1. Dr. Michael McDonald
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
NON-RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
ELECTIONS.GMU.EDU

2. Open Data
GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY
DATA FORMAT
USE: CAUTIONARY TALE

3. Open Data
GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY

4. The Problem: Do as I say, not as I do…
United States redistricting:
 Highly decentralized: to states and localities
 Highly politicized: those drawing districts are those
who represent them.
 Highly litigated: political losers seek redress from the
courts.
 Closed process: data and software generally not
widely available. Little public input.

5. www.districtbuilder.org
www.publicmapping.org
Michael McDonald Micah Altman
George Mason University MIT
Brookings Institution Brookings Institution

6. Builds on Best-of-Class
Open Source Software
6

7. Where has DistrictBuilder been used?
 Used in 10 states
 More than 1000
legal plans created
by the public
 Thousands of
public participants
 Millions of viewers
7

8. How has DistrictBuilder been used?
 For Transparency:
 Dissemination
 Public understanding
 Evaluation/comparison
 For Education:
 Staff training
 Classroom teaching
 Student competitions
 For Participation:
 Integrated into official decision process
 Non-partisan public organizations
 For Election Administration:
 Internal collaboration/analysis sharing
 Support for commission
PPR-México 8

9. Open Data
DATA FORMAT

10. Google/Pew Voting Information Project

11. Google/Pew Voting Information Project

12. Open Data
USE: CAUTIONARY TALE

13. Purposeful Misuse of Open Data
 Early voting – some U.S. states permit persons to
vote in advance of the election.
 Primaries – elections where party nominees are
selected by voters
 Party registration – some states restrict participation
in primaries to persons who register with a party
 Some states publish on the web real-time open data
on early voters

14. Purposeful Misuse of Open Data
 Ohio
 Critical battleground state would likely determine winner of
presidential election
 Permits early voting
 Does not have party registration, but records last party
primary a voter participated in as “party”
 ~0.5 million voted in 2012 Democratic primary
 ~1.3 million voted in 2012 Republican primary
 Ohio localities publish individual records of early voters on the
web.

15. Purposeful Misuse of Open Data
 Professors at the University of Akron knowingly
published a report of Ohio early voting statistics by
what they called “party registration” to claim
Romney was winning Ohio
 Disseminated by Romney campaign
 Reported by news organizations like CNN and FOX

16. Dr. Michael McDonald
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
NON-RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
ELECTIONS.GMU.EDU