VoteOn

Inspiration

Two problems inspire our project in policy-making: low community participation and lack of comprehensive data for policy-makers.

First, citizens currently participate in policy-making by contacting their elected officials, participating in public hearings, or using social media to raise awareness. We want to facilitate community involvement in government & community decision-making that impact our lives. Often, community members are unaware of local issues. We provide a central platform to view all the issues proposed by the government and community. Furthermore, we enable easy participation in policy-making through a website that can be used at home.

Second, Policymakers gather information from public inputs through various means, such as public hearings, town hall meetings, and surveys, to understand the perspectives and priorities of the community they serve. They may also consult with experts and stakeholders in relevant fields to gain further insight and understanding of the issue at hand. We want to add a third approach by utilizing data gathered from users. The decision-maker will then use the data collected from voters through an analytics dashboard.

What it does

VoteOn has three primary functions:

1. Users browse local policies proposed by the local government & community to increase their awareness and provide their input on nearby issues/ideas.
2. Users vote on and discuss local policies to provide their conviction.
3. Government officials view data analysis on proposals by the government and the community after the deadline has passed.

How we built it

VoteOn is built around React and a variety of UI frameworks(Tailwind, MaterialUI, and ChakraUI)

Challenges we ran into

Deciding on a project idea was our biggest challenge. We spent around 4 hours identifying problems and solutions before settling on the idea. Choosing what parts to implement for a basic prototype was also a challenge since we’re all back-end developers, and this was a more front-end focused product, as the ease of usability and display was a key focus point.

What we learned

React. Two of the three team members had little to no experience with React before this project. We also researched resources for civic engagement and issues faced by society that could be solved collectively.

What's next for VoteOn

Built With

• materialui
• react
• tailwind