DeDeDEMOCRACY APPLIED AIIA STUDENT RECOGNITION AWARD
De Democracy
Say v. do — every politician's promise, stamped against the parliamentary record.
A live accountability platform for Australian elections — built on the public voting
record, matched with the day's press, and pointed at the most under-served moment in
Australian media: the voter who hasn't decided yet.
Platform liveReal data · 225 membersNext federal election · by 2028
Jason S. Jowett · Founding DirectorDe Democracy · The Electoral Ledger
The problem02 / 10
The accountability gap
Voters hear what politicians say. Nobody shows them what they did.
🗣
The "say" is everywhere
Campaign promises, doorstops and how-to-vote cards saturate election season — all of it
authored by the parties themselves.
🗳
The "do" is buried
Every division vote is public record in Hansard — and effectively unread. The voter has
no practical way to check a promise against a voting history.
⚖
The gap is the story
When stated positions contradict the record, that's not data — that's journalism waiting
to be sold. Trust in political institutions sits near long-term lows; an instrument that verifies
politicians is something readers reward.
De Democracy · Partner briefing02
The moment03 / 10
The queue
Compulsory voting creates the highest-intent audience in Australian media.
Around 18 million enrolled Australians will stand in a queue —
and the only thing they can currently consult is the sausage sizzle.
Election-week demand for voter tools is proven: quiz-style services attract sessions in the
millions every federal cycle, then vanish. None of them shows the record. None of them converts that
attention into anything durable. The person hesitating over a ballot — phone in hand, reservations
about a candidate's ethics — is a subscriber at the moment of maximum motivation, and today
nobody is there to serve them.
De Democracy · Partner briefing03
The product — live today04 / 10
The electoral ledger
Every federal member. Every tracked policy. Stamped.
CoverageAll 225 current federal MPs and senators, 170–270 policy positions eachCompiled from the public voting record (They Vote For You / Hansard, CC-licensed)
The verdictPer policy: APPROVES 😃 / OPPOSES 😡 / MIXED ⁉️ — plus voted ✓ or no-vote ✗The signal system: has this person proven their stated stance, or contradicted it?
CompareAny four members side by side on any shared policyWho actually divides on what — in one glance
Press, attachedLive news matched to each policy from free Australian sources, refreshed continuouslyEvery outbound click carries De Democracy referral tracking — already flowing
Built for sharingEvery ledger entry is a deep link; works desktop and mobileShare the ledger, not the leak
This is not a concept deck. The platform runs today, on real data, with one-click refresh.
A live demonstration is available on request.
De Democracy · Partner briefing04
How it works05 / 10
The data engine
Public record in. Verdicts out.
Layer 1 · The record
Votes & divisions
Hansard division votes via They Vote For You, compiled per member per policy.
Deterministic, sourced, defensible — absences count as unknown, never as a stance.
Layer 2 · The press
Free media, matched
Politics coverage from the ABC, The Conversation (Creative Commons), Guardian Australia
and metro mastheads, automatically matched to policies and accumulated daily. Strict matching —
a story must hinge on the policy's distinctive terms.
Layer 3 · The exclusive
Partner content
The contradiction stamps create demand for evidence. Exclusive and subscription
journalism slots behind them — listed by likely voter swing (★★–★★★★★), not by searchable
headline. This layer is the partnership.
At election time the same engine extends from incumbents to all declared candidates
via AEC nomination feeds — every electorate, every ballot name, one ledger.
De Democracy · Partner briefing05
Competitive position06 / 10
Nobody holds this ground
Quizzes ask about you. The ledger is about them.
Vote Compass · ABC
The quiz
Asks the voter's opinions, plots them on a chart. Election-week only, no accountability
function, no per-member record, not monetisable by design.
iSideWith
The import
Same quiz model, US-built, thin Australian sourcing. No say-versus-do, no electorate
granularity.
They Vote For You
The raw record
Excellent civic infrastructure (we attribute and build on it) — but presented for
researchers, not for a voter in a queue, and deliberately non-commercial.
De Democracy
The ledger
Per-member, per-policy say-versus-do verdicts with the press attached and a revenue
model built in. The accumulated press-policy corpus and the contradiction methodology
compound — they cannot be cloned in an election week.
Unique
De Democracy · Partner briefing06
Business model07 / 10
Three streams, one moment
Built to sell journalism, not replace it.
Stream 1 · Referral
Pay-per-conversion
High-intent readers handed to partner mastheads at the exact moment they want depth —
geo-matched to metro titles. Every click already carries De Democracy tracking. Partner pays
only on subscription conversion. Zero-risk to the masthead.
Stream 2 · Membership
The exclusive ledger
Registration unlocks exclusive evidence files behind the contradiction stamps, released
in the lead-up to polling day. A $7 membership was price-tested in our 2018 user research.
Swing-rated listings defeat headline get-arounds.
Stream 3 · Advertising
The slot beside the record
A single, clearly-marked sponsorship slot in the dossier view. Premium civic context;
strictly separated from the verdicts.
Timing is the discipline: exclusives and final verdicts release immediately before an
election — limiting leakage, concentrating value into the days when attention peaks.
De Democracy · Partner briefing07
The partner offer08 / 10
What the partner gets
Subscribers at the moment of maximum motivation.
⊕
High-intent, geo-matched referrals
A reader who just discovered their own MP's contradiction is the most conversion-ready
reader in news. The ledger routes them to the partner's coverage — matched to the right metro
masthead by electorate.
⇄
Measurable from day one
Referral tracking is already live — partner analytics will show De Democracy traffic
before a contract exists. The pilot metric is simple: subscription conversions per thousand
referred sessions.
🔒
An exclusive shelf at election time
Partner journalism placed behind the most clicked stamps in the product, sold at the
peak, on a revenue share. First-mover exclusivity is available — and this offer goes to one
publisher group at a time.
De Democracy · Partner briefing08
Roadmap09 / 10
Pointed at the next federal election
Every by-election is a live rehearsal.
NOW · 2026Platform live on real data — all 225 federal members, automated ledger + press refresh.
Public launch: domain, hosting and hardening per the operating plan (near-zero run cost)
2026 – 27Electorate map utility; per-division pages; referral pilot with first media partner.
Vic (Nov 2026) and NSW (Mar 2027) state elections as audience waypoints; any federal by-election becomes a full dress rehearsal
2027 – 28Candidate ingestion at the issue of writs — every declared candidate on the ledger.
Exclusive shelf stocked with partner journalism; memberships open
BY 2028Federal election deployment. The ledger in the queue, nationwide.
Referral, membership and advertising streams all running at the peak
De Democracy · Partner briefing09
The ask10 / 10
One pilot. One metric.
A referral pilot for one electoral cycle.
Partner nominates the masthead(s) and a conversion value. De Democracy routes election-period
readers, fully tracked. We measure subscription conversions per 1,000 referred sessions and decide
the long-term arrangement on the evidence. No platform costs, no integration burden on the partner —
the links already work.
DeDe
JASON S. JOWETT · FOUNDING DIRECTOR
DEMOCRACY APPLIED · DE DEMOCRACY KUDOMOS@PROTONMAIL.COM · 0493 504 468 · LIVE DEMO ON REQUEST
AIIA recognisedFounder-owned IPVoting data CC · theyvoteforyou.org.au
Pass this briefing on
Send the deck to a colleague or related party — opens ready-written in your own mail app.
Write to the founder
Partnership enquiries, pilot terms, or a live demonstration — straight to Jason.