Ballot Wise

Ballot Wise is a non-partisan, research-based platform to help people make informed decisions about voting in United Nations democracies. 

Through our innovative database software platform, we provide non-partisan, research-based information about the policies enacted by head-of-state candidates (President / Prime Minister / Chancellor, etc.) for all United Nations member countries that hold democratic elections.

Ballot Wise is a comprehensive resource detailing personalized policy analyses based on users' input demographics (by consent). Essentially, the platform would show each user how specific policies impact certain ages, races, ethnicities, genders, socio-economic classes, etc. Our algorithm helps optimize users' decision-making time by having them rank issues in order of priority and have them rate policies based on how they impact them personally. The platform then generates a ranking of which candidate or party best fulfils the user's criteria for a worthy President, Prime Minister, or Chancellor. This would allow users to compare and contrast the candidates by  a range of filters, such as issue or value or standpoint. 

Ballot Wise would be implemented in a twofold manner: through a website and an application for easier access. Further, we have a section on the most common words and themes in all public statements made by candidates globally to orient themselves with their representatives' political, social, and economic goals.  

According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), the global voter turnout in UN democracies stands at approximately 50%, which indicates that more votes could tip an election, changing the fate of not only a few countries but the world politically, socially, and economically. So why don't people vote? Global Citizen found that the top reasons include: 

Polarization, misinformation, and fake news make it difficult for people to assess candidates

1. News sources have scattered information
2. Official documents are dense, and an in-depth understanding of policy implications is rare
3. "None of the candidates are worthy enough," and people usually cite having to choose between the lesser of the evils

My friends and I, from a range of countries, having been deemed eligible to vote, find ourselves conflicted, so it's an issue that resonates within several communities of which I am a part. For instance, I am a student at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and have found that this issue pervades my local community as well - the Winter Park City Commission elections face a voter turnout of 26%, which is still much more significant than regional elections in India, where I grew up. 

Increasing voter turnout, then, by providing comprehensive yet concise and personalized information, would contribute to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 16, i.e., building effective, accountable, and ethical institutions at all levels. Specifically, Ballot Wise would target SDG 16.6, 16.7, and 16.8, which are focused on responsive, inclusive, and representative decision making. 

As Abraham Lincoln famously stated in the Gettysburg Address, democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. By definition, it serves everyone. Ballot Wise is founded on the principle that democracy is worth fighting for: governance is best when everyone has a voice, and when those voices are given the opportunity to make a difference.

Our target audience is youth aged 18-35, who are Millennials and individuals from Generation Z. They are proven to be highly inclined to vote due to their social awareness – all it would take is a push in the right direction. Guidance on registration, making political decisions in good conscience, and education regarding the policies that impact them all go hand-in-hand in facilitating increased voter turnout. In the United States alone, data from the Census Bureau shows us that our Serviceable Obtainable Market is almost 40 million people, so we see huge potential for scalability. We would expand that to all people within the age group 18-35 that are citizens of UN democracies, and then to all people within those countries that do not vote. 

Ballot Wise would empower these individuals to make informed and timely decisions while still being civically engaged and contributing as changemakers in a global society that demands active work towards all the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as sustainability, equality, and so on. We look forward to tackling hyperpartisanship with personalized research, a feature that is missing in civic education across the world. 

I surveyed 100 students in Florida who are eligible to vote but have not yet, and found that they were overwhelmed by the amount of information available regarding the political process and the actions taken by candidates. Simultaneously, though, they felt underprepared to make a decision in good conscience based on what knowledge they had of the political climate. 

So, I iterated on our model, which, at the time, solely presented extensive research about the candidates and policies, such as the following:

https://docs.google.com/docume...

I concluded that one of the ways Ballot Wise could tackle this was simplifying our minimum viable product and providing an analysis of news sources and think tanks. We explained their political orientation and linked their reports on pressing policy issues, which is available below:

https://docs.google.com/spread...

With our upcoming pilot, though, we would measure the success of Ballot Wise by cross-referencing the number of people who would visit our website with those who register to vote for the first time. 

I am a member of The Democracy Project at Rollins College, which works on on-campus voter registration and organizing community forums where a diverse selection of experts in academia and politics share their perspectives on social issues and how we can contribute to solving them. Further, as a member of the League of Women Voters, I work on the Voter Services Committee and conduct educational workshops about civic duty. 

