#rC3 Patching Democracy

rc3 hacc preroll music

Herald: Welcome to the hackrf channel.
Today under the title Patching Democracy.

Today we're talking about the era of
digitalization, as well as about the

understanding of the enormous importance
of digital tools in both private and

public life, because we need it to reduce
the world's complexity to an amount that

we can actually handle. This is something
that is very important, for example, in

democracies. Especially when talking about
decision making, like for example, the

voting advice application that we have in
Germany, the Wahl-o-mat is a very good

example of making parties comparable to
common people all over the place. But

those machines are like those Wahl-o-mats
are very expensive and thus they are only

available for larger elections. And this
is a problem that is actually handleable.

This is what Till Sander does with his
voting advice application that is

called... wait a second

with his open election compass
and he actually was approached by the

small city of Lüdenscheid to develop
something that could actually do something

that the Wahl-o-mat also does. And when he
found out that this is actually something

that needs to be provided also for smaller
elections and that is actually affordable,

he is actually a web designer, decided to
do it in a bigger way. So he wanted to

make it open source and thus created this
platform that he now talks about in his

lecture that we provide to you right now.
You can also ask questions that will be

answered in the following Q&A and on
Twitter, as well as on the IRC. Under the

hashtag rc3hacc and the channel rc3-hacc.
Now enjoy the talk.

Till Sanders: Welcome to Patching
Democracy. This is a short introduction to

applications like the German Wahl-o-mat
and why we might not need to hack

democracy. In this talk, I will
demonstrate how we can improve elections

and political education everywhere, thanks
to free and open source software.

Researchers of the Friedrich-Ebert-
Foundation found that only a third of the

population believes in a brighter future.
Less than half of our society is satisfied

with how our democracy works. In parts of
Germany, this drops even further to about

a third. Even worse, three out of four
Germans feel like politicians don't care

about their concerns. And lastly, many
people even agree that it doesn't make a

difference which parties form the
government. Studies like these question

the state our democracy is in. Is our
democracy broken? Let's take a look at

some other results of the same study. Only
1.3 % want an authoritative figure with

extensive powers to make the law. With the
rise of the extreme right this is a good

thing. While 88% of us think that
politicians make more promises than they

can keep, the majority acknowledges that
politicians do have a difficult job. And

out of several problems, a great majority
identified a lack of participation in

elections as the biggest problem. Our
democracy generally fails to make everyone

happy and to be fair, that's somewhat the
point. But while many people have issues

with our democracy, they also seem to
believe that it is still the way to go.

Democracy is not broken. It is just our
implementation of it that is experiencing

technical difficulties. Hi, my name is
Till, and I'm here to fix this. Not alone,

of course, but I'm happy to be, you know,
someone just doing what he knows best and

I like all those numbers might suggest I'm
not even a political scientist. I'm, in

fact a designer and web developer. And as
such what I enjoy most is the challenge of

making complex concepts easily accessible,
preferably with beautiful user interfaces.

I'd like to first introduce you to the
idea and short history of voting advice

applications. We will then dig in a little
deeper and establish important principles

that make VAAs successful. There's also
going to be a little hands on with the

FOSS project I have developed in the last
year. Once I've shown you the tools, I'll

talk about how you can run your own
election compass and what to consider when

doing so. And off we go! Our story begins
in the Netherlands. In 1989, the Dutch

Citizenship Foundation, the documentation
center of Dutch political parties and the

faculty of Political Management of the
University of Twente start a collaboration

to develop the Stemwijzer. A booklet
containing 60 statements found in the

programs of political parties and a
diskette. Well, it's 1989. The idea proves

popular and evolves to the first Internet
election compass for the Dutch

parliamentary elections in 1998. Although
the project can only attract 6500 voters,

subsequent implementations in 2002 and
2003 attract about 2 million voters, which

quickly become 5 million voters in 2006,
which is about a third of the entire Dutch

population. Success began spreading to
other countries, the first election

compass I myself ever came across was the
German Wahl-o-mat, based on the StemWijzer

itself, the Federal Agency for Civic
Education, the BPB, released the first

Wahl-o-mat in 2002. It's fair to say that
the VAA concept is now well-established in

Germany and other countries. Usage in
Germany has increased to 33% of cast votes

in 2017. Think about that for a moment.
One in three voters has used the Wahl-o-

mat at some point before going to the
ballot. As software projects of the German

government go, this might well be the most
successful yet, doubly so if you consider

the costs of some spectacular failures in
the past. So what did the first voting

advice applications actually look like?
Let's take a look at the first Wahl-o-mat

from nearly two decades ago. The Internet
was quite different back in those days.

