The framework

Working definition. My Vote Forward is an educational framework for ongoing civic participation that connects shared priorities, optional public expression, and secure private voting.

In plain words: people care about different things, they think different things about specific plans, and they make a final choice in private. The framework keeps those three acts separate. It gives each one its own rule about who can see it. It also says, clearly, what it cannot do on its own.

This chapter states the definition, the three parts, how they connect, what the framework assumes, and where it stops. The chapters below go deeper into each part. For a shorter tour, see Start here.

Defined terms

Framework. A structured set of concepts and rules for reasoning about a problem. A framework is not a product, a law, or a procedure. The demo is one possible implementation of this framework; other implementations could look very different and still follow it.

Priority. A judgment of relative importance across subjects. It answers "what deserves attention first?" and nothing more. See Priorities.

Opinion. A view on a specific, worded question or proposal, including direction and strength. See Opinions.

Vote. A choice recorded on an official ballot in an election run by a legally responsible authority. A full official ballot can include candidate contests and measures. See Private voting.

Disclosure rule. The default for who may see a given act and how that default may change. The framework's three disclosure rules are: group priorities can be public; individual opinions are private unless the person chooses to share a specific one; ballots are secret without exception.

Published release. A scheduled, approved package of group results with stated methods, denominators, and consent basis. It is the only way participant data leaves the system. See Published releases.

The three parts and their disclosure rules

The table is a summary, not a substitute for the chapters. Each row hides real complexity. For example, a "group result" for priorities still raises questions about aggregation and who participated.

How the parts relate

The three parts are connected in sequence but not in logic. A priority can lead someone to pay attention to a proposal. Attention can lead to an opinion. An opinion can inform a vote. But none of these steps determines the next one.

Priorities do not imply opinions. Two people can rank the same subject first while wanting opposite policies in it. A count of priorities tells a public body where attention is wanted. It does not tell it what to do. See Priorities.

Opinions do not imply votes. People revise views as they learn, and the official ballot wording, cost estimate, and alternatives may differ from what they were asked earlier. The framework never treats a gap between a stated opinion and an election result as evidence that anyone lied. See Opinion and choice.

Votes do not reveal priorities or opinions. A ballot records a choice among the options offered. It does not record why. That is a limit of voting and also a protection: the reason for a vote belongs to the voter.

Group results do not create mandates. Even a clear group ranking does not give any institution a duty to act, and it does not override legal authority, rights, or budgets. This is a general result in social choice, not a quirk of this framework. Arrow's theorem shows that, with more than two alternatives, no method of turning individual rankings into a group ranking can satisfy a short list of reasonable fairness conditions at once ¹. Any group priority list therefore reflects choices about method, and those choices must be published. See Collective priorities.

Why the sharing rules differ

The rules follow from the different jobs each act performs and the harms each can attract.

The secrecy of the vote is a long-standing international norm. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says elections "shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures" ². Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires elections "held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors" ³. The phrase "guaranteeing the free expression" names the reason: secrecy protects freedom of choice from pressure and purchase. The framework adopts that norm and refuses to offer any setting that weakens it. The history behind it is in The secret ballot.

Opinions sit in between. Public argument is part of democratic life, and people often want to be counted as supporters of a cause. But public opinions can attract the same pressures the secret ballot was designed to stop. The framework resolves this by making disclosure voluntary and specific: a person shares one opinion on one item, on purpose, and can see exactly what is shared. See Consent.

Group priorities are the most public part because they are the least personal. Publishing that many people want transit to receive attention exposes no individual. Even so, small groups can be re-identified, so releases follow a privacy review. See Privacy.

Assumptions the framework depends on

A framework is only as good as its assumptions. These are the ones this framework relies on, stated so they can be tested.