"The world needs more civic engagement" is a statement heard so often that we often forget what democracy truly stands for. It is not solely about voting, or reading the news, or choosing to support a particular party's campaign. The cornerstones of democracy permeate our everyday lives: freedom of speech, equality, voting rights, right to life, liberty, and property, religious freedom, human rights, freedom of the press, and so on. Upholding these principles preserves the integrity of democracy globally, allowing the passage of free, fair, and transparent elections that prevent a road to populism. They avert abuses of power or authority and help societies keep their government ethical and accountable to the people. Ballot Wise aims to further this worthy cause, and increasing voter turnout is the first step.

After having tested our digital prototype with the aforementioned media analyses and country-specific research of the 2022 elections, we are collaborating with the Winter Park Chambers of Commerce to contribute to increasing voter turnout in the upcoming local Winter Park City Commission election in March 2022 through a launch of our pilot. The candidate and policy analysis for France, Malta, Australia, Lebanon, South Korea, and Winter Park can be found below:

https://drive.google.com/drive...

In addition to developing our website, application, and personalized policy analysis algorithm, we are looking to host events within the local community to educate young people about the potential outcome of the election and conduct voter registration drives.

The United Nations declared 2021-22 the International Year of Creative Economy, and to further this mission, we are organizing a small-scale festival of the local artisan community, including open mic nights, political standup comedy, spoken word poetry, civic documentary screenings, organized debates with Winter Park residents, social awareness fashion shows, and media commentaries. Further, we are creating pocket-sized candidate cards with overviews of their campaign and potential policies. Lastly, Ballot Wise is co-hosting a candidates' debate with the Democracy Project in February.

Ballot Wise is a digital software platform that would run on our website as well as application. Our technology use is twofold:

1. We would show each user how specific policies impact certain ages, races, ethnicities, genders, socio-economic classes, etc. Our platform helps optimize users' decision-making time by having them rank issues in order of priority and have them rate policies based on how they impact them personally. The algorithm then generates a ranking of which candidate or party best fulfills the user's criteria for a worthy President, Prime Minister, or Chancellor. This would allow users to compare and contrast the candidates by a range of filters, such as issue or value, or standpoint. The behavioral technology that we are working on incorporating involves collecting data about where on the platform users spend the most time so that we can maintain a seamless experience. The digital nature of Ballot Wise ensures that we are able to reach countries across the world and maintain a foundation of accessibility. We are looking to work with translators to interpret and convert the research into the native languages spoken in the countries we are serving. 
2. We would be using Big Data to collect and synthesize all the public statements (speeches, policy memos, resolutions, social media posts, etc.) made by candidates globally into finding the most common words and themes to help users orient themselves with their representatives' political, social, and economic goals.

Ballot Wise currently serves the populations of France, Australia, Malta, Lebanon, and South Korea aged 18-35, i.e., hundreds of millions of individuals. Our research will be available to these citizens at the launch when our website is updated with the information and personalized policy analysis is ready within a few months.

Further, our pilot for the Winter Park City Commission election would serve tens of thousands of individuals, specifically college students, and would be ready within a month.

This impact, both at the local and global scale, I believe, is meaningful because it tackles the needs of those specific communities and modifies the issues tackled based on our assessment of the differences between the two. For example, our research on Winter Park tackles micro-level, smaller-scale issues such as education, real estate, taxation, and technology and innovation, while our research on the other countries tackles macro-level issues like healthcare, equality, COVID-19, environment, etc.

Lastly, this truly directly impacts citizens in those regions because the kind of guidance they are looking for is accessible (we are also trying to make it available offline), readily available, comprehensively organized, easy to navigate (we are beginning to work with a data visualization and design team), non-partisan of course, and personalized. 

1. Complete research, build personalized policy analyses, and develop the algorithm as soon as possible. 
2. Build a strong foundation and user base of at least 5000 individuals for the Winter Park City Commission election in the next two months through our various aforementioned events, voter registration, and email list. We will build from there when our research on the global scale is launched. 
3. Working on visual design and data visualization. Our core values involve empowering users, i.e., voters, with a seamless digital experience, especially because most online databases that pride themselves on their research and information are, ironically, highly cluttered and overwhelming. 
4. Register Ballot Wise as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and ensure that we meet the non-partisan standard at all levels. We would do this by moving through several levels of proofreading. Since I won the national Ideas for Good pitch competition, the judges have worked with me to build a stronger organization. They are guiding me as mentors and connecting me with organizations like the Society Library, Vote Riders, Brookings Institute, and United Nations to go through filtering of research. The next step would be to compete as a finalist at the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge in San Diego in June 2022. 
5. Work with translators to convert all our research into the native language of the countries we are serving, i.e., all members of the United Nations and holding democratic elections at the head-of-state level from this year onwards. 