Many user interface patterns were yet to
be discovered or refined and users were

less experienced. On a side note.
Technically, this website from 18 years

ago still runs perfectly fine in a modern
day browser. Web technologies are amazing.

Anyway, despite these slight difficulties
and the Wahl-o-mat being a new concept,

there are very few instructions. This is
because the core concept was and still is

incredibly simple. You are presented with
a sequence of statements or a thesis. You

can choose to approve or reject or remain
neutral to a thesis. If you don't really

understand the meaning or the issue behind
it, you can also skip a thesis. After

about 30 statements, you can choose
categories that are more important to you,

so they are counting double. The political
parties or candidates answer the same

theses. At the end your answers are
compared to those of the parties showing

you potential matches. Fast forward to
today. The idea is about 30 years old now.

In this time it spread not only to Germany
but also to Belgium, Finland, Denmark,

Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Austria,
Switzerland and many other countries,

continents even. The teams behind
StemWijzer inspired most European

countries and others around the world.

Let's talk about VAAs in more depth. What

are they actually good for? Why do people
use them? How do their mechanisms work and

does their popularity make them dangerous?
So what do we actually want to achieve?

What is the purpose of voting advice
applications? Since their inception, the

target group are actually young, even
first-time voters. I guess the reasoning

behind this is that the older people get
the more experienced they are with the

political landscape, or at least they
should be. The term voting advice

application suggests that the purpose is
to advise users on who to vote for. Now, I

must say, I've been struggling with this
name. I find it counterintuitive because

from what I've seen, this is actually not
the purpose of these projects. And that's

good because imagine for a second what
this would mean. Many VAAs are designed

and controlled by government agencies. So
who would want to live in a democracy

where the government gives you advice on
who to vote for in the election? So

although it's called a voting advice
application, the Wahl-o-mat does not

actually want to give you advice. It's
even written there on the very first page,

right above the start button. The Wahl-o-
mat is not voting advice, but an offer of

information about elections and politics.
I found this disclaimer in every VAA I

have come across so far. OK, so the
purpose of VAAs is, despite their name,

not to give voting advice. Good. Except,
they kind of do, don't they? We don't give

you any advice well, we do, but don't take
our word for it. We've warned you not to

take this as an advice. Now go ahead and
get not-an-advice. Maybe it's just me, but

I think this is quite german. VAAs have a
positive impact on political education.

This might be the main aspect, they have
originally been designed for. VAAs want to

have a positive impact on political
education. As I understand it, this topic

sadly needs more research. But with the
research done so far, we can assume that

this is indeed the case. It appears to be
uncertain to what extent exactly, and this

will also depend on the individual VAA.
But there is a positive impact. VAAs do

not improve the knowledge about political
structures like how the ballot works, how

the allotment of seats in parliament
works, etc. But they can improve knowledge

about the policy issues, what the upcoming
election is about, what parties there are,

and where the parties stand. VAAs also
lead to discussions about these issues and

parties which can also improve political
knowledge in peer groups. So as far as we

know today, this claim is true and it is
an important benefit of election compasses

or VAAs, because as research shows, most
people in Germany are able to place

parties on the spectrum of left and right
correctly. But at the same time, many

people are unable to place parties
correctly when it comes to policy issues.

So missing political knowledge and
misinformation can actually lead to people

voting against their own interests. VAAs
promote electoral participation. What

makes people vote? To answer this
question, we can take a look at the

reasons why some people don't. And one of
the main reasons why some people don't

vote is because they don't feel like their
position is reflected by any of the

existing parties. Our political system is
complex and our political landscape, our

parties and their programs doubly so.
People that have a better understanding

and more knowledge of the choices they
have… are more likely to cast a vote. Just

imagine you're helping a friend who has no
clue about computers decide on a graphics

card. They either get confused as hell
very quickly or they be like, well, I

don't know, do I even need one? My laptop
runs fine and it doesn't have one. Can we

get pizza now? You see, being able to make
an informed decision can make a huge

difference. And VAAs can help with that.
And research tells us that VAA users can

be 2% to 12% more likely to go to the
ballot. The last important background

topic I would like to touch on is the
matching algorithm. These algorithms are

still subject to debate and some are
frequently criticized. I'll spare you the

history, and instead will jump right in
because, one, this topic deserves a talk

of its own. And two, that talk should not
be held by me. But I'll share with you

what I know. The matching algorithm is
responsible for calculating your result.

