DemoChoice Business Practices

No warranty

Much of the software behind DemoChoice is released under the GNU General Public License. The “Disclaimer of Warranty” and “Limitation of Liability” sections (15–17 of version 3) apply to all software on the DemoChoice website, to the administration of the site, and to claims of features and business practices. Interception of data by unauthorized parties and misuse of data are among the damages referred to in the liability section.

Copyright

The software, data, and content on the DemoChoice website are copyright © 2001 Dave Robinson. Not all software on the site is released under the GNU General Public License; that license covers only the software released on the download page, and not data or content produced or used by the software. Details are discussed in the Readme file included in the distribution package. Content copyrighted by others may appear on the site only with permission or a well-justified “fair use” claim, either of which should be documented on the site.

Interactive district maps have data layers fetched from OpenStreetMap that are subject to separate copyright and use restrictions.

Our motives

Our ultimate goal is not to “monetize” you, but to help you learn about ranked-choice voting, and preferably convince you that it should be used more widely, including in government elections from local to national. That will not happen if we do not earn your trust. Much of the software is released under the GNU General Public License in support of these goals. A potential drawback is that others may use the software to create less trustworthy websites. Please let us know if you observe this.

Information gathered

We record your vote, polls created by you, and feedback and emails you send to us. Your email address may have been provided by the creator of your poll — the software requests it when you vote, or sends you a registration key by email to authenticate your vote. Your address is used only to clarify any problems with recording your vote, or to respond to an inquiry you have made.

Other poll creators can enter information about you — such as making you a candidate — that then becomes visible on the web. If something objectionable is posted about you here, please let us know.

When OpenStreetMap data layers are fetched for interactive district maps, OpenStreetMap records usage data.

Email practices

For some polls, DemoChoice uses email to send voters a unique ballot link (see the voter registration instructions) and to send poll creators editing links. Voter email addresses are provided by the poll creator. If you are receiving unwanted emails from DemoChoice, please let us know. As a general security practice, confirm that links in any email actually go to https://www.demochoice.org before clicking.

Promotion

We do not sell voter data. We mostly rely on others to spread the word about specific polls. If information about you appears in a poll, it may be included in promotional activities related to that poll.

Research

Though ranked-choice voting methods have been used widely for more than 100 years, we and others continue to study improvements to take advantage of modern developments in user interface design, information security, and counting methods. Ballot data that do not identify voters may be released for this purpose.

Administrative

To assist poll creators in boosting voter turnout or in use of nonstandard counting methods, we may release ballot data and/or a list of who voted. Ballots will be shuffled to prevent the two datasets from being correlated (assuming more than one person has voted).

Adverse events

DemoChoice is a low-budget operation running on rented server space, maintained by an amateur programmer in his spare time with occasional help from friends and users. Such an operation may be more prone to security breaches, server downtime, bugs, and data loss than other services you may use on the web.

User responsibility

Users do not have permission to stuff the ballot box with large numbers of votes unfairly. Poll creators do not have permission to cause content copyrighted by others to appear on the DemoChoice site without permission or fair-use justification; post or link to objectionable content (obscene, deceptive, hateful, spam, malware, etc.); or register voters who have no existing relationship with the poll creator or clear interest in voting. We do encourage users to promote their polls appropriately.

Removal of content

Polls may be removed at our discretion, most likely if a poll has been inactive for a significant period or contains objectionable material, though removal is not guaranteed. We and our hosting company routinely make backups of the site. We have not established methods to rigorously and permanently destroy every record of information gathered on the site.

Opportunities to help

DemoChoice has been created and maintained mostly by one increasingly busy volunteer. A long wish list exists, including broader language support, user interface improvements, more efficient counting methods, and timelier customer service. If you are interested in helping, please let us know.