Earlier today, David Cameron outlined new Conservative plans “for real change in politics”. In a speech entitled “Big ideas to give Britain Real Change”, he described 9 ideas for real change in Politics. Ideas include:

1. No more unelected Prime Ministers
2. Opening up democracy: More postal primaries
3. Expanding the Freedom of Information Act
4. Neighbourhood budgets: giving neighbourhoods direct funding
5. Public drafting: “Crowdsourcing” the drafting of government legislation
6. Opening up parliament: a Public Reading Day
7. Protecting whistleblowers: Strengthening protection on government waste and misuses of public money
8. A new right to data: Right to Data Act
9. Strengthening Select Committees

Of particular interest to those in favour of a more Open Government are the plans for:

Expanding the Freedom of Information Act

The Conservatives plan to expand the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to include taxpayer-funded bodies such as Northern Rock and Network Rail, along with bodies such as the Local Government Association. The idea is to provide the public with access to a wide range of government information previously not freely available.

Public drafting: “Crowdsourcing” the drafting of government legislation

Late last year, the Conservatives announced a competition to create an online platform to through which citizens can post ideas in relation to government policy. The intention was to create a platform through which ‘the collective wisdom of the British people’ could be harnessed to improve draft legislation.

The Conservatives claim “Government legislation is often hastily drafted, leading to unintended consequences in the law.” As such, they plan to

pilot a new ‘crowd-sourcing’ approach to drafting legislation, enabling expert members of the public to play a role. This will help produce better Bills.

This new system of ‘Public Drafting’, will allow members of the public the opportunity to engage with and improve the drafting of legislation. It will have four stages:

• The Department sponsoring the legislation will publish detailed instructions on the policy intentions of the legislation online, as well an explanation of the constraints within which all clauses will have to be drafted.

• People will register for an online forum that allows them to submit draft clauses they believe will achieve the specified policy aims. We expect this to include lawyers, academics and other experts. If needed, contributors will also be able to ask the sponsoring Department questions to clarify the drafting instructions, and these questions and answers will be posted online.

• All public contributions will be open to review, comment and amendment from other registered participants, and participants will be encouraged to rate all submissions.

• At the end of the process, the highest rated drafts will go forward to be considered by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the official government drafters of all legislation. The decision on whether to accept, in whole or in part, any of the top rated drafting suggestions will rest entirely with the Parliamentary Counsel.

They reference Beth Noveck’s book on Wiki Government and the Peer to Patent pilot project as a model on which ‘Public Drafting’ would be based.

Opening up parliament: a Public Reading Day

As part of their aim to “throw open the doors of Parliament” the Conservatives have announced a “Public Reading Stage for legislation” which would take place before a bill goes to Committee stage for deliberation. The idea is to give the public a chance to feed in their comments on proposed legislation which would then be considered by elected officials:

The Public Bill Committee process will include a formal Public Reading Day, when MPs and Lords formally consider and discuss the points submitted by the public. This process will help open up the legislative process and improve the scrutiny of proposed legislation, while still retaining the fundamental character of our representative democracy.

A new right to data: Right to Data Act

The Conservatives propose a “Right to Data Act”  to give members of the public a legally enforceable ‘Right to Data’. This will allow for members to the public to appeal if public bodies refuse requests for data collected by government. They claim this:

radical policy will help transform the culture of the public sector from one that presumes secrecy to one that presumes datasets should be open and shared with the public on an ongoing basis.

The Conservatives look set to expand the reach of data.gov.uk through making more datasets available particularly in relation to government spending. As part of this, they reference the President Obama and how he has promoted transparency in government spending through the establishment of Recovery.gov and the bill enacting USAspending.gov.

People power through electoral reform

Overall it looks like an interesting set of ideas that expand on David Cameron’s ideas on People Power and the Conservative manifesto’s ‘Invitation to join the government’. However, while this agenda establishes a progressive stance towards open government, it does not mention topics such as electoral reform which would enshrine a more fundamental change into British politics. It’s not to say the Conservatives don’t have ideas on this – their manifesto contains pledges on petitions to secure debates in Parliament and reform of the House of Lords – it’s just that fundamental people power i.e. through the power of the vote, is not adequately addressed.

