Fotini Markopoulou

Cityzen is a digital voting system that makes the rich landscape of our voices tangible, reducing the distractions of democracy and the effort required by people and government to participate. 

As it stands, voting remains stubbornly old-style, refusing to join the digital age. People trust and appreciate paper ballots more than internet voting.  They choose mountains of paper painstakingly counted by hand over computerised systems which they view as unaccountable, untrackable and impersonal.  Avant-garde movements advocate for the richer political practice that digital voting makes possible but they create complexity that makes them impractical.

Cityzen approaches digital voting not as a political issue, but rather a design one: How do you make a voting system that enables the rich experience of digital voting while keeping the process simple?  And how do you overcome people’s preconceptions against digital voting?

The design uses values-based data analytics to help people form voting circles within which they can flexibly switch between voting for issues and delegating their vote, using an anonymised but trackable process.  The joint vision of the people is displayed for all to see, as a resource for government and a civic engagement map for the citizens.