IserveU, made-in-Yellowknife website, aims at crowdsourcing democracy

A group of enterprising young Yellowknifers are aiming to run a slate of candidates in this fall's municipal election that would have one thing in common: a pledge to vote on controversial issues according to users of its website.

IserveU the name of the website and the non-profit group that created it is planning to run at least three candidates in the Oct. 19 election. All three candidates, whose names have yet to be announced, will sign a contractand make an on-camera oathcommitting to vote according to the website's results.

"They're not robot councillors," said Dane Mason, the organization's director of communications. "They have their own platform, they have their own beliefs, and they want to represent you."

In the majority of cases, the IserveU councillors, if elected, would cast votes the way councillors do now by learning about the issues, engaging in debates and making a decision they believe will serve the city. They may also gather opinions or comments from the IserveU site.

But where organizers really expect the site to make a difference is on controversial decisions. In those cases, voters can log their own vote onthe site a vote the IserveU councillor will then submit in council chambers.

"It's essentially a referendum without the significant cost, and without the significant time commitments on behalf of public service," Mason said.

The goal is to make local politics "more accessible, more accountable and more transparent."

The group citesReddit, the online bulletin board system that bills itself "the front page of the internet," as a model. On Reddit, registered users share news and other material, voting submissions up or down to determine the top posts.

IserveU wants to do something similar, whereusers share comments on issues, and others vote on the comments.

Right now, IserveU, which is privately funded by one of its founders, has one paid programmer, one graphic designer, one person in charge of social media and one volunteer coordinator. About 30 other people, including Mason, are volunteers.

'The world's first-ever direct e-democracy'

On Monday evening, about a dozen of those volunteersand some brand new onesgathered at a local coffee shop to practice door-to-door canvassing. The goal for now is to sign people up to the site and explain how it works.

The canvassing will ramp up until Sept 4, when nominations officially open. Then, "we'll be putting all our efforts into promoting the candidates running under the banner of IserveU," Mason said.

While no sitting city councillors have signed on to the idea, Mason said they have three "strong candidates" and are actively seeking more.

"By electing five candidates to City Hall on the IserveU platform this fall, we want Yellowknife to become the world's first-ever direct e-democracy," reads part of the group's online mission statement.

With five councillors in a chamber of eight, IserveU councillors would be able to determine the outcome of any vote.

How will they verify who's using the site? What if the project goes bankrupt? What about people who aren't online all the time?

An FAQ on the IserveU websiteanswers most of these questions:

"IserveU uses the existing elections registry checker... to ensure you're a Yellowknife resident,"it reads.

The society, it claims, is well funded, with enough money in the bank to operate for 10 years.

As for those who aren'tweb-savvy, volunteers are also putting time into projects like the keyboard lab at the Avensseniors centre, and the group promises more outreach activities.

The Oct. 19 Yellowknife municipal election will serve as a live testing ground for the project, but the open-source software is free for anyone to use, and its founders hope it could travel far and wide.

"Yellowknife is a pioneering community," Mason says. "Innovation has always been a way of life here, both by its historical isolation and the type of people that tend to call Yellowknife home.

"To have the most accessible and accountable municipal government in the world would be a pretty cool innovation."