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Direct Democracy, Wiki-Style

September 10, 2008 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

from Governing.com Idea Center

Come November, presidential, gubernatorial, legislative and local races won't be the only items on the ballot. Initiatives and referenda will top ballots in more than a dozen states, and a new Web site, Ballotpedia, aims to help voters navigate these measures.

Ballotpedia is a wiki-style encyclopedia on everything connected with "citizen initiatives, ballot access, petition drives, initiative and referendum for political change, recall elections, school district bond issues and associated subjects."

Tags: Ballotpedia, Governing.com Idea Center, referenda, wikipedia

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Building a Better Ballot

August 20, 2008 3:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

from Governing.com Idea Center

Official ballot, general election, Palm Beach County, Florida, November 7, 2000. From Wikimedia Commons.

Poorly designed ballots have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters in recent elections.

A new analysis of election ballots by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found 13 design flaws that continue to plague elections despite the $3 billion Congress set aside to overhaul voting systems in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential vote.

Tags: ballots, Brennan Center for Justice, Governing.com Idea Center, voting machines

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The Two-Lane Toll

August 14, 2008 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

from Governing.com Idea Center

Half of the 42,000 automobile-crash-related fatalities that occur in the United States each year are on two-lane rural roads. To help drivers and public officials make smarter, safer choices about transportation, especially in rural areas, the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety at the University of Minnesota created a new interactive map that plots out every traffic fatality in the nation in 2006.

Tags: cars, Governing.com Idea Center, highway, Safe Road Maps, traffic, Unviersity of Minnesota

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Tracking Parolees Lowers Recidivism

July 29, 2008 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

from Governing.com Idea Center

CompStat famously cut New York City's crime rate in the 1990s by allowing police officers to map crime and create crime-intervention strategies.

Using CompStat as a guide, Washington, D.C.'s Court Services and Offenders Supervision Agency, which oversees 15,000 parolees, supervised releases and probationers, created a similar system to cut the District's recidivism rate.

Tags: CompStat, crime, Governing.com Idea Center, SMART-STAT, Washington DC

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