According to yesterday’s BBC poll of polls: Liberal Democrats with 30% of the vote will get 102 seats, Conservatives with 33% get 258 seats, while Labour coming in third with 27% will emerge as the victor with 261 seats. Will Hutton, of the Work Foundation, summed up the situation:

We want our votes and opinions to count. Yet the majority of us vote in constituencies which are essentially rotten boroughs that will return the same party come what may. Your choice, if not from a winning party, is not to vote or vote tactically. Only in the 100 or so marginals, where Lord Ashcroft has directed his millions, is there a genuine political contest. It is the fast road to voter disengagement.

Analogous to this Polly Toynbee of the Guardian explained ‘we need to change the system to make every single vote count’.

The Liberal Democrats support a change to the voting system through the introduction of proportional representation. They believe this is a much fairer and more equitable system. This is supported by advocacy groups such as Vote for a Change. However, as it’s unlikely the Liberal Democrats will be the largest party at the next election, they are calling for a Hung Parliament as a means of achieving this electoral reform.

The new economics foundation’s Vote Power Index, demonstrates the unequal distribution of electoral power under the current UK voting system. The index calculates the value of a vote in a constituency based on the number of votes and the chances of the seat changing hands.

Stephen Whitehead explained the two startling findings of the index:

Firstly, it shows the staggering inefficiency of our system in translating votes into outcomes. Thanks to the vast number of votes that are effectively wasted, almost three quarters of voting power is squandered.

Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, the index highlights the chronic injustice of our system. In the UK the luckiest fifth of voters have more than 33 times more power than the unluckiest fifth. This is a far more uneven distribution than household income in the UK.

This index highlights the need to change Britain’s electoral system to establish a voting regime that recognises the importance and significant of each vote, and ensures the majority opinion of people throughout the country is reflected in the Houses of Parliament.

Now that really would be a big idea.

Further reading

• Vote for a Change
• Electoral Reform Society
• Electoral dysfunction: Why democracy is always unfair

With only two weeks left to vote in the POWER 2010 campaign, the top ideas have already amassed considerable support, with the introduction of a proportional voting system expected to top the poll.

There is, however, an idea that has considerable advantages and breaks new ground in how we think about major decisions facing local and national governments. Before getting into an explanation of the merits of Deliberative polling, it’s important to understand the background and aims of the Power 2010 campaign.

What is Power 2010?

The campaign is a truly diverse and mass discussion on the shape of British democracy. In just over 2 months it has received over 4,500 ideas from the public  to change how we do politics in this country.

The Power 2010 campaign explains itself as a means of giving “everyone the chance to have a say in how our democracy works for us”:

We need a healthy democracy that works for all of us and not just a powerful few. POWER2010 exists to help create it. It gives you the chance to have your say on how our democracy works so that together we can change it for the better.

Do you want cleaner funding? Fairer voting? More accountability? You decide. Tell us your ideas for changing the way we run our country. Those with most support will become the POWER2010 Pledge and the focus for our national campaign at the next election.

Deliberative poll (London, UK – Renewing British Democracy)

The POWER2010 campaign kicked off in early January with a Deliberative Poll in central London. Over 130 participants of all backgrounds and walks of life, were brought together to discuss proposals for democratic reform submitted by members of the public (phase 2 above).

The participants were representative of the population as a whole, and received balanced briefing materials detailing each of the reform ideas, with arguments for and against along with axillary background information. They deliberated in small groups with trained moderators and engaged in plenary sessions with experts. Participants’ opinions were gathered through confidential questionnaires before and after deliberations.

Together, by talking through the issues and cross-examining experts from across the spectrum of opinion, participants assembled a shortlist of reforms which they think can bring democracy back to the people.

Some of the comments from participants at the event illustrate the power of constructive debate amongst a diverse range of people:

“it has been good to meet people that don’t think like me, have completely different views, but then find out why”

“it’s quite a good learning process for me. I don’t think I knew an awful lot about politics and the processes, and I’m learning a lot here today…It has fired me up to find out more about the political process and perhaps I’ll be attending my local MP’s surgeries and raising a few more questions. ”

“In a few instances, I’ve.. been reformed to a different way of thinking”

While some of the participants were cynical about politicians, they were passionate about making government more democratic. During the event support for a more proportional system, rose from 48% to 53% and is now leading the list of reforms in the public vote.

