Democracy Club is a hugely important initiative that has as its mission
“An ambitious goal to provide accurate, non-partisan information on every election and candidate in the UK, unbiased and unfiltered”
It is a club consisting of a large network of volunteers across the country, with a similar, but smaller, community of civic minded technologists, and a tiny core team that makes it all happen – it’s a great model.
When an election is coming up, Democracy Club puts on volunteer ‘SOPN Parties’ where volunteers work together to get information from the official documents into two easy-to-use (and find) websites:
WhereDoIVote.co.uk and WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk
(Which do what they say on the tin.)
We are proud to be working with Democracy Club ahead of the May Council Elections to host just such a party in Cambridge – sign up, bring a laptop and help get information to voters where they need it!
From Democracy Club’s website:
???? What’s going on? ????
There are local elections across England and Northern Ireland on 2 May 2019. We all need to know who we can vote for. But it’s not always easy to find out about your candidates.
At these events, we’ll be taking candidate lists (‘statements of persons nominated’) that councils publish (often PDF files) and turning this information into useful, accessible data. The information that we gather during the event will then be available to voters via a website called Who Can I Vote For? – and will be shared via many other websites and apps.
???????? How can you join in?????????
You don’t need any technical knowledge or experience to take part, just a laptop. The task is easy, and our volunteers will be there to help. What makes it challenging is the vast amount of information. Thousands of candidates will be standing in these local elections. But with volunteers like you around the country pitching in to help, we can make a real difference for voters in double-quick time.
This is something simple and practical that we can all do to help improve our democracy.
Everyone is welcome. Sign up by choosing a link above. You’ll need a laptop, maybe a power cord and it might be helpful to get an account set up on our crowdsourcing website. We’ll bring snacks and drinks.
???? Can’t make those dates/places? ????
Join in online! We’ll be hunting for the official documents from 4pm Thursday 4 April and then they’ll be on the website for online volunteering wherever you are!
There will be lots to do, so chip in whenever you can! If you have questions, you can hop in our online chat (Slack) where lots of other volunteers will be hanging out.
Millions of voters will be searching for information on and around 2 May. Let’s help them get an answer!
SIGN UP and we’ll see you on Thursday
Photo by Adam Whitlock on Unsplash