They Vote for You is a platform which provides a set of instruments to analyze how Ukrainian Parliament works. These instruments may be used to track how Ukrainian MPs vote for important and reforming draft laws, which MPs vote similarly, and whether they are consistent in their decisions. Besides that, it's possible to find out who votes contrary to most of MPs in the certain faction.
Today, on 21 March, Civil Network OPORA presented a unique resource under the USAID's RADA Program, which allows to determine and assess a real position of an MP based on his votes given for or against the important and reforming in initiatives, but not based on his speeches on TV.
They Vote for You – is Ukrainian analog of the world's popular platform They Vote For You, created for analysis of votes given by MPs. Development of Ukrainian version of this international project became possible thanks to the expert and financial assistance of the National Democratic Institute (NDI). In 2016, content updates and technical assistance of the site are made by the Civil Network OPORA under the USAID's Accountability, Responsibility, and Democratic Parliamentary Representation (RADA) Program, supported by the Eastern European Fund
The resource contains all voting of Ukrainian Parliament of VIII convocation starting from November 2014. All the data were taken at official web portal of the Verkhovna Rada. They Vote for You helps not to get lost in the huge amount of bills, and groups significant draft laws which concern reforms and determine development of the country by policies.
OPORA's representatives demonstrated analytical instruments of the resource on the presentation. In particular, they showed how to group votings and determine positions of MPs concerning socially important issues; how to determine whether MPs are consistent in their decisions, who votes contrary to his faction's policy and which MPs vote similarly. Besides that, They Vote for You provides the third way of monitoring attendance of MPs (besides written and electronic). Attendance at They Vote for You platform displays the number of votings on which an MP was present in the session hall during plenary days.
Thus, one may see a real position of an MP judging from his deeds, not words, analyze how disciplined the MP is and detect unexpected connections in positions of MPs representing different political parties.
It should be mentioned that They Vote for You platform gives no assessment to the votings – it only describes them on the basis of accompanying documents attached to a draft law, as well as conclusions of civic experts and international community.
We invite everyone to become an active user of the site, to suggest new Policies, form and track votings of their MPs.
This is a free resource with open-source code. The data can be used repeatedly. Everyone can access almost all information on the They Vote for You platform using API, in JSON at https://rada4you.org/help/data.
Photo: Mary O'Hagan, Resident Senior Director in Ukraine.
Photo: Yurii Lisovskyi, Expert at the Civil Network OPORA
Photo: Nadiia Babynska, Analyst at the Civil Network OPORA
Photo: Igor Kohut, Director of the USAID's Accountability, Responsibility, and Democratic Parliamentary Representation (RADA) Program
You are welcome to read PDF instruction “How to create Policies on the They Vote for You platform?” and FAQ on resource functioning.
The event was organized by the Civil Network OPORA under USAID's Program RADA: Accountability, Responsibility, and Democratic Parliamentary Representation (RADA) Program, supported by the Eastern European Fund