| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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Workshops for design with citizens: July - September 2013.
As mVoting is a voting system that entails personal participation and the generation of votes on the part of citizens, the implementation of designs and features custom-tailored to the citizens' needs was of paramount importance.
To this end, Seoul Metropolitan Government hosted a "citizens' design workshop" to reflect citizens' opinions in the efforts to develop the system, and in which the developers' project managers also participated. Through these workshops, fourteen specific features were actually applied to mVoting, including "showing the outcome", "setting areas of interest" and "connecting SNS."
Development reflecting the opinions of experts and citizens: July 2013 - January 2014.
We chose the right system developer from among the various candidates by holding an open competitive bid, after assessing their experience in building mobile solutions. We invited the bid winner to participate in the Citizens' Design Workshop, thereby allowing its representatives to listen to the citizens' voice, as soon as the contract had been signed. The subcontractor completed the system development project in seven months based on an analysis, design and coding process.
"Guidelines" on overall management drawn up in January 2014.
We established guidelines on how to share policies among internal employees, access routes of citizens, how to manage negative ideas, how to distribute and use data, and the constitution and roles of the Citizens' Watchdog to pave the way toward stabilizing the overall operation of mVoting.
Pilot operation (Jan 2014) for settlement of the system and official launch (March 7, 2014).
To stabilize the system, we held an internal vote of the Information Planning Division (to select teams with good performance after their presentations) in a bid to verify the usability and functionality of the mVoting system.
During the pilot operation, we did not disclose the feature enabling citizens to generate a voting instance, but rather chose to do so after the official launch of the system and adequate efforts to raise public awareness about mVoting.
Recruitment and utilization of "mVoting Policy Supporters" among citizens highly interested in city policies.
We recruited citizens to support the operation of mVoting from among those who showed great interest in the policies of Seoul Metropolitan Government. These "mVoting Policy Supporters" have driven the city's efforts to promote and raise awareness of the mVoting service, by generating and participating in voting events. They will also be working as a political decision-making panel.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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mVoting Committee composed of government employees and experts from the private sector.
We launched the mVoting Committee (April 8, 2013), which is composed of members including labor union officials, college professors, chief judge, councilor, public relations specialist, and developers, in order to determine effective approaches to implementing the system and predicting social relationships, etc., afterwards.
During three consulting sessions, the mVoting Committee dealt with a wide range of issues including legal considerations, how to involve citizens in the system development process, security issues including privacy, and how to promote the system effectively, thereby improving the feasibility of the initiative while reducing potential risks.
Service Design Workshop for citizens' direct participation in city policies.
We held a Service Design Workshop - in which citizens, experts and government officials all participated - as a solution to eliminate the sources of inconvenience of our service based on appropriate design of overall city policies. The workshop continued for eight weeks, with the mentoring of a panel of specialists including citizens, professionals and government officials. We were finally able to determine the design of the mVoting service through representations and assessment at the end of the workshop.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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Financial resources: The project was funded by the budget remaining from the previous PC-based e-Poll system development project.
As no budget had been officially allocated to the 2013 mVoting development project the previous year, we decided to liquidate the e-Poll project and redirect the rest of its budget into the mVoting system development project. We invested a total of ￦151,228,000, which included the remaining e-Poll budget of ￦15,284,000 and the planned budget of ￦135,944,000 reserved for mVoting, in building the new mVoting system.
Technical resources: "GPS-based voting" connected to Mobile GIS.
We applied the GIS technology implemented in existing mobile solutions to mVoting so as to grant the right to vote only to people within a certain location. We also used a technology to "push messages" to these legitimate voters. As of now, applications for patents for these technologies have been filed (Jan. 24, 2014).
Human resources: experts and ordinary civil groups.
The mVoting system building project was participated in by experts and civil groups. First of all, an expert panel, the mVoting Committee, summarized the data including the philosophical background to and anticipated achievements of mVoting and the implementation strategies. It also received citizens' ideas and offered consulting about how to promote the system. In the "mVoting Service Design Workshop" for ordinary citizens, the participants tried to conceive specific features and designs of the mVoting system. They also exchanged ideas with each other through SNS and shaped the opinions generated from the workshop.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Using the mVoting system as a means of collecting citizens' opinions and mediating conflicts.