After you answered all the theses, your
answers are compared to those of the

parties. The parties get more points the
more you agree with them. Sounds simple?

But how do you calculate this exactly? Say
we have an agreement scale of 10 to -10. I

reply to a different thesis with an
agreement of 3. Party A is even more into

this and goes for 9. Party B is not a fan
of this thesis and answers with -3. How

many points will Party A and B get for
this thesis? There are two approaches to

this. The first has been coined the
proximity model, and as the term suggests,

it focuses on the distance between two
points. In this case, Party A and Party B

are the same distance to my answer, so
they will get the same amount of points.

Seems logical at first, but is this really
the best approach to this? I might not

fully agree with Party A, but I am on the
same side, whereas party B is on the other

side. Wouldn't it be safe to assume that
party A is a better match for me? Well,

probably, yes. The idea is called the
directional model. It awards more points

if the voter and the party go in the same
direction. In our scenario, party A will

receive more points than party B because
it is on the same side as I am. Following

these models, one can easily create a
matching algorithm. Why not all VAAs make

their algorithm's public, there are a few
well known ones. The first is the famous

city block algorithm. It belongs to the
proximity model and is still used by the

Wahl-o-mat albeit with only three options,
which has been criticized in the past. In

this chart, you can see the users answer
in the rows and the party's answer in the

columns. In this area where they meet,
you'll find the score for this thesis. For

example, if I choose to strongly approve
the thesis, I'm in the first row. If the

party agrees with that we meet in the
first cell and the party gets the maximum

score of 1 for this thesis. If the party,
however, rejects the thesis, 1st row, 4th

column, it will only get a score of -5.
You see, the city block algorithm strictly

follows the proximity model: the closer
user and party become, the higher the

score. The classic example of the
direction and what is the scalar

algorithm, the direction or side is far
more important here and a party cannot

receive a positive score as long as it is
on the other side of the user's opinion.

Note also that this must mean that if
either the user or the party choose a

neutral position, the score will always be
zero. So why both algorithms have their

strengths, our goal is to find a model,
thats prediction is as close as possible

to what the user votes for in the end. And
there's another group of algorithms that

tend to yield better results. I'm talking
about hybrid algorithms that try to

combine the approaches of the proximity
and directional model. As you can see,

proximity as well as direction play a role
in the scoring. Looking at the colors, you

can see that this now looks a bit like the
first algorithm, the city block algorithm,

but the green line fades a little in the
center. This is the influence of the

scalar algorithm focusing on the
direction. So which one is best? I'm

afraid we don't know for sure. As always,
data will tell. It also depends on your

intentions and design choices. What we do
know is that algorithms based on the

proximity model tend to favor temperate
parties, while those based on their

directional model gently pushes users to
the extreme ends. Considering this, hybrid

algorithms should yield more balanced
results. We must not forget, though, that

at the end of the day they are still only
models, so don't expect any of them to be

incredibly accurate. The OpenElectionCompass
is a free and open source software

with a simple mission: making voting
advice applications available to every

election to support political education
and democracy everywhere. Running your own

election compass can be a costly endeavor.
No more. With the OpenElectionCompass, we

have a system that is free, transparent,
user friendly and accessible. Unlike

agencies who only run an election compass
every few years, a project like this can

focus on continuous improvement. But
enough promises. Let's take a look at the

features. The OpenElectionCompass was
designed to be easy to use and accessible.

The design is minimalistic, so users are
not distracted. Unlike solutions like the

Wahl-o-mat, it makes use of the available
screen size with big theses and buttons.

