Day-After Report: “It’s a LOT of work to be an informed voter”

David Kieffer captured the essence of why a group of NE Wisconsin civic hackers are focusing on voting and elections when he said, “It’s a LOT of work to be an informed voter.”

In 2016, with a majority of Americans having broadband internet access and almost 200 million of them carrying smartphones, there is no good reason for it to be hard to find any voting information you want using a desktop computer, a laptop, or a mobile device. But sadly, it is hard. And that needs to change.

Civic hackers, including YOU, can help make voting information more easily findable online, especially via mobile devices.

For frozen civic hackers gathered last night in Appleton, voting was the main topic of conversation.

Two days ago when I left the house, the temperature outside was minus 7 degrees Fahrenheit. Yesterday morning was warmer by comparison -- all the way up to 3 degrees. This morning the temperature was back down to zero. In spite of this chilly Wisconsin winter weather, a few hardy hackers braved the elements and gathered at Appleton Coworking last night, January 12, 2016. The civic hacking meetup was a combination of conversation, code, coworking, cold, and camaraderie. We also had delicious pizza and soda provided courtesy of the meetup sponsor, Omni Resources, (THANKS, Omni!) as well as a

Pizza and soda sponsored by Omni Resources!

couple varieties of Wisconsin-brewed beer brought by thirsty civic hackers. Two civic hackers participated remotely via Slack and GitHub, but they weren’t able to enjoy the pizza and beverages…

If readers of this blog post are interested in civic hacking but didn’t show up at last night’s event because they didn’t know about it, consider joining the #dhmncivichacks channel of the NE Wisconsin Slack team. If you’re not on that Slack team, go to https://newslack.herokuapp.com/ to get an invitation. There are about 200 people in our region who use that communication tool to connect with each other, find out what’s happening, and ask or answer questions.

There was some conversation last night about the work remaining to complete the next version of the “Is it recycling week?” Android app (IIRW). Ross Larson did a couple updates on the Pebble Smartwatch version of IIRW, and Mike Rosack briefly discussed the work he’s planning for adding color into the Pebble app. (Maybe I can get Ross and Mike to collaborate on a Pebble IIRW update post after Mike gets the color coding done. Ross’ blog posts about the Pebble app have been some of the most popular ones on DHMN Civic Hacking, so it appears there are lots of civic hackers with Pebbles.)

Civic hackers at Appleton Coworking on Jan 12, 2016

Other than the IIRW discussions and work, most of our civic hacking last night was focused on voting and elections. We discussed what types of information people want to find, especially via mobile devices, and did collaborative research on voting and election civic hacks, sharing links and ideas we found.

Based on our work during the January 12 meetup, we agreed there are good reasons to focus on voting civic hacks for the next couple months, including the reasons listed below:

• Several people involved in last night’s meetup have been frustrated in the past by the difficulty of finding voting and elections info online.
• 2016 is a US presidential election year, which means a higher voter turnout.
• Higher voter turnout and increased usage of mobile devices may help more people see value in civic hacking.
• Significant work has been done on voting civic hacks (e.g. the Voting Information Project) but user experience and findability of local voting information still leaves much to be desired.

In the next few months I’ll be writing a series of posts on this blog related to voting and elections. The February 2016 civic hacking meetup (on February 16 or 17, TBD) will focus strongly on voting, and I’ll invite to the meetup a wide variety of NE Wisconsin people involved with voting. If we’re making good progress on voting issues after the February meetup, we’ll probably have a theme of voting and elections hacks for an all-day civic hackathon on March 5.

By focusing on voting civic hacks early in 2016, we can be ready for November 2016 elections. Those may seem far off in the future, but things have a way of sneaking up on us while we’re busy going about our everyday lives. The plan for being prepared for November includes:

1. Researching the Voting Information Project and other civic hacks relevant to voting and elections.
2. Contacting and inviting to the civic hacking meetups a wide variety of NE Wisconsin people involved with voting, including League of Women Voters, politicians, appropriate city employees and other relevant government individuals, and newspaper political reporters.
3. Contacting people working on voting civic hacks outside NE Wisconsin. They can help us be better informed about relevant civic hacks and can help us as we work on this category of hacks leading up elections in November.
4. Identifying the voting civic hacks most useful for NE Wisconsin and working with appropriate people to get as much elections information available via those hacks for voters in November 2016.

If you’re interested in the topic of voting and elections, check back on this blog for more posts on the topic. And consider joining us in improving the voting civic hacks and getting them used by more people.

[Below are three blog posts from last summer about voting civic hacks.]

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Part 1: Civic Hacks For Better Voting

Voting Hacks Part 2: New Voting App for Appleton

Voting Hacks Part 3: Examples of Civic Hacks For Better Voting

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