Online business Toolkit

Obama CTO site lets users vote on tech priorities

Dan Farber CNET News

Published: 13 Nov 2008 15:33 GMT

Using an application from UserVoice, Seattle-based programmers have launched a website, Obama CTO, which allow citizens to list and vote on what should be the top technology priorities for the new administration.

"User voting is an easy way for people to prioritise ideas," said Matt Lerner, chief technology officer of Front Seat, which created the site.

Lerner and his co-workers are focused on making use of public data for civic good. "We have been interested in all the government data that is available," he said. "There is a treasure trove, such as data on campaign finance and voting records, but it is not standardised or structured, and doesn't have any APIs. Many innovations would be created if the data were available to programmers."

Lerner gave a few examples of applications built around government data. Voting records are publicly available but must be accessed from each county in the US and then normalised. "You could have maps of a block and see who hasn't registered to vote", so that they could then be persuaded to do so, Lerner explained. Voter data is available from private firms such as Catalyst Consulting, Lerner said, but is expensive.

With census data on whether people drive, walk or take public transportation to work, activists could encourage people to be more environmentally responsible. Front Seat has also developed Walk Score, which ranks the 'walkability' of 2,508 neighbourhoods in the largest 40 US cities.