Clear color coding provides visual
feedback, and as you can see, the

navigation is not based on previous next
buttons, but scrolling. This is quicker

and far more intuitive, especially on
mobile devices. To make this experience

even smoother, a big, friendly green
button helps guide the user through the

entire process. Whenever it's time to move
on, it just pops up ready to take you to

the next step. The OpenElectionCompass is
the first VAA software to pioneer this

navigation concept. With great success, I
might add. Everything you're seeing here

is also screen reader and keyboard
friendly. These things get easily

overlooked. But as I said, being a
continuous project, we can focus on

important details like these. After we
have finished with the thesis, we are

guided to the selection of the parties.
Notice that unlike most VAA's, there's no

additional step here where we would be
asked to select some theses that are more

important to us. This is another way
OpenElectionCompass is improving and

speeding up the process. We are removing
the cognitive overhead of going through

all these theses again. Instead, you can
mark the thesis as important, right while

you're answering. Usability wise, this
makes a lot more sense. But back to the

parties. We simply select the parties we
would like to compare. Again, keyboard and

screen reader friendly, and proceed to the
results. Here we have the classic

percentage based result view. With most
VAAs, this is pretty much it. Usually you

can go into the thesis one by one and see
the statements of the parties, but I

believe this is the most important part
and should not be hidden away. Showing

these statements should be the default. So
I made it the default, when we scroll

further, we can read the answers of all
selected parties in an easy, color coded,

chat like format. And that's it. A simple
to use, accessible, beautiful state of the

art and free voting advice application.
Now comes my favorite part. How do you get

all this content, theses, the parties, the
statements into the OpenElectionCompass?

Well, of course, by using a big JSON
configuration file, that's hardly

exciting, but you know what, JSON is
simple, but for a non-programmer, this is

a pretty daunting task. And even for
programmers working with big JSON files to

manage content in multiple languages is
not something particularly fun. Especially

if it involves countless emails back and
forth to incorporate small changes. So

guess what? There's a tool for that. Now
everyone can read and write the JSON

configuration files using a friendly
visual editor called the configuration

editor. It makes adding parties, thesis,
and statements a breeze. Simply fill in

the forms and download your ready to go
configuration file. It even supports

adding every content in multiple languages
and handles images for you. There is 100%

feature parity between the configuration
files and the editor. And while this is

only the first step in making the creation
of VAAs more accessible, it is a big step

up from any other tool. And there's more.
Let me introduce some of the smaller

features that make the OpenElectionCompass
special. I really want to make

this technology accessible for everyone,
so I took the time to create a single file

deployment solution that would fit the
software, your content and images, all in

a single HTML file. Is that the most
performant solution? No, but let's be

reasonable. It's perfectly fine for a
small town – Definitions: Theses must be

short and precise. Sometimes this makes it
difficult for users to understand them

because of words or abbreviations they
might not know. To help with this, you can

easily provide small helpers – Solid
navigation: As we have seen, the one page

design approach comes with lots of
benefits. To make sure no one gets annoyed

by too much scrolling around, an
intelligent menu is always right at hand.

That and the big green button helps
getting around and no time at all.

Multilingual: The OpenElectionCompass has
been multilingual since the very

beginning, and not just the interface, no.
You can easily provide theses and answers,

everything in multiple languages, even
though this is not a big issue in Germany,

I was thinking about countries like
Switzerland where this can be essentially

really – Kiosk mode: You can set up a
terminal in a public place and put your

election compass in kiosk mode, this mode
will ask users nicely to reset the

application once they are done or will do
so automatically after a period of

inactivity. Algorithms: The
OpenElectionCompass has a flexible

matching implementation that allows it to
support different answer styles and

algorithms. Because we don't know what
might be the best fit for you. Privacy first

statistics: The OpenElectionCompass now
comes with an integrated tool to collect

statistics in a privacy first design.
Users can opt in to submit their answers

anonymously for research. They can also
help to improve the quality of the data

set by answering more questions regarding
their age, gender, education and more.

I know that this is a difficult topic,
so I am taking extra care to get this

right. We certainly don't want to become a
privacy nightmare. We want to help people

support science in the most privacy caring
way possible. By now, you probably want

to get started building your own election
compass. Next up, DIY. There are a number

of principles when creating a VAA, written
down in the Lausanne declaration. If you

want to run your own election compass, I
encourage you to read it. It's not even

long. Let's go over the most important
points quickly. In order to contribute

sustainably to the good functioning of
democracy, VAAs should be open,

transparent, impartial and
methodologically sound. This is important

because if you're not transparent, there's
a good chance that some people or even

parties try to deny your legitimacy or
impartiality. You should really follow the

approach: We have nothing to fear because
we have nothing to hide. A VAA should be

freely accessible to all citizens. This is
fairly obvious, but anyway, make sure that

your VAA does not require any form of
payment. This could be the paywall of a

media outlet you've partnered with for a
promotion. But this could also be less

obvious, a mandatory collection of
statistics. And lastly, keep in mind that

there are probably more people with
disabilities that you might be aware of.