1. Importance and preference are separable. People can say how much a subject matters without committing to a policy in it. Survey practice supports that these are different questions; Gallup, for example, asks an open-ended question, "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?", which is separate from questions about what should be done ⁴. Whether people actually keep the two apart in their own minds is an empirical question. See Evaluation.
2. Wording and context shape answers. This is well documented, and it is why the framework treats question design as a governance issue, not a technical one. See Question design.
3. Participants are not the public. People who choose to take part differ from those who do not. Pew Research Center found that online opt-in samples included more politically and civically engaged people than benchmark sources indicated ⁵. Any group result from voluntary participation describes participants, not constituents. See Representation.
4. Secrecy and verification can coexist, but only with real engineering. Experts disagree about how far current technology can deliver both. In 2018 the National Academies concluded that "Internet voting should not be used at the present time" ⁶. The framework treats secure official voting as a set of requirements, not a finished capability. See Security.
5. Institutions keep their legal authority. A group result is input, not command. Whether and how a body must act depends on law. See Governance and Jurisdictions.

Application boundaries

What the framework applies to. Public decisions that pass through some authorized process: legislative choices, administrative plans, budgets, ballot measures, and elections for office. It can also be used in classrooms and community groups for teaching.

What it does not do.

• It does not conduct official votes. The present websites are educational, and the demo is a demonstration with simulated data.
• It does not rate, endorse, or match candidates. Research on candidates is limited to the official ballot guide for the voter's area.
• It does not sell data, rank for payment, or support campaign targeting.
• It does not replace courts, legislatures, election officials, or the protection of rights. A majority view expressed here cannot decide anyone's rights. See Representation.
• It does not claim certification. Federal voting system standards in the United States are, in the Election Assistance Commission's words, voluntary "except in select states where it is required by their own state law" ⁷. Using a standard as a reference is not the same as being certified to it, and this project has no such certification.

Where the edges are uncertain. Ongoing participation looks different in a country where voters decide national questions several times a year, as in Switzerland, where the federal government says the electorate is called to vote "approximately four times a year" ⁸, than in places where ballot measures are rare or unavailable. The framework has to be adapted to each legal setting rather than applied as one model. See Participation over time.

Evidence

The evidence for this chapter is of three kinds, and they should not be confused.

• Legal and normative texts establish the secrecy of the vote as an international standard ^{2 3}.
• Research results establish that group aggregation involves unavoidable method choices ¹ and that voluntary participants differ from the general population ⁵.
• Expert assessments establish caution about networked official voting as of 2018 ⁶. Assessments can change as technology and evidence change; this one is cited for its date and scope, not as a permanent verdict.

The framework itself is a design proposal. Its claim that separating the three parts improves understanding has not been tested. Planned measures are described in Evaluation.

Competing interpretations

"Separation weakens deliberation." One view holds that democratic life depends on people arguing openly for their views, and that defaults favoring privacy will chill debate. The framework's answer is that public argument remains fully available elsewhere; what it refuses is pressure attached to a person's opinion record. Whether that answer is sufficient is a fair debate.

"Publishing priorities is itself a form of agenda setting." Another view holds that any public ranking of subjects shapes what officials and media attend to, and that whoever controls the subject list controls the outcome. The framework accepts this concern as real and treats subject selection as a governance question. See Priorities and Governance.

"Direct input undermines representation." A third view holds that continuous public input pushes representatives toward following polls instead of using judgment. Others argue the opposite: that more structured input improves accountability. See Representation.

Application to this framework

Concretely, the framework produces these working rules:

1. Every subject list, question wording, and aggregation method is versioned and published.
2. Every group result names its denominator and states that it describes participants.
3. Every individual opinion is private by default, shared only item by item, and can be revised or withdrawn for future use.
4. No setting, administrator, or payment can make a ballot public or link a person to a ballot.
5. Official voting is outside the scope of the current websites and would require legal authority, independent evaluation, and approvals that do not exist.

Unresolved questions

• Can importance be measured cleanly when people already have policy preferences in mind? See Measurement.
• Who should hold authority over subject lists and question wording, and how can that authority be checked? See Governance.
• What minimum group size and privacy method make a published priority safe? See Published releases.
• Can secrecy, verification, accessibility, and coercion resistance all be met in a remote official vote? See Audits and verification and Intimidation.
• Does structured participation between elections change who participates, or only how often the same people do?