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Comparison of civic technology platforms

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Civic technology is technology that enables engagement and participation, or enhances the relationship between the people and government, by enhancing citizen communications and public decision, improving government delivery of services and infrastructure. This comparison of civic technology platforms compares platforms that are designed to improve citizen participation in governance, distinguished from technology that directly deals with government infrastructure.

Platform types

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Graham Smith of the University of Southampton, in his 2005 book Beyond the Ballot, used the following categorization of democratic innovations:[1]

  • Electoral innovations – "aim to increase electoral turnout"
  • Consultation innovations – "aim to inform decision-makers of citizens' views"
  • Deliberative innovations – "aim to bring citizens together to deliberate on policy issues, the outcomes of which may influence decision-makers"
  • Co-governance innovations – "aim to give citizens significant influence during the process of decision-making"
  • Direct democracy innovations – "aim to give citizens final decision-making power on key issues"
  • E-democracy innovations – "use information technology to engage citizens in the decision-making process"

Comparison chart

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Platform Name Founder Dates Active Corporate Structure Geography Parent Company Party Affiliation Technology Used Open Source Platform Type Software License Primary Funders
CitizenLab Wietse Van Ransbeeck, Aline Muylaert, Koen Gremmelprez[2] September 2015[3] - Present For profit[citation needed] Brussels, Belgium[4] Proprietary software No E-democracy innovation, Consultation innovation
Pol.is Colin Megill, Christopher Small and Michael Bjorkegren -Present 501(c)3 Seattle, WA Yes Deliberative Democracy AGPL v3
Countable (app) Bart Myers, Peter Arzintar[5] July 2014 – Present[5] For profit San Francisco, California, United States Non-partisan
Loomio Ben Knight[citation needed] Nov 1, 2012[citation needed] - Present For profit[citation needed] Wellington, New Zealand[citation needed] Ruby, Javascript[6] Yes Deliberative Innovation AGPL v3[7] Crowdfunding[8]
DemocracyOS Pia Mancini, Santiago Siri[citation needed] 2012[citation needed] - Present Non profit[citation needed] Palo Alto, California, United States[citation needed] Democracy Earth Foundation Net Party[9] JavaScript[10] Yes Direct Democracy Innovation GPL v3[11] Y Combinator, Teespring[citation needed]
VotingWorks Ben Adida 2018-Present 501(c)3 San Francisco, CA n/a Yes Open-source voting system
GovTrack Joshua Tauberer[12] 2003[13] - Present Washington, District of Columbia, United States[citation needed] Civic Impulse, LLC[14] Django[15] Yes Crowdfunding
NGP Van Mark T. Sullivan, Nathaniel Pearlman 1997–present[citation needed] For profit[citation needed] Washington, DC, United States[citation needed] Democratic and Progressive Campaigns[citation needed] Proprietary software No E-democracy innovation
OpenGov Joe Lonsdale, Mike Rosengarten, Nate Levine, Zac Bookman[citation needed] 2012–present For profit[citation needed] Redwood City, California, United States JavaScript, Ruby, Java, Python[citation needed] Yes Emerson Collective[citation needed]
Hustle Perry Rosenstein, Roddy Lindsay, Tyler Brock[citation needed] Dec 2014[citation needed] For profit[citation needed] San Francisco, California, United States[citation needed] Proprietary software No Electoral Innovation Social Capital (venture capital)
Resistbot Jason Putorti, Eric Ries 2017–present 501c4 Saint Petersburg, Florida, United States[16] Resistbot Action Fund Non-partisan Python, Amazon Web Services, RapidPro, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL Yes[17] Electoral innovations, Consultation innovations, Co-governance innovations, E-democracy innovations CC0
LiquidFeedback Andreas Nitsche, Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner and Bjoern Swierczek[18] November 2009[19] Berlin, Germany[20] Public Software Group, Interaktive Demokratie, FlexiGuided GmbH[19] Lua (programming language), PL/pgSQL Yes Deliberative Innovation MIT License
TurboVote Kathryn Peters, Seth Flaxman[citation needed] 2010–present [citation needed] For profit[citation needed] Democracy Works[21] Proprietary software No Electoral Innovation
We The People Obama administration September 2011 – Present Government Agency Washington, DC, United States Democratic Party JavaScript, PHP, CSS[22] Yes Co-governance Innovation GNU General Public License[22] United States Government
Voatz Nimit S. Sawhney[citation needed] 2014–present[citation needed] For profit[citation needed] Boston, Massachusetts, United States[23] Go[24] No Electoral Innovation Medici Ventures[citation needed]
Helios Voting Ben Adida 2008–present[25] Non profit Python, JavaScript, HTML[26] Yes Direct Democracy Innovation Apache License[26]
U Report UNICEF Innovation[27] May 2011 – Present[28] Non profit New York, United States UNICEF Python, HTML, CSS[29] Yes Consultation Innovation GNU Affero General Public License[29]
