Increasing citizens participation: Lessons from Reykjavik and elsewhere
Rakvere Nov. 2015 Gunnar GrĂmsson - Robert Bjarnason - citizens.is
Citizens Foundation Vision Citizens must have a strong voice in policymaking with formal and persistent participation in the political process
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Democracy problems ● Less voting, especially from young people ● Media and big money has a strong influence on outcome of elections and referendums ● Globalisation has removed power from politicians and the people
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Why electronic democracy? ● It can be easy and fun to take part, more people will be active ● Young people are more likely to participate
● Our best hope for increasing democratic participation citizens.is
We use Your Priorities ● Help people to have real influence ● Allow large groups to speak with one voice and organise with ideas
● Open source eDemocracy software ● Anyone can easily create their own free e-democracy group at yrpri.org citizens.is
Your Priorities highlights ● Over 600.000 users since 2008 ● Scales well, easy to translate and adapt ● Used in Estonia, Australia, USA, UK, Iceland and elsewhere
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Better Alamance
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How does it work? â—? Citizens add ideas and points for and against â—? Best ideas and points are chosen by the participants
â—? All ideas and best points for and against them are visible at a glance
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Interface inspires debate â—? Points for and against are in different columns which makes it hard to argue â—? This encourages rational debate and positive points instead of negativity and personal attacks â—? Minority and majority views have equal weight which helps in facilitating consensus citizens.is
Better Reykjavík ● Born out of the 2008 economic and trust crash as a citizens initiative ● Opened a week before the municipal elections in Reykjavik, independent of political parties ● Over 40% of voters participated, 8% added content and over 1000 ideas were created citizens.is
Better Reykjavík ● Formal collaboration with the city of Reykjavík connect citizens to their representatives ● Over 70.000 people have participated out of 120.000 inhabitants ● 15 top ideas are processed by the city every month, 476 ideas have been approved citizens.is
Rahvakogu - Estonian reforms ● After political scandals in Estonia in 2012, grassroots organisations with official ties lead a law reform project
● Ideas were gathered through Your Priorities which was installed and modified locally ● Over 50.000 people took part and submitted over 2000 proposals citizens.is
From Your Priorities to new laws ● The president of Estonia submitted the top 15 ideas to the parliament
● As of November 2014, seven of the ideas have become Estonian law ● 1000 citizens can now send issues to the parliament which must process them citizens.is
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Better Neighbourhoods â—? Participatory budgeting in Reykjavik, capital of Iceland from 2011 to 2015 â—? 300 million ISK (1.9+ million EUR) allocated each year for ideas from citizens on how to improve the different neighbourhoods of Reykjavik citizens.is
Best Practice 2015 Better Neighborhoods won the Nordic Best Practice Challenge in category 1 "Public Communications" “The aim of the project is to improve the quality of the inhabitants surroundings. Through this inventive project, the residents are offered influence beyond what is normally seen in a representative democracy.� More...
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What is it and how does it work? ● The mission is to improve the city of Reykjavik according to the wishes of its citizens ● Each voter has the same budget amount as the total and chooses which projects she wants to vote for ●
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Our e-voting software teaches citizens the realities of budgeting
Better Neighbourhoods process 1. Citizens submit their ideas 2. City of Reykjavik evaluates their cost 3. Citizens vote on the ideas 4. City of Reykjavik executes them 5. Citizens use the results citizens.is
1. Citizens submit their ideas ● Citizens submit ideas for projects they think will improve their neighborhoods ● Using subsites on Better Reykjavik e-democracy website ○
10 subsites, one for each neighbourhood
● Authentication with Facebook Connect or email / password for this phase ○ citizens.is
Easy access gives more participation
Screenshot from idea submission â—?
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Screenshot from idea submission â—?