Deliberative poll (Michigan, US – Solutions for Michigan’s problems)

Last month, Michigan public television stations broadcast “Hard Times, Hard Choices”, a special report on a  statewide citizens’ deliberation. Michigan is facing severe economic problems with rising unemployment and severe budget cutbacks due to the recession and its declining manufacturing base.

Over the weekend of November 13 – 15, 317 Michigan citizens traveled to Lansing to discuss and debate the state’s problems and what to do about them. The participants were a scientific random sample of people, representative of the population in age, education and political persuasion. Upon arrival the participants filled out a questionnaire to determine what preconceived notions and opinions each held on a wide variety of issues directly related to Michigan’s problems and any their views on possible solutions.

As with the Power 2010 event, the participants received background material in advance, debated the issues in small groups and then put their questions to a panel of experts.

The entire process was filmed by PBS to form the documentary below.

Michigan Citizens Deliberate: Part One
Delegates are introduced to the concept of Deliberative polling and discuss jobs and education in Michigan.

Michigan Citizens Deliberate: Part Two Delegates discuss the budget shortfall and the state’s options for taxing and spending.

Michigan Citizens Deliberate: Part Three
Delegates discuss Michigan’s future and the hard economic choices ahead.

The knowledge the participants gleaned over the weekend alone was enough to spur many to a new activism and sense of purpose:

Carol Selden (Spring Arbor): “I need to become more of an informed citizen, and when I’m informed then I’ll be able to the ideas the legislators need to have to make good choices for us”

Michael Petross (Detroit): “In this group I’ve listened to other people’s opinions and I’ve changed some of my opinions.”

Results of Michigan’s first Deliberative Poll show what the people of the state would think if they could all become more informed, and had opportunities to discuss the issues in depth within diverse groups. When participants filled out the same questionnaire on the final day of the deliberative poll the results, showed a dramatic swing in attitudes and opinions in several major areas:

• Respondents were much more willing to support increases in the state income tax and sales tax to eliminate cuts in education and some other social services.

• Respondents were persuaded that cutting both the Michigan Business Tax and reducing small business taxes were among the best ways to attract and keep businesses, thereby creating jobs.

• Support for increased investment in a “green economy”, agriculture, and tourism also went up significantly during the weekend, as did support for a high-tech, knowledge-based economy.

Summary

The resulting changes of opinion in both Deliberative poll examples offer some dramatic recommendations for both policymakers and the public. These events increase public understanding of complex issues, and demonstrate the large difference between people’s uninformed and informed views (witness the comments and changes in support for issues following both Deliberative polls).

Stephen Whitehead, of the new economics foundation, outlines the benefits of the idea succinctly:

Deliberation – getting together and talking about issues – is a powerful tool to produce wise, well-informed decisions. Whilst critics of citizen involvement worry that the public will produce reactionary, conservative or discriminatory decisions, evidence suggests that talking through issues with people from different backgrounds moves people to views which are generous, tolerant and sometimes even imaginative.

Deliberation offers an alternative to the tiresome tug-of-war between proponents of representative and direct democracy. Rather than trusting in political elites to make decisions on our behalf on the basis of a tenuous mandate, or investing power in populist schemes like referenda which can be vulnerable to kneejerk reactions, deliberative democracy aims to create the conditions where the public can bring their wisdom, experience and empathy to decision-making.

So let me join with Stephen, and nearly 600 others, in recommending you to vote for deliberative polling as a means of “putting political power back into the hands of the people best qualified to use it – all of us.”

Further reading

For more on Deliberative polling check:

• Hard Times, Hard Choices Results
• The Center for Deliberative Democracy
• Deliberative Polling (1-pager)
• Tomorrow’s Europe (European Deliberative poll)
• [Video] Channel 4 News Report on Power 2010
• [Book] When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation
• Public Participation methods – Deliberative polling

For details on new ideas from the University of Michigan – (as mentioned in the PBS documentary) – check 1000 pitches.

The RSA recently posted video of Matthew Taylor’s lecture on how brain and behaviour research is increasingly being incorporated into political and policy debate.

