The Application
NewVote is AN APP - a direct link for people and leaders, communities and governments
What is the app?
The primary way NewVote fulfils its mission is through the app.
The app is an online crowd-sourcing, co-design and communication and decision-making tool accessible on all devices with in-built privacy, transparency and accountability features. This is what we call ‘democracy as a service’. The code of the app is open source and secure democratic infrastructure.
Ways You can think of the app :
A marketplace between people and leaders,
exchanging issues, solutions and actions.
A Facebook group crossed with Reddit and Wikipedia.
A social network for evidence-based decision-making
for any community or government.
The App currently features
MULTICOMMUNITY STRUCTURE
SO EVERY COMMUNITY, BIG OR SMALL, CAN BE DEMOCRATIC
VERIFIED USERS
SO ONE PERSON EQUALS ONE VOTE
BROWSING ISSUES, SOLUTIONS AND ACTIONS (By topic)
SO THAT PEOPLE ARE EMPOWERED ON AN ISSUES-BASIS (DIRECT DEMOCRACY)
ISSUE CONTEXT
WITH LEADER-WRITTEN FACTUAL SUMMARIES AND CROWD-RATED 3RD PARTY LINKS (DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY)
CODESIGN AND CROWDSOURCING
WITH USERS ABLE TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS FOR ISSUES, SOLUTIONS AND ACTIONS TO THE LEADER FOR APPROVAL.
BALANCED VOTING (UP AND DOWN)
CONFIDENTIALLY, IN REAL-TIME ON SOLUTIONS AND ACTIONS
SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING
SO WE CAN START SPREADING EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE
Communities. For all businesses and organisations
NewVote communities extend from local to global.
The first phase of NewVote’s plan is already underway — to pilot our platform with a cross-section of communities throughout the world.
How it Works
The process is quite simple. You can explore or suggest — issues, solutions and actions. When you are ready, vote on solutions and actions.
If you are a community leader, you can start a community today.
Some examples of communities that can use newvote:
Schools, colleges and universities
Businesses, unions and body corporates
Community organisations, festivals and not-for-profits
Government departments, peak bodies and political parties
Governments. For official jurisdictions
LOCAL, STATE & NATIONAL
NewVote will be offered to official government jurisdictions, however, this is a more complex phase that will take further time to develop and implement.
It’s a new path between revolution and tradition — NewVote works within the current representative democratic framework to really make change happen. Jurisdictions are sophisticated communities and we account for their important differences in a number of ways:
Higher verification by checking against the electoral roll
Citizen juries held in-person and in parallel to the popular vote, periodically investigating, deliberating and reporting back on the app’s top-rated solutions.
‘Endorsements’ will be made for solutions and actions by:
nonpartisan experts — academics, scientists, NGOs, civil society organisations and thought leaders, and
partisan stakeholders — governments, elected representatives, oppositions, minor parties, advocacy groups, special interest lobbies and think-tanks.
A comparison tool to assist people to decide which candidate or party best represents their views.
If you are an elected representative or government, you can start a jurisdiction today.
Further Development. The App
We’re playing to win, and we have the knowledge, network and strategy to pull it off.
We need to ‘polish’ our user interface and user experience (UI/UX), so we are a more intuitive app, including seamless onboarding of users and leaders.
We have an immediate need to support our CEO, start-up adviser and current web developers.
We need to hire a website and app designer, growth hacker, strategist, marketing manager, product manager and a ‘full stack’ web developer.
We need to expand into established online sectors such as election services, surveys, community engagement, issues-based activism organisations, polling and petitions.
We need to roll out about 20 more features in a co-design process with users of the app to make NewVote an app that they love using.
Australian Digital Democracy Forum hosted by NewVote in November 2017, Melbourne, Australia.
From Left to Right, Bruno Kaufman of Democracy International and Dion McCurdy, CEO and co-founder of NewVote
Milestones. The App
June 2017
Winner of the ‘People's Choice Award’ at the Random Hacks of Kindness event, Brisbane, Australia.
November 2017
'Soft' launched our prototype of the app at the inaugural Australian Digital Democracy Forum which we hosted.
DECEMBER 2017 / January 2018
Presented at the panel Future Democracy at the Woodford Folk Festival, Australia.
March 2018
Presented at the Digital Democracy Forum - distributed politics and governance hosted by RMIT, Melbourne, Australia.
August 2018
Launched a beta version of our app, UQvotes, with the help of 16 University of Queensland student volunteers, Australia.
September 2018
Presented at the panel, What technology is making democracy more democratic? at the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in Rome, Italy.
December 2018
Launched a Woodfordia version of our app, alongside the six-day workshop and listening series, Redesigning Democracy held at the Woodford Folk Festival. Co-facilitated by Dr Lyn Carson of newDemocracy Foundation, and designer Bill Bannear of ThinkPlace, Singapore.
Today
We have over 12 communities and over 600 active users — including a for-profit business, a university, a political party, a nonpartisan ‘political observatory’ in Ecuador, a media platform and several other NGOs.