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1.b What kind of ideas? â—? Improve environment, facilitate playing, improve pedestrian and cycling transport â—? Within scope of the city, fit planning, not complicated nor need wide ranging preparation and coordination
â—? Almost 700 ideas sent in by citizens in 2015 citizens.is
2. City evaluates costs of ideas ● City of Reykjavik Construction Board evaluates costs and feasibility of each project ○ 164 ideas of +500 deemed eligible for voting in 2014
● This gives city officials much power over the results ● Real transparency is needed for this step citizens.is
3. Citizens vote on the ideas â—? The vote is electronic, binding and secure â—? 107 ideas were voted in by citizens in 2015 â—? One vote per person is ensured by strict authentication
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4. City executes the ideas ● Some ideas are realized in a few weeks ● Other ideas take over a year ○ Depends on many factors ■ Number of departments and people to be involved ■ Planning regulations
● Over 300 ideas already executed citizens.is
5. Citizens use the results ● From benches to footpaths to dog parks to better lighting to playgrounds ● More trees, trashcans, repair pavements, food gardens, add speed bumps or pedestrian lights ● Improvements from Better Neighborhoods are easily found in all areas of the city of Reykjavik citizens.is
Placeholder â—? Needs photos from executed projects, collage in one slide
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Citizens process in voting part � It’s a binding vote in four steps a. Authentication b. Choose a neighbourhood to vote in c. Choose projects to vote for d. Vote citizens.is
a. Authentication ● Strict authentication ○ Using IceKey (Icelandic National Registry) or ○ Electronic IDs on mobile SIM or debit cards ● As it’s a binding vote with real money the authentication has to be secure, one vote per person citizens.is
Screenshot from authentication â—?
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b. Choose a neighbourhood ● You choose any neighbourhood you like ● But you can only vote in one of them ○ Most people vote in their own but some vote for friends or relatives ideas
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Screenshot from authentication â—?
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c.1 Choose your projects ● You can choose one project and vote for that ○ This is strategic voting and gives that project a bit more weight
● Or you can fill your budget quota
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○ Which is a good exercise in how budget really works
Screenshot from authentication â—?
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Screenshot from authentication â—?
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c.3 Educating the voters ● The interface shows clearly that with a budget you can’t have everything ● When you have chosen a project the ones you can’t choose anymore are grayed out
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Screenshot from authentication â—?
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A screenshot with a few projects chosen and some grayed out
Screenshot from authentication â—?
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A screenshot with a few projects chosen and some grayed out
Screenshot from authentication â—?
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A screenshot with a few projects chosen and some grayed out
d. Voting ● Just press the Vote button ● You can vote again, as often as you like ○ This makes it hard for others to control your vote ○ Only the last vote counts
● You can change neighborhoods citizens.is
Screenshot from authentication â—?
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A screenshot with a few projects chosen and some grayed out
Access and assistance â—?
Anyone can participate in the idea gathering
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Voting age is 16
â—? Libraries and community centers assist those without Internet access, old or otherwise disabled
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Ideas statistics ● 420 ideas have been approved by citizens in Better neighborhoods from 2012 - 2015 ● Ideas per year ○ 2012 - 124 ○ 2013 - 111 ○ 2014 - 78 ○ 2015 - 107 citizens.is
Participation statistics
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A great success ● Thousands of citizens have had a real influence on their surroundings through Better Reykjavík
● Hundreds of citizens have suggested ideas that have become reality ● All neighborhoods of Reykjavik have been improved visibly through Better Neighborhoods citizens.is
Reasons for not participating ● From user interviews ○
Too little influence on the city budget to bother
○ Only smaller projects, not bigger issues ○
Many people don’t know about the project
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Ideas offered not interesting enough ■
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Many don’t realize that it’s citizens ideas
Suggested improvements ● Increase the budget that citizens decide on instead of a decrease with inflation ● More real life meetings to create interest ● Mark projects with their origins ● More PR is needed, many people don’t know about the project or how it works citizens.is
Disseminating experience ●
We’re partners in three other PB projects ○ Pula, Croatia ○ Maribor, Slovenia ○ Miskolc, Hungary
● All use a mix of online and offline processes, we supply software and expertise citizens.is
Open Gov. and Digital Commons ● Officials and NGOs often share a similar vision but the culture is different and cooperation can be difficult ● We are proposing a Digital Commons for NGOs and governments to simplify and replicate projects
● This would make eDemocracy projects cheaper and easier to implement ● More on www.citizens.is/commons/
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New version in development ● Built with state of the art Web Components, Polymer and Material Design
● Greatly simplifies application development and integration with other websites ● Currently in beta mode at www.your-priorities-preview.org citizens.is
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R贸bert Bjarnason - robert@citizens.is Gunnar Gr铆msson - gunnar@citizens.is
Thank you
Voting integrity ensured ● Three separate well defined roles with different entities responsible for each role ● Voting fraud impossible except through a conspiracy of at least two entities ● Reykjavik city Internal Audit monitors the process ● External experts do a security audit every citizens.is year, before, during and after the voting
Voting roles ● Citizens Foundation writes the software ○ Assists verbally with setup, when needed, but without touching any computers used in the vote
● City of Reykjavik runs the election ○ Servers, runs software, various processes
● National Registry authentication citizens.is
● Offers anonymous voting