Voter apathy

The rational voter has little incentive to gain more knowledge about politics because his or her vote is unlikely to affect the outcome. Since gaining more knowledge offers few benefits and substantial costs, the average citizen remains ignorant, though rationally so. Ilya Somin | Why Ignorance Isn’t Bliss

ICON is different. One person’s vote can affect the outcome. P-Reps (public representatives) rely on votes to fund their contributions. Fund the wrong ones and you limit progress.

People earn rewards for voting. Like it or not, that’s the main reason most of them will vote. As long as they’re rewarded the same, they don’t care. They’ll only consider who to vote for if the time or interest arrives. It rarely does.

Even if they do have time, it takes a lot of effort to understand who each P-Rep is and what skills they have to offer. The information is often difficult to decipher, and many P-Reps talk about the same things. How do you decide who deserves your votes more?

People won’t care about their votes just because we want them to. If there’s a shortcut, they’ll take it. So they vote for P-Reps already at the top. It’s faster, and they must be popular for a reason.

Design for behaviour

We expect people to be as engaged in the voting process as we are, but that’s designing for intention, not reality. People are lazy. Aside from voter apathy, we also have to consider how people behave online:

And people who only bank online are 73% more likely to switch banks for a better online or mobile service.

People are task driven, irrational, and impatient.

For the best experience, they need a voting tool that’s fast, transparent, and easy to use.

The faster and easier the tools, the more inclined they’ll be to use them. And the more transparent those tools, the more intelligent our network can become.