The OpenElectionCompass helps you with
that as it provides decent screen reader

support and generally follows
accessibility guidelines. But you should

also apply these design principles for any
other content you might create around your

VAA. A VAA should aim at the inclusion of
as many parties or candidates that are on

the ballot as possible. The criteria for
the exclusion of parties and candidates

should be publicly available and
justified, and also parties and candidates

should not be excluded from the tour for
ideological reasons. I think this might be

the most obvious rule, but also the most
important. We want to help voters make

informed choices. So we need as many
parties to participate as possible. This

might at times be a little difficult when
parties don't want to partake. But more on

that later. VAAs should be designed in a
simple and intuitively understandable

manner. OpenElectionCompass, this
is the reason why the design of the

OpenElectionCompass is not fancy at all,
a bit boring even. Because I genuinely

believe that it's how it's supposed to be.
Many designers observe that web interfaces

are starting to look alike too much. And
there's some truth to that. But this is

mainly because we have established a
number of patterns that just work and are

well known to users. So with
OpenElectionCompass, I'm in fact building

upon that. If you want an interface that
is usable by as many people as possible.

Boring is better than fancy. This is not art.
This is design. The Lausanne declaration

holds ourselves to a high standard,
but as the original authors stated, it is

meant as a starting point for discussion.
There are a few points I would like

to add. VAAs should collect user data only
on an unobtrusive opt in basis, you might

want to collect user data such as visitor
statistics, answers and polls. There are

good reasons to do so, but it's only ever
happened with a clear opt in solution,

preferably near the end of the election
compass. A project like this should not

appear greedy. VAAs should collect user
data for science, not for profit. The

collected data should be made publicly
available. If you collect statistics in

your VAA, do it for science. Let political
scientists handle the methodology and

interpretation, not some newspaper. And
after the election is done, make the data

you collected and if possible, your
research available for free. VAAs should

collect user data in a way that is not
possible, that it is not possible to trace

political opinions back to an individual.
If you do collect statistics, make it

impossible to connect answers to a name.
Not only for everyone else, but for

yourself. If you want to collect contact
information for further research, save it

separately from the user's answers. Users
trust the VAA, so be trustworthy. OK, so

where to begin? I prepared instructions
how to run your own election compass

consisting of 10 phases. Phase number one:
Preparing. Organization, planning and

communication are paramount. Before you do
anything else, make sure you're all on the

same page. Do you really want to run an
election compass? Who is going to manage

everything? This person doesn't have to,
and in fact shouldn't do everything alone.

But it is very beneficial to have a single
person feeling responsible that everyone

else completes their assignments on time.
Write down your own timeline, get a tool

to organize your team like Kanban board or
a To-do-app. Phase number two: your team.

You should never run a VAA all on your
own, not just because it's an awful lot of

work and responsibility and requires an
extensive skill set, but because it is

nearly impossible to do it in a legitimate
way. You want to support the democratic

process, so get a team of experts,
advisers and supporters working together.

Start with a list of people. This might
include political scientists for advice

and possibly in charge of the theses, the
marketing specialists managing your

marketing channels, social media, email,
etc. A web developer with technical skills

to get the election Compass online. A
media designer, enthusiastic citizens,

people with good connections to the
administration, newspapers and other

institutions. Someone with great language
skills for wording and spelling. Think of

people that might fit into these positions
and contact them. Organize the kickoff

meeting for your entire team to present
your project. The plan, the structure, the

timeline. Establish your organization
tools and communication channel, get

everyone to work, gather to-dos and assign
them and set deadlines. Phase number

three: The parties. It is important to get
the parties on board. Normally, one party

alone has no choice but to participate.
You wouldn't want to be the only party

missing. But if multiple parties aren't
interested, you have a serious problem.

You should not run an election compass
with some parties missing. One or two

small parties might be tolerable. You can
simply ask for a gathering and give them a

rough idea of what you are planning. At
this point, it can be very helpful to

belong to a reputable institution whose
invitation cannot easily be refused. Most

of the time, parties should welcome your
idea, but be prepared for some persuading

anyways. Phase number four: Preparing the
workshop. The theses for your election

compass obviously cannot be written all by
yourself. They need to represent the

society as a whole. The choice of theses
decides over the quality of your election

compass, you need to get this right. Your
theses need to cover the most important

matters for the next legislature. They
need to be objective and impartial. The

wording of the thesis has to be simple
enough to be understood and to the point.

