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openvoterdata

BLOCKCHAIN FOR SOCIAL IMPACT: Leveraging the Ethereum Blockchain for Social Impact

Mission

Making Democracy from the bottom up with an Open Source dApp for Blockchain Decentralized Open Data that you own and control. If you're canvassing collecting voter data you should keep a copy of the data and decide your sharing options.

Need for Blockchain: a decentralized immutable ledger enables the disintermediation of top down gatekeepers, who are controlled by big money interests, and provide the access to valuable voter data for grassroots, bottom up political activists to win elections.

Canvassing Mobile App

So here is how I thought a canvassing app should work. Traditionally, going door to door starts with figuring out what the voter knows about the candidate and introducing the candidate. Here's how I would like to approach things differently. The following assumes that you have limited time to keep the person being questioned at the door. Thus the number of issues should be kept small and or prioritized such that you'd keep asking more, as thee person is interested in telling you more. Start with a small set of issues, e.g. gun control, single payer health care, free college, taxes, economy/inequality, climate change, military budget.

Technologies

  • React
  • Web3js
  • Ethereum smart contract using the Truffle framework

Mockups

Scale for answers:

Where possible use a simple 3 point scale: no, neutral, yes

Questions:

Start with focusing on what concerns the voter (instead of the candidate). For each issue determine:

  • The voters opinion of whether they feel informed about the issue, e.g. no, neutral, yes
  • Then ask the voter for their position, e.g. oppose, neutral, support

Results:

This approach is bottom up and pull vs. push, i.e. pulling concerns from the bottom up, vs. pushing ideas from a candidate onto people. It would also be the basis for beginning a move towards Liquid Democracy instead of Representative Democracy.

User Stories:

Open Voter data deals with three main users and their needs:

  • Canvassers want to hand a simple digital survey to potential voters to capture their opinion on issues so that candidates know what the voters actually care about
  • Potential voters want to have their issues heard so their elected candidates know how to best represent their municipality
  • Citizens of a democracy want access to data on an immutable distributed ledger that verifies one vote-per-person (uPort) so they can trust the information they see.

Candidate & Advocacy Group

Candidates will be able to share their position, provide campaign updates and discuss relevant issues with local stakeholders Information security and pandering prevention - with candidate data stored on the Blockchain, candidates will not be able to change their position on an issue based on who the audience is. Equip advocacy groups with platform and tools to list reach new, engaged audiences interest in related issues and policies

Voter Engagement Functions

Offering the voter information about candidates with the degree of alignment between the candidate and the voter on issues positions. Offering voters to view their polling results and see how they trend against others in their district, city or state. Provide local people with more information about and access to issues-related advocacy groups, a resource guide on how take action in the community, and platform theplatform to , and actionable items related to issues.

Resources:

https://media.consensys.net/liquid-democracy-and-emerging-governance-models-df8f3ce712af

"Liquid Democracy" 5 minute video