Policies

Mobile-Voting

Date 2017-07-05 Category E-Government Updater ssunha

Writer: Seoul Metropolitan Government

Date: 2015-06-25

Last Update: 2017-07-05

Background Information and Product Introduction

+ One of the e-government services representing Seoul, which has been #1 for six consecutive times in e-government assessment of world major cities, mVoting is the combination of the words mobile and voting.
+ With more than 37 million smartphones in use in Korea, this smartphone app is developed to collect citizens’ opinion rapidly using realtime online voting.
+ Mobile phone authentication with no separate registration procedures. Available for use just with a set password.
+ Citizens can open and participate directly in not just policy votes, but also in votes associated with all types of real-life situations.
+ Images can be attached to questions or items. More detailed descriptions can be viewed by clicking on the item.
+ Targeted voting can proceed for private groups or citizens within a specified distance.

Composition

※ mVoting smartphone app, PC mVoting and Vote Management System

• mVoting smartphone app
The smartphone app can be downloaded onto Android or iPhone, and citizens can use the app to participate and register their votes. Only a single phone number authentication and password registration is required.

• PC mVoting
PC mVoting is a website developed for those who don’t have a smartphone, and enables them to vote through their PCs. PC mVoting supports Excel file registration, and is available for mass voting or specific DB targeted voting.

Function

• Seoul City Full Public Vote

• Seoul City Specific Person Targeted Voting
+ Targeted voting on a DB that grouped people by specific criteria, such as age, address, job, and gender
- Sample composition by age, gender, address, and SNS has been developed but not yet released
(example : taxi driver, nurse’s aid, people in their 20s, Joong-gu residents, specific criteria for sample classification)

+ Targeted voting using data (phone numbers) held in Excel DB

+ Targeted voting using location-based search results * patent applied for
- People within a set GPS radius can be targeted for voting (Example: Citizens targeted within a 1 km radius of one’s location)
- Citizens in a corresponding area can be alerted via push
- Via ‘See polls/voting in my area’ function, search for ongoing polls / voting in one’s locale is possible

+ Targeted voting for onsite participants at certain events
- Certain event participation voting can be pre-registered via the app
- Voting participation in the case of an outdoor event, access via GPS, for indoor cases, access via QR code

• Vote for whole citizens
+ Smartphone app > Public voting, specific people voting and private voting registration > Citizen expression

• Specific people targeted voting
+ Mobile phone Address DB based voting
- Individual mobile phone numbers registered in a phone book DB can be utilized
- Group editing possible
+ Targeted voting using existing data (phone numbers) held in Excel DB
- Upload relevant Excel file DB via mvoting.seoul.go.kr > Sample generation
- Group editing possible

+ Targeted voting for unspecified individuals, without requiring phone numbers
- Targeted voting for a specified majority of individuals whose phone numbers are not provided
(Example : For use after a lecture to survey level of lecture satisfaction)

• Lot drawing function
+ Function for fun / amusement
+ 60 choices to select from, including blanks
+ Possibility to revise

• View voting / polls within areas of interest
+ Welfare, economy, women, safety, residence, environment, culture, transportation, traffic, tax and 12 areas of interest
+ Users can set preferences for which areas of interest they wish to see exclusively

Application Example and Operation Outcome

• High number of downloads and vote participants

+ App installations : citizens (89%, 10,700 people), internal staff (11%, 1,300 people)
+ Voting participants : 70,000 people (Including duplicates)
+ Voting agendas : 813 (742 citizens, 71 city)
+ Voting responses : 6,077 (4,424 citizens, 1,653 city)
+ Maximum participants in voting : 3,290 (vote for sticking guides for polling place on election day inside city bus windows, 91% agreement)

• Major cases reflected to policy

+ Democratic decision making within organization

- Which is your preferred family day? → Currently kept on Wednesday

- Build separate sections in a leased office building? Yes / no? → Department moving approval

+ Citizen chosen lifestyle policy

- Amongst the eco-mileage incentive options, which do you prefer? → Transport card confirmed

- Subway transfer tones? → Keep current sound

+ Slogan 100% reflective of citizen opinion

- Seoul City integrity Ring Back Tone (RBT) → ‘Seoul integrity! Unchanged promise of Seoul’ selected
- Seoul City energy policy name, slogan → ‘Energy saved by citizen, energy saves citizen’ selected

Seoul City Special Operations Strategy

• ‘Unhealthy (political, commercial, obscene) content’ prevention measures

+ Controlling prohibited words - prevent use of specific words
+ Self-monitoring group - Measures in place that allow staff and monitoring agents to delete posts that violate relevant laws and terms of use
+ Citizen-monitoring group - Plan to involve 30 genuine citizens in self-maintenance of mVoting to ensure its sound operation (Citizen notification > Citizen monitoring group push notification > Decision to delete voting agenda)

• ‘Multiple vote’ prevention measures
By default, mVoting only allows installation of one app per phone number. For this, mVoting for both phone and PC require mobile phone number authentication

• ‘Disproportionate participation’ prevention measures
In order to avoid any disproportionate participation that may arise due to some citizens not having smartphones, in keeping with Seoul City’s major policy, the PC mVoting platform has been built. Additionally, when voting through PC mVoting, phone number authentication is required to avoid duplicate votes.

• ‘Biased opinion’ prevention measures

+ Closed intermediate voting results - Voting results cannot be seen before participating to prevent biased influence by particular groups based on intermediate results.
+ Closed intermediate voting results 2 - Regardless of participation, voting results can be set to remain closed until all results are calculated.
+ SNS sharing function inactivated - Setting SNS sharing function off is available to avoid conflict between groups on votes for sensitive matters. By default, closed votes do not allow SNS sharing function.

• Protection of personal information’ measures provided

+ To minimize the collection of personal information, only phone number, user name and password are collected after users’ agreement
+ Passwords are encrypted and stored as set forth in the Privacy Act regulations.
+ Phone numbers are not stored in the information system. This means that Seoul City cannot know which specific person’s phone number, and hence person, is associated with an item choice when voting.

Major Expectations

• In this mobile age, citizens will participate directly through the provision of a mobile platform

• Use of mobile device will significantly alleviate the cost of electronic voting

+ Time and economic costs incurred when holding meetings ranging from various small committee, board member, department meetings to large scale policy meetings, can be solved.
+ Eliminate the risk of equipment failure or frequency interference when using electronic terminals for voting at citizen meetings

• Used as a tool for implementing the philosophy of citizens as administration owner, and for civic collaboration and conflict adjustment

+ Citizens can participate in major administrative policy meetings > Realization of participatory and consensus democracy.
+ Reflect directly public opinion in large policy meetings
+ City administration related voting agendas that are suggested by citizens, are noted and reflected to the policy
+ Agendas close to citizens’ life requires collection of citizens’ opinion and are used as collaboration tool

• Spreading participatory democracy to other municipalities is also possible.
In the case of Seoul City, 25 districts will be given authority. (Community-based voting, second half of 2014)

• Can be spread to civic life and private sector

+ For example, communication about an alpine club meeting and / or other similar private agendas can be applied easily and quickly.
+ This can be applied particularly to private elections, or decision making for private organizations.

Law Provisions

• Personal Information Protection Act
• Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc.