, pretending to be the owner of a house, appointed an “administrator” and demanded that the real owners obey him.

Legally, that act is null — and configurable as fraud.

Yet, this fiction is used to bind the citizen morally and legally: “You voted, now obey.”

But if the vote does not transfer any power (because there is none), then no obligation arises from it.

The citizen is not “represented.”

He is the victim of a structural deception.

4. The Systemic Fraud: Oligarchy Masked as Democracy

The term “representative democracy” is not wrong in itself.

It is a legally coherent model, based on real, revocable, and responsible delegations.

The problem is that this model has never been applied.

In its place, a system has been built that uses the same name but violates all its founding principles.

Constitutions say:

“The parliament represents the people” (Italy, art. 67),
“Los diputados representan a la Nación” (Spain, art. 69).

But they do not explain what “represent” means in a legal sense.

And constitutional courts — from Rome to Washington — have always recognized that the parliamentarian is “free,” not bound by the mandate.

In other words: the system openly admits that there is no delegation — but continues to use the language of delegation to maintain the illusion of legitimacy.

This is not a defect. It is a structural fraud:

5. Legal Consequences: The Status of Victim of Fraud

If a valid model of representative democracy exists — and if the current system systematically violates its principles — then citizens are not mere dissenters.

They are victims of a collective fraud.

And in law, victims of fraud have special rights:

This is not nihilism. It is civil law applied to politics.

6. What to Do? Reclaim the Authentic Model

There is no need to destroy.

There is a need to reclaim what has been stolen: the name, the form, the substance of representative democracy.

If we build — as we are doing — a model in which:

then we are not inventing anything new.

We are restoring what the name “representative democracy” promised from the beginning.

And once this model exists — even only on paper —

it becomes possible to demonstrate that the current system is a counterfeit.

And victims of counterfeit have the right not to recognize it.

Conclusion: We Are Not Against Representative Democracy. We Truly Want It.

The current system is not a “failed representative democracy.”

It is an oligarchy passed off as democracy.

But true representative democracy is possible.

And once described with clarity,

it becomes the legal tool to unmask the deception —

and to reclaim the right to exit from it.