Vignette 3: WeVote

In Johannesburg it had all started in the TshimoTech incubator, back in 2022.

"We only have two months," Patrick looked worried. "Do you think we can do it?"

"Depends on today. If we get the answers we need, we will be fine," Angel smiled sweetly, not looking up from the papers in front of her. Jacques, headphones on, said nothing.

Patrick frowned silently at at the top of Angel’s head until she looked up.  She smiled and leaned over the table to touch his arm, "Go and usher them in. We need to get started at 10:30 sharp." 

Patrick took a long slow breath.

"Don’t look so worried. We are ready for them."

From inside their project room, Angel watched as city administrators, democracy advocates, neighbourhood representatives and the odd company official filed past in the corridor. She could just see the open forum area where Patrick was shaking hands, smiling, nodding and answering questions. Charm personified.

Perched on a power rail just above him, a small grey disc with yellow claw feet and bulging yellow eyes unobtrusively collected names, responsibilities, attitudes and questions from the peons that rode on the shoulders of each delegate. Not all of them were set to share, but most were. A status of "not sharing" was, in any case, good data too.

Angel waited until they were all seated before making her way along the corridor and down past the rows of seats to the front of the brightly-lit space. She paused momentarily when she got there, just long enough to interrupt the hubbub and create an expectant pause. Then she strode purposefully past the podium and leaned against the table in the front of the room.

"We've got something to show you." Her voice was loud and clear. Silence descended. All eyes turned towards her.

"It's not perfect, but it does what it needs to. We need your help to spot any issues that have to be addressed. With your feedback, we can be ready to launch a pilot next month as planned. We will need your help with that too.

"WeVote is active democracy at the level of streets, neighbourhoods, municipalities." Angel spoke confidently, not even glancing at the video being projected behind her.

"WeVote allows recognised city structures to propose a vote, define the constituency, inform all eligible voters and collect the results. WeVote collects votes directly from peons, verifies who is eligible to vote on each specific issue and collates the results. Those results are available real-time and the base data are completely protected.

“Of course votes have to be within the planning framework and they can only be repeated within the agreed time-frames if new information that materially changes the issue comes to light. We’ve built in the planning framework as well as the categories of issues that are neighbourhood, district and city level.

“By now you will have had the updates from our legal advisors” she nodded and smiled at the two serious men in the second row of seats, “on the legislative changes needed to ensure that votes taken on WeVote are binding. And I’m sure you are following the work that the voter education team” she gestured towards the the back of the room, “are doing towards tiered training. Our system allows voting at each level based on the training completed.

"Now, here are the things we need to check with you - ”

At the back of the room Jacques smiled to himself. This was going well. He would be working for a while yet. He was also pretty sure that they would get the extra coder and UX expert that he’d asked for. Angel was good at this. Most of the room was listening raptly. 

Five months earlier Angel and Patrick had won funding from the city and a place in the TshimoTech incubator to develop WeVote. At that point they had an idea and a prototype, but lacked the tech skills to get it working. The money from the award had brought in Jacques, programmer and direct democracy activist and he had worked his magic. At least now they had a working app. 

“OK,” Jacques corrected himself, “a proof of concept MVP."

It wasn’t pretty and the security would need thorough validation, but the system design was sound. There would be backend integration to be done to access the city’s databases and the presentation of results needed some attention, but that would be worked out. First, they needed this pilot to convince the city, and eventually the public, that this was a good way to make decisions. 

Jacques’ eyes strayed across to the unassuming elderly man at the far end of the last row of seats. Short, with thinning grey hair, Marais was the man with a vision. Dedicated public servant for the past thirty-six years, he wanted a system that enabled his staff to really serve the city. He had no time for politicians with their self-aggrandising short-term projects. He was the man in the city who was quietly backing WeVote.

Angel wrapped up her presentation and invited input from the floor. Hands shot up and the room was soon warm with a lively debate, expertly directed by Angel.

"Good point, thanks. We'll look into that," and "OK, that's an idea, but we'll need to see how receptive people are." 

Marais stood up and nodded briefly at Patrick before leaving the room.

A year later WeVote rolled out to every peon in Johannesburg.