Take this task seriously, it's the most
important and the most difficult. To

achieve theses of good quality you should
run a workshop with a sample of your

audience. Gather a group of young,
probably first time voters, but if you

like, you can also gather voters of all
ages. Make sure the group is representable

for your audience. No gender, race or
religion should be excluded obviously. Set

a date and find a large enough room with a
projector, send out invitations and gather

replies. Your groups should have about 20
to 30 members. Get the political programs

of all participating parties with the help
of your experts, gather topics of

political interest from the programs and
newspapers, and sort them into categories

like social environment, work, traffic,
infrastructure, energy, economy, finance,

tax, security. You get the gist. This is
your workshop material. Now plan the

workshop. Help your group of voters
discover the topics and create the theses.

What methods are you going to use?
Teachers can be very helpful here. What

materials will you need? Whiteboards,
pens, paper, etc. Phase number five: The

theses. Use the topics and information you
gathered to conduct your workshop. With

your team and your group of voters. In
this workshop, you will create a number of

theses. Most election compasses gather
around 50 to even 100 theses for whole

countries at this stage. It will take you
a few hours at least. Take care of your

guests with, you know, pauses, lunch,
snacks and coffee. Collect all theses in a

list, and don't forget to work on the
wording. Now, regarding the theses, there

are some simple rules and some more
advanced rules. The simpler ones are

these: Can the thesis be easily understood
by everyone? Are there words that

not everyone will know? The
OpenElectionCompass can provide hints

on those, for those. Might the wording be
biased? Does the wording match your style?

Is this a good length? You know,
these kind of simple rules. Now, for

the more advanced rules. It can be
quite hard to follow these, but you

should at least try or maybe get some
help with these. Advanced rule number one:

Theses should not be about ideological
values, but actual political policies.

The first statement is completely vague.
Voters cannot get any political knowledge

from this because ideologically they most
likely already know where the parties are

standing. What's even worse, voters can
interpret this thesis very differently.

So be concrete. Number two: Theses should
not be double barreled. It is very easy to

accidentally merge two theses. And that
makes them hard to answer. Every thesis

should be about one policy and not mix two
or more policies. In this example. Voters

might be OK with soft but not hard drugs.
So how are they supposed to answer the

first statement? Focus your theses. Number
three: Theses should avoid

quantifications. At first, this thesis
looks fine, it's clear and short, but what

if you don't think there should be more
surveillance cameras? If I reject this

statement, what does it mean? It could
mean that I'm OK with the numbers of

cameras or it could mean that I'm
completely against them. It's not clear,

and this makes it hard to match partisan
voters. It's often difficult to avoid

quantification, but sometimes it can help
to get down to the real issue. And in case

of my hometown, this was that some people
don't feel safe in public places at night.

Now it's more of a boolean question, so
try to go for these. And number four:

Theses should avoid qualifications as
well. This is a bit like the third rule,

only this time we don't merge related
theses but add more depth to a thesis by

adding an example. This was taken from the
Wahl-o-mat of 2002 and while it was meant

to just be an example, it makes it more
difficult both for the voters as well as

the matching algorithm. Voters might
support gay marriages, but draw a line

when it comes to adoption. So what do they
choose? In this case, it might be helpful

to be more specific or even split this
into two separate theses. This brings us

to phase number six: The positions. Now
it's time to let the parties answer and

positions themselves. First, decide on the
algorithm you want to calculate the

matches with. This will also determine how
many possible answers there will be. Send

the theses to every party. You'll want to
use an online form or similar, as the task

of collecting all answers can get very
tedious. Make also sure to collect the

logos in appropriate quality and give the
parties two to three weeks to answer,

depending on your timeline. In the
meantime, prepare to publish the election

compass. Contact media outlets and tell
them about your story. Contact the

administration and ask them if they're
willing to put up a link on their website.

Contact schools, teachers, youth
organizations and sport clubs and ask them

if they are willing to share some graphics
and a link with their followers once

you're done. Phase number seven:
Evaluating the answers. You know, I have a

lot of theses and even more answers. The
next step is to select the most important

theses. You can do this in another
workshop or on your team. Go through every

thesis and decide whether it should become
part of the election compass. Ask

yourselves, is this thesis controversial
enough? Is it helpful in telling the

parties apart? At this stage, around 25 to
40 theses remain. Too few, and the results

lose accuracy. Too many, and it would take
too long for the voters to process them.

