Ballotpedia: Citizens Putting the Web to Work for Democracy

Dang, Sibby -- that's very cool!

Just when you think his quixotic crusades have made him irrelevant, Steve Sibson of Sibby Online offers one of the coolest little websites for practical citizen democracy I've seen all year. Sibson's trip to the SamSphere Chicago blogger conference last weekend brought to his attention Ballotpedia, "The Encyclopedia of Citizen-Powered Democracy." It's a wiki (strange cousin to blogs) where anyone can sign up and contribute information about " citizen initiatives, ballot access, petition drives, initiative and referendum for political change, and associated subjects."It uses the same software as (and looks much like) Wikipedia, the flagship wiki and bane of college professors*.

Why is this website cool? Let's say you're trying to find out about ballot initiatives in South Dakota. You go to Ballotpedia, click, click, there you are: South Dakota 2008 Ballot Measures. You see all of the ballot measures submitted and circulating. You also see that the deadline for submitting ballot initiatives is today. (The SB 174 referrers have until June 16.)

Oops! You also see that the page hasn't been updated to reflect that Leslee Unruh dropped by the Capitol yesterday and dropped off petitions with 46,000 signatures. Oh, but it's a wiki, so I register, log in, edit the page, and presto! It's updated. (You're welcome, Leslee.)

What makes the wiki cooler than the Secretary of State's website on ballot measures is that citizens can add and edit information themselves, plus all that splendid linkability. You can get the rules on the ballot process itself. You can click on a ballot measure and get a page with external links to news stories, government information, and websites advocating for and against the measure. And if there's a really useful link that's not there, you can put it there yourself.

Consider the Ballotpedia page on the SB 174 referral. Right now, it includes a section listing supporters of the measure. It also includes three external references: the LRC's webpage on SB 174 and favorable blog posts from Sibby and me. Suppose you think the page should include a list of opponents and their reasons for opposition. Well, you log in, type a nice heading and the names of Kevin Schieffer and other DM&E honchos, and there you go!

Welcome to the 21st century, democracy. This is really, really cool.

And Steve, you just made my dissertation!

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*Actually, that's not wholly true. I've always viewed Wikipedia as a convenient online version of Cliff Claven: full of information for casual use, less annoying, but not a source to cite in academic papers. But a couple weeks ago, a prof in one of my graduate classes posted three student essays as exemplars of excellent responses to our midterm. Two of them included multiple references to Wikipedia. I was... disappointed.