Our progress at Ballot Wise would primarily be defined in terms of the number of lives we truly impact with civic engagement. We would measure this by tracking the size of our email list of those who register / subscribe / sign up with us as well as increasing the number of registered voters in the age group 18-35 in all their countries, beginning with the Winter Park City Commission election. After the elections are hosted, we would cross-reference the number of people who visited our website with those who registered to vote for the first time. 

Further, we are looking forward to raising more funds and partnering with more organizations to keep Ballot Wise a sustainable organization, share our work, and increase voter turnout globally!

Our primary concern is reaching individuals from all the countries we are looking to serve. However, with the guidance of our mentors, we would tackle this by launching our website, app, and building a social media following on Instagram and Tiktok, precisely because our target audience is aged 18-35. Our pilot in Winter Park and partnering with organizations like the Society Library, Brookings Institute, and colleges and universities in the area such as Full Sail, Rollins, and Valencia, would also increase our reach by word of mouth. 

We will have a technological developer working with us within the month, so until then, I will be using Wix to develop a platform wherein individuals can access our work. The challenge there would lie in ensuring a seamless user experience and making our information more concise so that voters can get through the policies quickly, but this is significantly easier to navigate. 
Of course, financial support would greatly help us further our mission and contribute to strengthening democracy around the world. Lastly, registering Ballot Wise as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization would take a little time, but it wouldn't pose a challenge. 

Our global team of researchers (contract-basis, from China, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, India, United Arab Emirates, and more) has comprised students pursuing their Master’s and Doctoral degrees from George Mason University and Occidental College, as well as those who have interned at the U.S. House of Representatives, the Arab Studies Institute, the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, United Nations, etc. We all can attest to having faced difficulty choosing who to vote for in our home countries for various reasons such as a multi-party system, censorship, polarization, lack of awareness about the political climate, etc. and so are truly committed to this cause and preserving the democracy for which we have fought so hard.

As a student at Rollins College, I am majoring in International Relations and Philosophy with a minor in Ethics and Public Policy. As part of the Bonner Leadership in Service program, I volunteer with civic non-profits in the Winter Park-Orlando area for extensive hours every week and organize events with The Democracy Project on campus. Further, my membership with the League of Women Voters has allowed me to create more connections in the local community and conduct educational workshops about the importance of civic duty. 

1. Society Library - We are beginning to work with them on the proof-reading of our research to ensure its non-partisan quality. We are also partnering with them to collect the 'Big Data' of public statements put out by candidates to analyse themes. 
2. League of Women Voters - We are conducting educational workshops about the importance of civic duty and helping young people in the Winter Park-Orlando area familiarise themselves with their elected officials and their agendas. 

I am truly honored and grateful to have the opportunity to potentially be a part of HP Girls Save the World's worthy mission. As an 18 year old young woman majoring in International Relations and Philosophy, I seek to innovate human-centric techniques of designing stories about underrepresented women, and contribute to framing and implementing policies that foreground civic duty in the public policy domain. I look forward to leading civil discourse with the promise of perspective-taking, and foster progressive communication to drive change. 

Founding and working on Ballot Wise has been a journey that I am privileged to have contributed to, especially because voting is an issue that I find myself resonating with. The world needs more voices, specifically those of women who have been historically marginalized, and voting is the one way to redistribute power and leadership globally. Through this, we would be able to advocate for all the worthy missions, be them sustainability or equality or human rights. It all starts with democracy. The HP Girls Save the World Prize is not solely about the funding for me [although that would certainly further our cause :)], it's about the recognition of women everywhere achieving milestones in public service and global progress; it's about preserving and furthering the integrity of civic duty; it's about empowerment. 

I am a storyteller, a debater, a design thinker. I believe that creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration are the principles that underpin successful ideation and innovation. And these values can only be embodied if we preserve democracy globally, which is why Ballot Wise's method of providing personalized policy analyses based on voters' input demographics is so necessary today. As a low-income woman of color, I want to know how certain policies or bills are going to impact my everyday life. I want to feel like I have the power to effect a change in society. I want to build a society that prizes revolutionary ideals, and voting can change the world.

It certainly sounds like an ambitious goal to tackle global voter turnout, but if the world demands the power of women, it's worth it. A high voter turnout can change the outcome of an election, transforming the fate of a country politically, economically, and socially, which has a trickle down effect on women in society. It's time to give democracy the attention it needs. The Pozen Social Innovation Prize is not solely about the funding for me [although that would certainly further our cause :)], it's about the recognition of women everywhere achieving milestones in public service and global progress; it's about preserving and furthering the integrity of civic duty; it's about empowerment.