A section of the debate is animated below:

His lecture explores what’s wrong with our democracy and what needs to be done. Extracts of the speech are outlined below:

Democracy can only be successful as we the people make it. But how well suited are we to being good democrats. We come, over recent years, to understand more about the idiosyncrasies of our mental processes. Some of these appear to compromise our ability to make wise and fair democratic judgments.

[...] The problem with our democracy is not, as we often think, about the performance of our politicians nor the workings of our constitution, but it’s about the content of the democratic conversation. Proper processes of democratic deliberation in which we either participate directly, or which we can acknowledge as legitimate, would help us to be less petulant, wiser and more responsible task masters for beleaguered representatives. These are some of the practical ways we might encourage people to be better citizens.

[…] I believe both the case for a new collective spirit and the principles that could underpin the development of modern civic and democratic spaces, are to be found in thinking about human nature.

Co-operation and engagement are not things we ought to do, they’re a necessity to help us steer a course through the modern world, using brains that evolved before the invention of the wheel.

[…] As a schoolboy socialist…the first explicitly political arguments I ever had were about human nature. My vision of a good society rested on the view of people as fundamentally collaborative and benign, something only hidden by the depredation of the system.

In this vein, the essence of Gov 2.0 and the Open government movement – as a means of facilitating collaboration and engagement – can, in time, lead to democratic renewal through empowering us all to become better democrats.

Voting is now open for who you think should win Google’s Project 10^100 Prize. Google launched the program a year ago and is committed to awarding $10 million in prizes. More than 150,000 ideas have been submitted in 25 languages. These have been grouped into 16 overall themes, and now they’ve turned to crowdsourcing, as a mechanism to find the most worthy themes. The project’s advisory board will then settle on five projects, and Google will ask companies or organizations to submit a request for proposal in these areas. Those who impress the board will then receive the money. Some of the 16 themes include:

• Promote health monitoring and data analysis

• Help social entrepreneurs drive change

• Provide quality education to African students

• Collect and organize the world’s urban data

• Make educational content available online for free

• Make government more transparent

The theme I’m most interested in, however, is making government more transparent. It’s what I’ve voted for and you can too before 8th October.

Make government more transparent

The theme around government transparency is something with many countries have been experimenting with over the past year. Civic organisations and governments in countries such as the US, UK, Germany, Australia, Netherlands and Sweden have been, or are in the process of, creating open-data catalogues for public consumption. Public information belongs to the Public. It’s it’s make available in easily accessible formats, people will find ways of using it productively e.g. through creating government apps (as San Francisco done).

Google have identified some of the suggestions that inspired this theme. They include:

• Create a “govwatch” program that allows people to enter in geographic and other info and get back information about bills/laws that affect them

Examples of applications exemplifying these theme are already available. ThisWeKnow allows citizens to easily find government data about their community. It was created as part of Sunlight’s Apps for America 2 competition. Another application resulting from this competition is Govpulse. It is based on the official journal of the federal government of the United States. Through this citizens can find any kind of proposal, notification, or solicitation for data that a federal agency puts out. Both these sites can be accessed via a ZIP code, so as to provide local information relevant to communities. Along with these apps, Recovery.gov’s new mapping tools, and the increasing number of transparency websites are allowing citizens to see different kinds of spending data relevant to their communities.

Some sites are already available that enable citizens to easily interact with their representatives through various communications platforms. Sites such as 2Gov.org, TweetCongress/Europatweets/Tweetminister, and HearFromYourMP are all examples of civic initiatives providing citizens with easily accessible platforms in which to contact their elected representatives and monitor their activities. While participation on Twitter does not necessarily translate into citizen engagement – as exemplified through research on Congressional use of Twitter – at least mechanisms such as trending topics and word clouds give an indication of their activity and views on particular issues.

Information Needs

The  goal of making government more transparent also forms one of the recommendations from the recent Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. It’s recommendation is to:

Require government at all levels to operate transparently, facilitate easy and low-cost access to public records, and make civic and social data available in standardized formats that support the productive public use of such data.

As part of this recommendation it believes legislation should be used to ensure openness applies to all public bodies and government contracts. Along with this meetings, legislative bodies and court proceedings should be transparent:

The public’s business should be done in public. Open-meetings laws should require that all public agencies conduct their deliberations and take their actions openly.  The public should be able to witness and participate in the process of governing.  If possible, governments should allow citizens to participate in hearings or other fact-gathering processes electronically.