Phase number eight: Time for a test. By
now you should have everything you need.

Let's run a test, feed your theses,
answers and logos to the configuration

editor to create the configuration file.
Try it out, give it to your team and the

people that participated in the workshops.
Gather their feedback, make small

adjustments until everything is ready for
the big day. Phase number nine: Going

public. About 2 to 3 weeks before the
election, you should publish your election

compass. Tell your web developer in
advance, and when the election compass is

online, tell everyone. And lastly, Phase
number 10: Observe. Everything is up and

running? Good. The only thing left to do
now is get your election compass into as

many hands as possible. Be available for
questions and feedback from the public,

and then wait for the election. Don't
forget to vote yourselves. And when the

election is over, archive the election
compass. You can delete it, of course, but

if you can, just keep it online. It can
still be a valuable resource of

transparency. If you collected any data
for research, make sure to share it with

the word. And lastly, please give back to
the OpenElectionCompass, give feedback,

write about it or improve our funding. And
here we are, nearly done. Undoubtedly,

there are many issues with democracy. Its
implementations are incredibly complex and

nothing that comes out of it is ever
perfect. It can be frustratingly slow,

inefficient, intransparent and even
counterproductive. But it's also the only

form of government that the majority so
far managed to agree upon. And it's also

the only form of government that is
evolving continuously. We are right to

criticize the system when it appears to be
moving in the wrong direction. But we

should not be tempted to hack our
democracy. Hacking the system would mean

bending it to our will. We don't want that
and we don't need to. We don't need to

hack a system that has the inherent
ability to change. We can, however, try

and fix the flaws, and I believe voting
advice applications are a way to start

doing this. A way of patching democracy.
Thank you.

Herald: Thank you so much Till Sanders
not only for your lecture, but also for

the development of this very useful tool,
obviously. We still have some questions

that our community posed on our social
media platforms. And I would start with

the first one: Who would be moderating the
content in such apps? Like would it be

peer moderated? Would it be state election
agency or would it be something like what

kind of moderation would there be?
Till: That's a very important question,

actually. Um, so in Germany with the Wahl-
o-mat that's made by by the BPB, a

government agency. And they develop it in
a workshop like the one that I describe in

the talk together with young first time
voters. Because that's their target group.

But apart from that, they obviously have,
you know, political scientists, people

who've been doing this for two decades
now. And if you want to do it yourself,

you won't have access to these kind of
resources. So that can be a problem. And

so far it worked well. We did this in in
Münster, Cologne, Bielefeld, and Siegen.

We had a team of political scientists who
did this. So they had all the expertize.

And yeah, there's no perfect answer for
this. Um, not anyone, not everybody has

these resources. Just try to do it as good
as you can and maybe get some contacts who

can help you. And we must not forget it's
only for political education, not for

actual voting advice. So it will never be
perfect. But to a certain degree that's

OK.
Herald: But there is a question that is

kind of subsequently to the previous one:
This person is wondering, how do you or

how do we make sure that the data is not
corrupted? Like that it's not abused for

political promotion, for example, or
something like this. Like they refer to a

big removing of Twitter of 20K fake
accounts that did political propaganda in

kinds of millions of tweets. And those
were from a couple of countries, which was

discovered in April 2020. So how could one
prevent this in a way, or is it like the

same that you already stated concerning
the first question?

Till: Yeah, well that's also a problem. It
hasn't proven to be a problem so far. So

as far as I know, there has been no case
where this happened, but it could

obviously happen. And since my tool and a
few other tools are open source, there's

no way we can stop this. But actually,
that's the case for any projects out

there, not only in this field, so many
open source projects can be abused. Lets

look at curl, I think the developer of
curl is not allowed to enter the United

States, because they think he is a hacker.
The only thing we can really do is educate

people about this topic in general and
also improve education on VAAs themselves.

So don't take them too serious and
maybe take which ones are not honest.

Herald: Yeah, this is actually a question
that bothers or bugs the users a lot

because another question is like: How
could we ensure that there is no bias in

the questions which actually connects to
the previous questions as well. But they

were wondering, for example, if the
questions, the topic are not evenly

distributed, which, yeah, actually tends
to lead to some kind of bias in the

questions. But like, this is the same
problem, like with open source material,

obviously, isn't it?
Till: Yeah, yeah. That's a problem. So in

Münster this year, there was another
election compass based on the

OpenElectionCompass,
and it was from the BUND-Jugend.

