Design+Democracy

Stuff.co.nz got together some students together in Wellington, with our Thomas Le Bas in the mix.

Millenials - old enough to have an opinion and young enough to live most of their lives under a new flag (if it changes). We put a few students in a room to get their reactions to the four alternative flag designs unveiled by the Flag Consideration Panel on Tuesday. The result?

Our third initiative to come out of the Design & Democracy Project is that of Thomas Le Bas’ Master’s project: Flagpost.

Flagpost is a collaboration with Springload, the same web design and user experience agency that was used to develop On the Fence further for the 2014 General Elections.

The website is live at www.flagpost.nz

Ireland could become the first country to legalise same-sex marriage through a referendum. More than 3 million people are eligible to vote, including 60,000 expats. Those who have left the country less than 18 months ago are able to vote in the referendum, but need to show up at a polling station in person.

With just over a day left of voting, On the Fence has gotten some considerable attention from the media over its nomination for a 2015 Webby Award.

3 News and StopPress have both thrown the news out there and make a great point that New Zealand has quite a strong presence at the 2015 awards.

Spread the word! On the Fence is a finalist in the Webby Awards! Placed in the People’s Voice Political Website/Blog section the ‘Oscars’ of the web, it honours the best of the internet and we are proud to be amongst them. We are up against some major U.S. websites, including Politico and Factcheck.org.

The Knight Foundation opened the call last month for another one of their News Challenges. For this challenge, they ask the question: how might we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during and after elections?

Naturally, the team here at Design & Democracy and our partner Springload were thrilled. We got to action straight away with a great workshop by the team, preparing our proposal for taking On the Fence to the USA in time for the 2016 Elections. This is an exciting opportunity to push On the Fence further and we look forward to the response!

We are very happy to find On the Fence making a considerable impact on youth voters, and to have the research that shows it!

Poll confirms web tool encouraged youth to vote

“More than 10,000 young people aged between 18 and 34 were influenced to vote in last year’s general election by the efforts of an interactive web tool designed by Massey University graduates.

A Horizon Research survey of voting behaviour at last September’s election showed that On The Fence was the most effective initiative focused on increasing youth voter turnout.

The survey asked eligible voters whether they were aware of the Virgin Voter Collective campaign to raise youth voter participation, and which initiatives influenced their decision to vote.

Our friends at Springload wrote up a great overview of the collaboration between the them and Design & Democracy Project, to provide the new and improved version of On the Fence for the New Zealand 2014 General Elections.

Getting young voters off the fence

The Design & Democracy Project featured on this really interesting article by Radio New Zealand's Wireless team, discussing Ask Away, On The Fence and 21st Century citizenship. 

“When Elle Hunt and I were making a documentary for Radio New Zealand Insight (which you can listen to below) about the reasons young people don’t vote, we were struck by how many people said they didn’t feel there was enough information available to help them make a decision.

There are now dozens of different ways to find information, not to mention directly contact political parties and candidates. For all but a few of us, researching and assessing political views is easier than it has ever been before.” 

2014 Minor Party Leaders Debate—

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/s2014-ep2-video-6073852

In 2013, to celebrate 120 years of votes for women, our friends at the Electoral Commission established scholarships that cover fees for post-graduate research into voter participation.

For more information about the scholarship please visit http://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/scholarships/suffrage

Students must:

— Be a New Zealand citizen or Permanent Resident

— For the year of tenure of the scholarship be enrolled as a full time student at a New Zealand university in an Honours of Master’s programme and be engaged for a substantive part of their enrolment in research which satisfies the purposes of the scholarship.