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Democracy Network (NPT Innovation Example)
Introduction
DNet is an interactive, non-partisan voter education website run in by the Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) and the League of Women Voters (LWV). DNet is an interactive website designed to improve the quality and quantity of voter information and create a more educated and involved electorate. DNet encourages candidates to address a wider range of issues and to address those issues in greater depth than they might in other media. DNet increases voter understanding of important public policy problems, allows candidates to debate their positions in an "electronic town hall" before an online audience, reduces pressures on candidates to raise campaign funds, and fosters greater civic participation and interaction between voters and candidates.
Background
DNet was launched during the 1996 presidential elections and has provided in-depth coverage of hundreds of campaigns. In conjunction with its national partner, the League of Women Voters, and other regional partners, DNet has covered elections for U.S. President, U.S. Senate, Congress, statewide offices, state legislative offices, local offices and ballot measures. DNet was launched nationally as a part of Web White Blue Day on October 6, 1998.
In past elections, voters have used one site for voter registration information, other sites for candidate issue positions, biographies and endorsements, additional sites for background materials on key issues, and still other sites for campaign finance information, election news and other information. DNet has a unique opportunity to change all that. Working together with other non-profit organizations, we can greatly improve on past models. We will integrate the best of our content, and guide users to other key election information sources, helping voters navigate - with a few clicks of a mouse - through a single portal that gives them the information they need to make good decisions.
Level of Innovation
The heart of DNet is a database of textual, audio and video statements, which candidates can directly and remotely update, and voters can access according to their interests. Using an ID and password, candidates enter up to 1,000 words on any issue they wish. Their position is automatically entered in a Candidate Grid, which indicates their position with a large red check and states "no comment" opposite their opponents' names. The candidates' positions are emailed to the opponents who are thereby encouraged to submit statements as well. DNet's database allows candidates to upload and continually update their statements. Other features include:
- Who's Running: candidate biographies, contacts and endorsements.
- Issues: index of issues debated in each office and a national "issue of the day" feature.
- Your Views: space for citizen interaction with candidates, elected officials, community leaders and other citizens, using interviews, polls, bulletin boards and a chat area.
- Take Action: email form allowing citizens to communicate directly with campaigns, make contributions or volunteer their services for candidates.
- Campaign Finance: links to official campaign finance figures for candidates and ballot measure campaigns, where available.
- Ballot Measures: official ballot measure information, where available
- Media: central source for editorials, news and updated listings of debates and political events, including links to local, state and national news services.
- Voting Information: local voting information, including registration deadlines, absentee ballot information and links to polling place information, where available.
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Project Budget Costs per state: ,613
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Measures of Success
User feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. DNet has also won numerous awards and recently was named a Laureate by the Computer World Smithsonian Award Committee. DNet's "hit rate" jumped from 16,000 hits a day to a high of 768,000 hits a day on election day. In fact, DNet received over 5.5 million "hits" for the 1998 general election cycle.
Next Steps
In 2000, DNet will expand its national reach by covering every federal election in the US -- from President through all congressional elections -- statewide elections in 11 states, and districted state and local elections in many others.
Discussions are underway with a number of organizations to create "smart links" between sites - allowing voters to move between easily between sites to get the information they want, when they want it. Highlighting other key election information providers will also help achieve our goal of increased voter information. Some of these could include campaign finance information from the Center for Responsive Politics, voter registration and young adult outreach through Rock the Vote, candidate questionnaires through Project Vote Smart, and K-12 curriculum materials and voting simulations through Kids Voting USA.
Additionally, DNet is attempting to help commercial sites reach the next level in good "Netizenship," offering a space that is not defined solely by the bottom line. We are working hard to find ways to distribute our information to two tiers of commercial sites: (i) leading news organizations who need to keep people in their sites while still performing a valuable public service; (ii) top Internet sites that reach a mainstream audience of young people and other typical voters, for whom a DNet link is an easy and valuable way to build a closer relationship with their users through demonstrating public responsibility
Finally, DNet is finding new uses for the database technology it has developed. Working with the National Issues Forum Institute (www.nifi.org), Miami University of Ohio and the University of Georgia, DNet is developing an online "deliberation" system to help users grapple with large policy issues in a new, better informed way. Building on the NIF concept of "public deliberation", we're building online materials and tools to create a way for people with diverse views to interact with one another about public issues that concern them. They weigh the advantages and consequences of different courses of action and, in the process, identify where they can find common ground. A project team has been working since the beginning of 1999 and our first trial is scheduled for this summer.
Lessons Learned
As a result of its national, state and local trials, DNet has begun to accumulate significant evidence to suggest that: political candidates will participate in DNet in significant numbers; and candidates will address a broader range of issues, in greater depth, and with fewer negative
[This is one of six nonprofit examples recognized by OMB Watch's Nonprofits' Policy and Technology (NPT) Project for effective use of technology in their public policy activities through the 1999 Nonprofit Technology Innovation Awards.]