Maji Voice Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) 2012–present[30] Government Agency Nairobi, Kenya Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) Open Source[30] Yes Consultation Innovation GNU General Public License[31] World Bank Water and Sanitation Program[30]
Democracy 2.1 Karel Janeček 2013–present Prague Municipal District, Czech Republic Proprietary software No Direct Democracy Innovation
Secure Vote Max Kaye, Nathan Spataro[32] 2016–present[32] New South Wales, Australia[32] Python, HTML, Shell,[33] Blockchain[32] No Direct Democracy Innovation MIT License
Brigade James Windon, Jason Putorti, John Thrall, Matt Mahan, Miche Capone[citation needed] Jun 11, 2014[34] - May 1, 2019[35] For profit San Francisco, California, United States[36] Brigade Media Proprietary software No Electoral Innovation, Deliberative Innovation Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Sean Parker[37]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Smith, Graham (2005). "Beyond the ballot: 57 democratic innovations from around the world". westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk. POWER Inquiry. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
  2. ^ "CitizenLab". www.forbes.com. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  3. ^ "CitizenLab". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  4. ^ "About us - CitizenLab". citizenlab.co. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  5. ^ a b "Countable Wants To Make Politics A 'Continual Conversation'". TechCrunch. 16 July 2014. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  6. ^ "loomio/loomio". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  7. ^ "loomio/loomio". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  8. ^ "Out in the Open: Occupy Wall Street Reincarnated as Open Source Software". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  9. ^ "A Conversation With DemocracyOS, The YC Non-Profit That Built A Latin American Political Party – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. 17 April 2015. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  10. ^ "DemocracyOS/democracyos". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  11. ^ "DemocracyOS/democracyos". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  12. ^ "Web site a pork hunting ground / It joins others aiding analysis of bills for 'earmark' signs". SFGate. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  13. ^ "Joshua Tauberer's Homepage". razor.occams.info. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  14. ^ "govtrack/civic-impulse-llc". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  15. ^ "govtrack/govtrack.us-web". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  16. ^ "Resistbot". resist.bot. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  17. ^ Form definitions powering Resistbot's electronic deliveries to elected officials in the United States.: resistbot/contact-officials, Resistbot, 2019-12-30, retrieved 2019-12-31
  18. ^ "Etopia News L.A. talks with Andreas Nitsche | Interaktive Demokratie". www.interaktive-demokratie.org. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
  19. ^ a b "Information Kit (PDF)" (PDF).
  20. ^ "LiquidFeedback - The democracy software". liquidfeedback.org. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
  21. ^ "Democracy Works: Democracy Fund". www.democracyfund.org. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  22. ^ a b "WhiteHouse/petitions". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  23. ^ "Voatz". angel.co. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  24. ^ "blacktreebird/voatz". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  25. ^ Adida, Marneffe, Pereira, Quisquater, Ben, Olivier, Olivier, Jean-Jacques. "Electing a University President using Open-Audit Voting: Analysis of real-world use of Helios" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ a b "benadida/helios-server". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  27. ^ "U-Report: Ilhasoft's application for Unicef - Ilhasoft". Ilhasoft. 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  28. ^ "U-report application revolutionizes social mobilization, empowering Ugandan youth". UNICEF. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  29. ^ a b "rapidpro/ureport". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  30. ^ a b c "WB Maji Voice Policy Note" (PDF).
  31. ^ "CustomerFeedbackSystem/code". GitHub. 15 August 2015. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  32. ^ a b c d "SecureVote". Techboard. 2017-04-26. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  33. ^ "muminoff/securevote". GitHub. 18 May 2016. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  34. ^ "Sean Parker's Brigade Media Acquires Causes In Its Quest To Revitalize American Democracy". TechCrunch. 11 June 2014. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  35. ^ "Sean Parker's Brigade/Causes acquired by govtech app Countable". TechCrunch. May 2019. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  36. ^ "Follow Brigade on Index.co". Index.co. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  37. ^ "Brigade Media Raises $9.3M From Sean Parker To Shake Up American Democracy". TechCrunch. 14 April 2014. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
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