At every level, legislative bodies should operate with genuine transparency.  Members of the public should be able to track and comment upon successive versions of proposed statutes and ordinances, whether federal, state, or local. Except in genuine emergencies, legislators should not vote on proposals that have not had public vetting with a meaningful opportunity for public comment.

Public trust in the judicial system likewise requires open courtrooms.  In criminal and civil matters, any closing of proceedings or sealing of records should meet a high standard in terms of the public interests protected. Court proceedings, particularly at the appellate level, should be open to cameras.

Similar recommendations were made in last year’s Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-T0-Know Agenda, which provides many significant ideas for improving transparency in government.

US transparency directive as a template

In the US, the Office of Management and Budget is due to issue a long-awaited government directive on Transparency and Openness across government. This directive will be the result of a three-part consultation with the public initiated by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. Ideas and feedback were solicited from the public through online voting and wikis, before the recommendations were drafted.

The development of an Open Government policy should provide more guidance to federal, state and local government, in how they should make data available. This, along with the  National Association of State Chief Information Officers guidance, will provide effective advice for states and others on how to create transparency portals.

The Open Government directive and other guidance from the US can provide a template for other countries, in how the develope their transparency initiatives. Already, countries should as Australia appear to have learned from the US in how they are proceeding with their Government 2.0 initiatives. Their recent MashupAustralia competition, Gov 2.0 brainstorming site and Gov 2.0 issues consultation paper, are all initiatives that have been tried in other countries first:

MashupAustralia (AU) – Apps for Democracy (US)
Government 2.0 Suggestion box (AU) -  Open Government Brainstorm (US)
Commentable Gov 2.0 Issues paper (AU) – Digital Britain report (UK)

fully transparent in our work, participatory in soliciting your ideas and expertise, and collaborative in how we experiment together to use new tools and techniques for developing open government policy.

Kildarestreet.com was launched in May of this year as a means of allowing the public to keep a closer eye on their parliamentary representatives. It allows the public to track the activities of their elected TDs (think Congresspeople/MPs) on an easily accessible and searchable website. The site records all their speeches, remarks and votes in the Dáil and also provides a platform in which citizens can comment and discuss these debates and remarks.

One of the rationals for the site was to make the activities of the Dáil more Open, Transparent and Accessible. The accessibility issue was a major factor in the development of the site. The full text of the Dáil and Seanad, including written answers to parliamentary questions were already published on the Oireachtas website. Searching this site, however, and contextualizing and linking the comments to individual representatives was difficult. Kildarestreet.com solves these issues by linking together TD’s Dáil activity in a transparent and accessible format, thus providing greater accountability to the people for all their actions in parliament.

Site contents

KildareStreet.com contains information on the profile and performance of TDs not currently available on any Government sites. It has profile pages for each TD which lists their voting record, constituency details, topics of interest, Dáil activities (including Debates and written answers) and a numerical comparison of their parliamentary participation versus others e.g. how many debates they have spoken in compared to other TDs.

The site was developed by John Handelaar and is based on, and uses the same Open source software as, the UK website TheyWorkForYou.com. He notes some of the site features as:

• A dramatically-more-legible version of the Dáil Record going back to January 2004,
• Searches restricted to speeches or written questions, by speaker, or by date or date range,
• Sign up for email alerts for when a search query you’re interested changes, or whenever a TD of your choosing says something or asks a question which generates a written reply, and
• Subscribe to RSS feeds for individual TDs or for search queries.

Inconsistent data

The site relies on the ‘canonical’ version of the Official Parliamentary Record provided by the Oireachtas.  Debates and questions need to be extracted from raw XML files provided by a third party working for the Oireachtas.

Handelaar explains this process:

The trick, however, is to get all the actual debates and questions into the site’s database. You need to build a parser program to convert all that data from one format into another — in Ireland’s case, from the raw XML published by the Houses of the Oireachtas which is primarily intended as a print publishing format for the official record, but which also powers debates.oireachtas.ie.

