Votorola is e-democracy software in support of primary elections and rule making. We provide the tools to enable a participatory democracy based on public deliberation, collaborative drafting and free voting. Our unique features are outlined below, along with some of the rough edges that are still being hammering down.

Work together with real people

• Typical online facilities invite you to participate in a virtual world, where you rub shoulders with bots, sock puppets and other anonymous users.
• Votorola is different. We are firmly embedded in the real world. Our voter registry is backed by a neighbourhood trust network in which local residents cross-authenticate each other. So you know you are participating with real people.
• The user interface of the registry is a local streetwiki. However, we have yet to prototype the neighbourhood and street layouts that are needed to police for sock puppets.^[1]
• Register once, and vote anywhere. Your registration in the local streetwiki is posted online for use by voting facilities worldwide.

Draft real legislation

• We provide the tools to draft legislative bills, planning and policy proposals, and electoral platforms. For instance, you may copy a section of your local municipal code; rewrite it as a position draft; and start soliciting votes for it. Here is an example of a bylaw proposal expressed as a simple position draft.
• If a voter disagrees with a candidate's position, then she is free to draft her own postion. She copies the candidate's draft, makes the necessary changes, and then solicits votes for the revised version. Other voters then have a choice:

• Votorola implements a socially attuned, peer-to-peer voting mechanism.^[2] It enables voters to continue supporting a candidate, even while campaigning for their own positions. They thereby make it clear that their votes (and those of their own voters) are conditional, depending on acceptance of their proposed changes.^[3]

Discuss real issues with immediate effect

• Discussions are rational in a democracy only insofar as they are focused on differences of position. Votorola provides the tools that enable you to discover concrete differences of position, and precisely reference them from within the context of ongoing discussions. Here is an example of a difference in which the voter disagrees slightly with the candidate's draft of an environmental bylaw (ordinance).
• The same tool (difference bridge) enables the elimination of the difference, too. If the discussion were to end in agreement, then the candidate could select the difference fragement (frag 2) and press the Patch button to transfer the change (as depicted above right) into his own text.
• We can reach out to potential users with this tool. We can join active threads on the fly and refit them to use the larger e-democracy toolset. If we succeed in injecting a little backbone into the discussions (and some promise of action), then the participants may choose to join the development effort as alpha users. So we could build up the toolset/practices from the grassroots.

Vote where it really counts

• In a typical election, your vote has no effect on the results. The results are always exactly the same (except in the rarest of cases) regardless of who you voted for. When it comes to legislation, plans and policies, you have no vote at all. In a democracy based on voting, these are barriers to meaningful participation.
• Votorola can get you around these barriers. Votorola is a ''primary'' voting system, and it therefore holds a certain precedence over other voting systems. It enables you, for example, to cast an early vote of support for a mayoral nominee, months ahead of the official election (or in support of a draft bill, months ahead of the assembly vote). This is the kind of support that really matters to a candidate (or to a legislator) because 80% of success is knowing who your supporters are ''in advance'' of the official vote.
• If people ever doubt the results of a Votorola primary, they can do an immediate recount themselves. We publish continual snapshots of the votes and registration data on which all results are based. However, we have yet to provide verification instructions and other supports for independent verifiers.^[4]

Vote free

• In a typical election, the authorities tell you where to vote, when to vote, and who you can vote for. You are allowed to vote once every four years, or so. When you arrive at the polling site, the candidates are pre-selected for you. Votorola changes all that. You may start voting as early as you like (even before they call the election); you may choose your own candidates without restriction; and you may shift your vote at any time (even after the election).
• Online voting facilities are typically rigid in the choice of tools on offer. You are ordinarily restricted, for example, to using whatever discussion and drafting media the administrators provide. Votorola eliminates most of those restrictions and gives you an open choice of tools. However, there are still drawbacks to using a drafting medium other than MediaWiki.^[5]
• You may also choose your own voting tool. Votorola is pioneering a facility of free-range voting, so you cannot be fenced in as a captive user. Free-range voting is based on the technology of vote mirroring. We have a partial prototype that can image votes in a single direction, but we have yet to hook up with a second pollserver or voting site, in order to implement true free-ranging.
• Normally it is government and other large organizations (parties and so forth) that provide the facilities and institutions of democracy. Votorola can bring democracy down to a more human scale. We enable local communities to maintain their own, independent streetwikis, pollwikis and attendant servers. But for the seed stage, we have started out with a centralized multi-area wiki, and we have yet to provide the proper supports for independent areas.^[6]

Would you like to help?

The project has already grown to 2-3 volunteers, but additional help is always welcome. For example:

• Programmers
• Project managers
• Test users
• Feedback, technical and conceptual
• Donations to endow prizes, and so forth

Notes and references