So they focused on environmental issues
and it was a completely separate project

and it wasn't even the first time they
were doing this. In the past they did it

with like flyers and stuff. And I guess
that election compass probably was biased

because it was part of their campaign, you
could say. I mean, they're not a party but

still. And I think what's most important
is that it's transparent. Who is doing

this election compass. So in Lüdenscheid
it was a general youth organization not

affiliated with any parties, funded by the
government. And I think that's a different

stand really to do that. On the other
hand, the project in Münster wasn't that.

It was biased, yes. But that doesn't make
it a bad project. Just people have to be

aware of that. And I hope we can tackle
all these problems in the future with

something that's more like a platform as a
service. Maybe we can build an institution

around this that can govern all these
projects and moderate them a little bit.

But maybe that's just a daydream. I don't
know. (chuckles)

Herald: OK, but another question that
popped up that I find quite interesting as

well is: Why VAAs can successfully
approximate a given user's political stand

in comparison to the party's answers to
the thesis. I thought... like the user

thought a lot about another issue. The
missing knowledge on a theses' actually

context, like they were wondering if you
have an idea how to solve that with a

similar technology driven tool or
something like that, actually.

Till: Yeah, that's a question I've had for
a while. When I first did the Wahl-o-mat,

that question popped up for me as well.
Because there were some questions I didn't

know anything about. And the idea is that
you just skip those questions and they

completely, they are not counted. That's
how they deal with it. But I always

thought, why don't they tell me more about
it, so I can make an informed choice? So

far, I haven't managed to find the
definite answer to this, but now I believe

they don't do it on purpose. So they do it
on purpose, but they don't do it, you

know? I think the risk would be too high
to influence users, because when the

Election Compass itself tells you
everything you need to know about this

topic, they decide what's true, what
information they give you about this

topic. And I think it's incredibly
difficult to be really objective when

creating such content. So I guess
that's the reason why they don't do it.

And I think it's a good reason, actually.
So people should get information somewhere

else, multiple sources.
Herald: So you would not lobby for some

kind of option that you could, you know,
expand like you are a open source project,

for example, to cover that one as well?
Till: No, I don't think so. Actually, if

you scroll down all the way, you can see
the party's answers. And I did it on

purpose that you can... it's more like a
chat. So they can actually discuss that in

a way and you can read their answers and
then decide what, who you believe.

Herald: Yeah. All right. And you are
actually doing this by yourself, you

founded this a year ago, some bit prior
because you saw the problems that were

there. But how could one join the party?
Like how could one help out? How could

somebody work with you on this project?
Till: Yeah, well so I have lots of ideas

how you could improve this project. And so
far I'm managing fine to do it on my own

in my free time. And I don't intend to do
it full time. It's a good side project,

but someday I think more people should get
involved. And there are several ways to do

so. So the project is based on Vue.js and
everyone who is familiar with that can

easily join. There are small and big todos
that could be done, and many ideas will

require a server side application. So
that's something I've been working on in

the past few weeks. So that's also
something that could attract

contributions.
Herald: OK, and another question I have

left would be: Will the slides be
available somewhere like do you have your

presentation somewhere online? So people
who are interested, who love the design

and content, like the user who posed this
question could still grab it somehow?

Till: Thanks, first. Yeah surely, the
project already has a website and many

things in the presentation are also on the
website. But everything, I will add them

in the next days, I think. And as far for
the slides, I can, I will upload them

somewhere unless I don't know you do that.
Um, I don't know. You have like this hack

media site where you, where you post some
videos. Herald: So we are allowed to put

them online for you.
Till: Yeah sure. They will definitely be

available somewhere.
Herald: OK. Amazing. Is there something

left for you to say to that. You just want
to get off your heart?

Till: Well, I really enjoyed doing this
and I myself learned a lot about VAAs in

the process, that was nice. And I'm just
happy that so many people listened to me.

Herald: Thank you very much for being
here. For your presentation, for your

work, of course. And for being here, for
joining us. We will go ahead on this

channel with air filters. It starts at 8
p.m., of course, and it will be some sort

of an instruction how to build your own
air filters that actually get your air

clean and virus free by using your 3D
printer. For now, we say thank you very

much and say: See you next time.

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