Soon after the site was up and running, however, these data feeds started to cause issues. The problems encountered are all outlined on the KildareStreet.com blog:

• 8th May -

For reasons I cannot hope to explain, the Oireachtas has a production process for the Official Record which is bound by no formal timeframes, nor any published targets, nor apparently any guarantee that the material produced will be correct within a timeframe useful to anyone but historians.

Today, for the second time in a week, the official data from which we generate this web site has been released on the official website in a severely mangled manner. You can see at the time of writing that yesterday, the adjournment debate apparently contained over three hundred and fifty contributions, there were no written answers to questions, and the phrase “as of 01 May 2009″ has been inexplicably promoted to the rank of “major heading”.

• 13th May -

The Oireachtas official report printing company has once again mangled all the written answers from yesterday…They’ve now blown this three times in eight sitting days – not an impressive way for a recipient of public funds to deliver value, is it?

• 11th June -

Our apologies — the official report is once again in a state of utter nonsensical garbage because someone’s published a debate XML file which can’t possibly even validate under their own rules…Stepping into an overly-specific technical domain for a moment, and to ask a question which only they and we understand: why –

1. …do you use a DTD which permits you to enter Question elements under a ‘General Debate’ heading?
2. Conversely, if the DTD isn’t broken and in fact doesn’t permit that, why aren’t you USING IT to validate your output?
3. And since when was <table> a valid element to start a Debate section with?

We ask because these three points, if understood properly, would cover almost every single cockup you’ve made since we launched.

• 26th June -

You won’t get your email alert today because the Oireachtas debates production system is garbage operated by people who don’t care about the quality of their work.

[June 26] You know what? I’m done being polite about this.

Every single day this week, the official report has been dripping with errors and stupidity. Just now they updated the file from yesterday and instead of simply adding the remaining debates, the new file destroys yesterday’s written questions in the exact same way that we keep pointing out.

Tuesday’s debate record was unparseably-broken until yesterday morning. Wednesday of this week is currently complete garbage (update: this was finally fixed on July 1st, a week after it was originally broken), and now Thursday’s stuffed as well.

There are three sitting days each week. This week they screwed up with all of them.

The comments above highlight the frustrations involved with the release of poorly formatted government  data. These data feeds are provided by a private company, but as Handelaar notes “the only thing which makes the official site work properly is having us shout at them loudly and in public.”

One of the Open Government Data principles requires data to be Machine Processable: Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing. Unfortunately, the frequent formatting errors contained in the Oireachtas files make this machine processing very difficult. It therefore makes the Dáil less accountable for its actions, and more open to cynicism by those disenfranchised with the political process.

Reconnecting the Dáil with the people

Last month, the Dáil opened its doors to thousands of people as part of a family day. 8,000 tickets were made available to members of the public and these were snapped up within 24 hours. The Ceann Comhairle (Chairman of the Dáil) was quoted as saying the level of interest in the family day made a clear statement that people do wish to connect with their parliament, their politicians and the political process.

In order to facilitate this connection, however, the Oireachtas needs to ensure more competent processes are followed in the release of its data. The Irish Government should embrace the tenets of the Transparency and Open Government directive as outlined by President Obama. The principle of Transparency is outlined as:

Government should be transparent.  Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.  Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.

The success of Kildarestreet.com – an average of 3,000 pages viewed each day and hundreds of people signed up for email alerts – highlights the Irish public’s appetite for information about the activities of their elected representatives. Satisfying this demand through the timely release of data, can help citizens reengage in the democratic process, and hold their TDs more accountable for their actions. It has already uncovered some interesting trends in answers to questions, and can serve as a valuable resource for those investigating their TD’s performance come election time.

The movement towards Openness and Transparency in relation to government data has been steadily advancing throughout the developed world. The Whitehouse Open Government initiative demonstrates how governments are realizing the benefits of a more open and engaged public. As a corollary, Tim Berners-Lee says “2009 is the year for putting government data online”.

Kildarestreet.com is just one of a number of worldwide sites including Opencongress, TheyWorkForYou.co.nz and OpenAustralia, that seek to make the activities of their Parliament more accessible and transparent. It’s up to Government to ensure they provide the platform upon which to enable these important civic endeavors. The Government’s role should be to at least provide the raw data upon which others can create contextualized applications and mashups. Without this data, the public’s engagement with the political process will be less informed, thus reducing the accountability of those elected to serve us.