Through mVoting we have tried to share the city policies with citizens and listen to their voice. We also pay attention to citizen groups' own voting activities in which they ask Seoul's inhabitants for feedback regarding the current policies of Seoul and the civil environment. We have been committed to expanding the application of mVoting to various situations involving conflicts in all strata of society.
For instance, the "Tree Planting" event had traditionally used a famous celebrity as its PR ambassador, the pros and cons of which later divided public opinion. To mediate this conflict, the relevant department staged an mVote to receive the public's opinions. As a result, 47% of respondents voted for using a forestry/landscaping expert while 38%, a celebrity. Reflecting this outcome, we decided to choose a PR ambassador from among forestry and gardening professionals.
Dramatic expansion of opportunities to participate in the policy-making process.
Since we launched the mVoting service, the app has been downloaded 19,810 times as of September 20, 2014; 150,000 citizens have participated in votes; and 1,264 voting agendas have been suggested by citizens, providing ample evidence of active participation by the public. Compared to the previous e-Poll system, which used to involve the participation of just 400-500 people during a 10-day voting period, mVoting, which engages an average of nearly 700 people a day, has seen a sharp increase in civil participation in the policy-making process. Furthermore, we now receive even more and varied voting agendas from citizens, ranging from polices on raising the price of cigarette to lifestyle-related matters such as coffee consumption and road width.
A voting function that enables the setting of ranges based on details or purpose.
mVoting is capable of adjusting the range of disclosure of voting information depending on the agenda and purpose. It offers a wide range of voting features, from one limited to a certain area or target group to confidential. In an "on-the-spot vote", which is the most specialized service of the mVoting system, a list of voters who gather at a particular venue for a session, demonstration, etc., is compiled from the participants' cell phone numbers, and they can only cast votes after authentication with QR codes. mVoting guarantees viewing the voting result in real time.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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Weekly checkup meeting during the system development stage.
Every Friday while the mVoting system was being built, we discussed project implementation and development issues and sought possible solutions during meetings with IT planning managers, competent team leaders and government officials, and system developers.
Reporting of corrupt voting activities such as political or commercial ads and the Civil Watchdog.
mVoting features a tool named "Report a Unsound Posting" (located directly beneath the voting item) that is designed to prevent potentially corrupt voting agendas and ensure sound communication with and between citizens. Any citizen in Seoul participating in a vote can report a posting of a political, commercial, abusive or obscene nature simply by using this tool. Any voting item thus reported is delivered in a Push Message to the "mVoting Civil Watchdog"; if the Watchdog makes an additional report, based on their decision, the same voting item will be eliminated. The mVoting Civil Watchdog consists of thirty citizens who are required to apply for membership through the monitoring team of the Seoul Metropolitan Government website, internet watchdogs or city policy monitoring groups.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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Unbalanced participation resulting from some social classes' unfamiliarity with the mobile environment.
During the initial stage of planning the mVoting system, it was claimed by some observers that the elderly and other social classes unfamiliar with the mobile environment could be isolated from the city's policy-making process. Some citizens also suggested that the failure of citizens without smart phones to participate in votes would make it difficult to ensure fair surveys or votes on public opinions.
In response, we offered a system that allows citizens to cast their votes without necessarily having to use a smart phone by accessing mvotimg.seoul.go.kr, in order to resolve the unbalanced participation issue.
Duplication issue.
The previous PC-based e-Poll was a voting system that did not require membership and authentication, making it very likely that duplicated votes would be cast. In contrast, mVoting requires a character-confirmation process during its installation, which categorically does not allow the duplication of votes. This feature can be said to have successfully manifested the principle of "Equal Voting" as represented by one vote for one person.
Likelihood of public sentiment being influenced or biased by certain groups.
mVoting is basically designed to allow the user to check the voting result as soon as voting is closed. This may sometimes tempt a certain group to check the intermediate result of voting to influence public sentiment in a desired direction.
To resolve this issue, Seoul Metropolitan Government took a measure to prevent the intermediate result from being disclosed in real time, and decided not to offer a share function for any vote involving the potential for conflict between different groups.
Infringement of privacy.
mVoting, as part of the effort to preserve the principle of the "secret ballot", only allows the voting result to be saved in the server computer, and not in the client's terminal. In other words, it offers a safety tool that prevents Seoul Metropolitan Government from analyzing the votes cast by each individual and his or her political orientation. In fact, mVoting never collects the voter's full name, Resident Registration Number, or other items of sensitive private information.
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