When government is lacking, some Atlantans turn to hacks

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Shawn Taylor had a simple civics question ahead of midterm elections two years ago: Where are early voting locations and when are they open?

It turns out, the answer wasn’t so clear. She sounds frustrated when she shows a reporter the state list she found, which is a facepalm-worthy dump of early voting address and hours. It’s really, really easy to miss the weekend dates listed separately from weekdays.

True, some of Georgia’s 159 county election offices have nice websites. But some have none at all. (Yes, in 2016, there are government offices that do not offer residents even a tiny bit of information online.)

So Taylor used the power of programming to homebrew something better: an online map and schedule that’s incredibly easy to use, clear, and covers the whole state.

“It’s important for me that people have clear and easy access to information about early voting,” Taylor said, sitting in front of her laptop in a chic co-working space under a parking deck at Georgia Tech.  “Early voting is important,” she said.

She’s one of a new type of do-gooder: a civic hacker. Someone who seizes the word “hacking” to describe (legal) computer coding done to solve civic problems. 

When folks think about “volunteering” or “making the world a better place,” probably a soup kitchen or swinging a hammer for Habitat for Humanity comes to mind.  But civic hackers think of data analysis, design, or software development.

“For us, we provide an outlet for technical skills to be that avenue of volunteerism,” said Luigi Ray-Montanez. Like Taylor, he’s a captain at the all-volunteer Code for Atlanta, the civic hacking meetup where Taylor’s project found an online home and collaborators.

Code for Atlanta is part of a network of coding brigades across the country affiliated with Code for America, a national nonprofit. Code for America’s goal, it says, is to help government better deliver services to the public using tools and practices of the digital age. 

At an October Code for Atlanta meeting, about two dozen folks showed up to the Garage at Tech on a weeknight to hack. Many were students.

Indeed, a lot of volunteers are new to programming and looking to ramp up their skills and work on a project they can show to potential employers, said Ray-Montanez.  But he said seasoned technologists show up too, often looking to learn some new aspect of the work.

But they also just want to do some good.

One woman’s team is creating a site that compiles Atlanta politicians’ social media posts in one place.  Another woman is pitching a new project to potential collaborators.  She wants to create an easy interface that non-coders at schools can use to create interactive maps of campus police posts, emergency phones and other public safety facilities.

Ray-Montanez’ long civic technology resume includes a stint at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit, that, among other things, uses technology to make government more transparent. He said that for years, people in technology have seen a huge gap where government could do better with technology. And he predicted a future where they will.

“But the reality is they’re not going to get there alone,” said Ray-Montanez. “They have to be pushed and prodded to get to the right place. I think showing them what’s possible from outside government is a way to get them moving forward … kind of lighting the fire.”

Code for Atlanta is very open to collaborating with government agencies, offices, nonprofits. Some, indeed, are on board with civic hacking.

Several government agencies in and around Atlanta are showing interest, often by signing up to partner in various “hacks” or “hackathons:” generally one- or two-day long pizza-and-soda-fueled brainstorming and programming blitzes.

MARTA kicked off a hack series this month, in which they’ll pose real-world challenges about how best to get information to riders and other things.

“The main object is to attract creative minds to help us to improve our customer service,” said Ming Hsi, MARTA’s chief information officer. The hack has two themes, she said: customer service and increasing ridership.

“I’m pretty new to this myself,” said Hsi, “but we’ll have good food, good prizes, a lot of fun.” She said the agency is going to bring some new data on ridership and have their own staff on hand.

She said MARTA wants to see what it can learn from the community.  She said there’s a lot of energy coming from the Atlanta tech community and the agency wants to leverage that.

Maybe other agencies would be open to that, too.