
Reimagining Civic Participation: The Digital Democracy Project
From The PolicyViz Podcast by The PolicyViz Podcast
May 20, 2026 · 36 min · Season 12 · Episode 309
About this episode
Ramon Perez discusses the Digital Democracy Project and its impact on civic participation through mobile voting technology.
I talk with Ramon Perez, Executive Director of the Digital Democracy Project this week. DDP is a nonpartisan nonprofit using secure mobile voting technology to give citizens a real-time voice in legislation. Ramon explains how the platform lets verified, registered voters weigh in on bills being debated in Congress and their state house—and then scores legislators on how closely their votes match what their districts wanted. We dig into how AI, including a RAG-powered chatbot called VoteBot, helps everyday citizens parse thousands of pages of complex legislative text. We also discuss digital security, participatory budgeting, and Ramon's ambitious goal of expanding the platform to all 50 state legislatures by 2027. Keywords: digital democracy, mobile voting, civic tech, legislative transparency, AI in government, Ramon Perez, Digital Democracy Project, VoteBot, participatory budgeting, voter engagement, legislator accountability, PolicyViz podcast, civic engagement, govtech Subscribe to the PolicyViz Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Become a patron of the PolicyViz Podcast [https://patreon.com/policyviz] for as little as a buck a month Follow Ramon Perez and the Digital…
People in this episode
Host: The PolicyViz Podcast
Guest: Ramon Perez
Topics covered
- digital democracy
- mobile voting
- civic tech
- legislative transparency
- AI in government
Keywords
- digital democracy
- mobile voting
- civic tech
- legislative transparency
- AI in government
- participatory budgeting
- voter engagement
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Digital Democracy Project
Products: VoteBot
More episodes of The PolicyViz Podcast
- Outlier 2026: What to Expect at This Year's Data Visualization Society Conference · June 3, 2026 · 40 min
- Mapping the Invisible: Inside the Atlas of Macroscopes · May 7, 2026 · 45 min
- Data Vandals: Taking Data Visualization Off the Screen and Into the Streets · April 22, 2026 · 52 min
- Why Government Makes Things Hard: Don Moynihan on Administrative Burden · April 8, 2026 · 36 min
- AI, Dashboards, and Human Decisions: A Conversation with Melanie Tory · March 25, 2026 · 36 min
- From PDFs to Pit Lane: Building a Real-Time Data Product for McLaren Racing · March 11, 2026 · 37 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The PolicyViz Podcast podcast page.