EveryVote - Free Election and Public Information Tool

EveryVote - Free Election and Public Information Tool - Design Diagrams and Features


Table of Contents

~Introduction and Design Diagrams
~About EveryVote
~Open Standards & Public Data Federation
~Do-It-Yourself Usability
~Moderator Abilities
~Moderator Privilege Distribution
~Adding a Candidate or Officer Profile
~Responsive Design
~Social Media Optimization
~Breadcrumb Totem Pole
~University Sub-domains
~Notifications
~Chaining
~SPA and AngularJS
~Contact Information


~Introduction and Design Diagrams

Link to the EveryVote Design Diagrams: http://imgur.com/a/H5ea2#0

EveryVote's makes free civic engagement software with do-it-yourself usability so non-technical people can share and find civic data online. Currently we're making an open source election information tool  we think can help increase voter turnout and facilitate campus debate for any university student organization election (e.g. Student Government, Campus Activities Boards, Student Unions, Homecoming King and Queen, and any other election) held each Spring and Fall semester.

Most college student organization Election Commissioners are not web developers, so it is not realistic to expect them to post election information and candidate biographies online. The EveryVote software in the diagrams linked above would make it easier for non-technical Election Commissioners to share election info and start question and answer forums online.


~About EveryVote

EveryVote will never have advertisements
...will only provide free services
...would be 100% donation driven
...will seek non-profit status
...all EveryVote expenses, their totals, and the names of their recipients will be shared online in a timely, machine-readable format
...EveryVote is a USA-based public data directory, and in order to respect the sovereignty and autonomy of other nations, everyvote.org will host only USA election data.


~Open Standards & Public Data Federation

EveryVote supports the development of open standards, and will apply open standards to ensure all of its services are federation-compatible. The open standards organized in Open North's Popolo Project look like a great fit for this university election webapp.

By "federation-compatible" we mean EveryVote must allow all its users 1) to freely and easily download all of their EveryVote data in a machine-readable, open standards compliant format, and 2) upload their data to any other federated service that uses compatible open standards.

Successful federation of public data services is the only way to prevent a monopoly over public data services. Due to the network effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect), leading internet technologies (especially social networks) tend to quicklyform monopolies (or duopolies, or triopolies, etc.) over all other organizations in their industry. A monopoly/duopoly/etc. over public data is a contradiction and inherently oppressive situation, so EveryVote must allow users to download their own data in a machine-readable, open standards compliant format. It should be as easy as possible for people to stop using EveryVote and start using a different service provider, without losing any of the data they submitted when using EveryVote.

EveryVote will also allow users to sync their data, in real-time, with other webapps that use compatible open standards.


~Do-It-Yourself Usability

Anyone can add their organization to the EveryVote directory, and no web design skills are needed to add and update their page.


~Moderator Abilities

A person who adds an organization to the EveryVote directory becomes the moderator of that organization's page.

Moderators have the ability to add office pages, add election pages, add candidate pages, add officer pages, edit their organization's pages, edit their organization's election pages, send a chain request (probably should change the word chain to connect), and approve/disapprove candidate profiles.


~Moderator Privilege Distribution

EveryVote will distribute moderator privileges to official representatives of any USA-based organization that requests moderator privileges. Anyone can add an organization's profile to EveryVote and start an election page, but if an official representative requests moderator privileges for their organization's page, the unofficial representative's moderator privileges will be revoked and granted to the highest ranking official representative (with ultimate priority going to the Election Commissioners).


~Adding a Candidate or Officer Profile

When a moderator creates a candidate or officer profile, an email is automatically sent to the candidate or officer (if the moderator supplies the c or o's correct email address) containing a username, password, and login instructions. The c or o can then sign into their profile, upload a profile picture, edit their candidate profile information, submit questions and answers, and share links to their candidate profile over social media.


~Responsive Design

EveryVote pages will be responsive so they look and work nice on computer, tablet, and mobile devices.


~Social Media Optimization

Links to EveryVote pages shared over social media will be optimized so their image and link description previews look nice.

Organizations, candidates, and officers can attract more social media followers by linking visitors to their Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin profiles on their EveryVote profile page.

~Breadcrumb Totem Pole

Yep that's a breadcrumb totem pole on the right side of the screen. It's purpose is to clarify what organization's election, candidate, or officer page a visitor is looking at, to help the user visualize an organizational hierarchy, and to navigate back to previous pages in the organizational hierarchy.


~University Sub-domains

To make EveryVote URLs simpler and give university organizations more of a sense of ownership of their EveryVote pages, every USA university will be given a sub-domain that would take people directly to their profile page. For example, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's EveryVote shortcut URL could be uiuc.everyvote.org, Stanford University's could be stanford.everyvote.org, University of Michigan's could be umich.everyvote.org, and so on. This is an optional feature. If for example UIUC didn't like the sub-domain format they could instead use everyvote.org/uiuc/.


~Notifications

The globe in the top-left is a notifications feature that provides notifications when 1) a candidate asks a new question on an election page you are a candidate in, 2) someone answers a question you asked, or comments on an answer you posted, 3) a candidate profile needs your approval to be added to an election page (if you are a moderator), 4) an organization sends a chain request to another organization (if you are a moderator, more on 'chaining' next), 5) when it is election day, 6) and others...


~Chaining (probably will call this connecting instead)

EveryVote moderators have the ability to 'chain' with organizations that are higher or lower in their organizational hierarchy.

To illustrate the chaining feature, let's imagine the Associated Students at Stanford University (ASSU) Elections Commissioner creates an EveryVote organization page for ASSU, shares ASSU's election and candidate information, and adds questions for the candidates and student body to answer. If a Stanford University representative later created an EveryVote organization page for Stanford University, then the rep could send a chain request to receive the label of super-organization (or parent-organization) above the ASSU. Vice-versa, ASSU could send a chain request to receive the label of sub-organization (or child-organization) to Stanford University. In either case, the organization receiving the chain request must approve the request to be labeled a super- or sub-organization in the organizational hierarchy.

If the city of Stanford liked how Stanford University students used EveryVote, then the city of Stanford could create its own EveryVote page and send a chain request to become the super-organization of Stanford University. If Santa Clara County liked how the city of Stanford used EveryVote for its mayoral elections, then Santa Clara County could create its own EveryVote page and send a chain request to become the super-organization of the city of Stanford, etc.

We should definitely call this feature "connecting" instead of "chaining".


~SPA and AngularJS

In order to achieve a better user experience, we intend on utilizing a SPA framework such as AngularJS. We’re also highly interested in producing an API which is compatible with the Popolo Project’s open standards.


~Contact Information

We'd really appreciate your thoughts on this project. Please email contactus@everyvote.org or tweet @EveryVoteU.


Thanks for reading!