
DNC just open-sourced their voter registration platform - kine
http://democrats.github.com/voter-registration/
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tptacek
This application is very, very simple; it's a practically the starting
skeleton of a modern Rails/Devise application.

One useful reason to bookmark it: it's a pretty good how-to for "any web
application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a
specific format". There are a LOT of business processes that work like that.

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luriel
> One useful reason to bookmark it: it's a pretty good how-to for "any web
> application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a
> specific format".

As others have pointed out, the (not really open source) license doesn't allow
any uses for other purposes.

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tptacek
It would be silly to copy an application this simple verbatim, but that same
property makes it very easy to read.

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Hoff
The first part of the software license looks to be BSD/MIT-like with the _to
deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the
rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
sell copies of the Software,..._ sentence, but then there's this paragraph:

 _This permission does not include: (a) any use of the Software other than for
its intended purpose; or (b) any use of the Software in any manner that
violates applicable law. Any use of the Software other than as specifically
authorized herein is strictly prohibited and will terminate the license
granted herein._

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balpha
In particular this means that this is anything but open source (at least if
you go by the OSI definition, which I do).

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chimeracoder
It also precludes it from being free software, as defined by the FSF.

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gary4gar
I like how the registration form shows the form validation errors inline:
<http://i.imgur.com/U5QL1.png>

Looking at the source view([https://github.com/democrats/voter-
registration/blob/master/...](https://github.com/democrats/voter-
registration/blob/master/app/views/register/_form.html.erb)) it doesn't seems
there is some extra markup, unless I am missing something.

So, How can I implement the same in my rails app?

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cheald
That's simple_form at work. Great little gem.

~~~
gary4gar
Thanks for pointing that out :)

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grandalf
Wouldn't a better strategy be a Twilio app that calls voters and informs them
that they are registered to vote already?

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greenyoda
The point of this software is to make it easier for people who have never
registered before to register. The Democratic party probably spent their
resources on this because they think that a large percentage of unregistered
voters come from demographic groups that tend to vote for Democrats, such as
recent college grads who were not yet old enough to vote in the 2008 election.

How would your strategy improve the expected outcome for the Democrats?

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cap10morgan
I worked as a Rails dev at the DNC in 2010-2011. I pushed for open-sourcing
our fully-featured voter reg. Rails app back then, but didn't find much
support for the idea. The political world is pretty wary of "giving code away"
because the opposition will use it, etc. So, progress?

We were allowed to open-source some infrastructure code back then:
<https://github.com/dnclabs>

Hopefully they'll continue working on this tool and make it something worth
using and contributing to. I've tried to convince several political orgs. I
worked for in the past to do this, but so far none have bitten.

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mediocregopher
Maybe it's just my screen, but I find that shade of grey to be incredibly
difficult to read.

I do like the trend towards technological openness though, hopefully we'll be
seeing more of this sort of thing.

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dnctroll
This will be helpful for the DNC to register the dead people and dogs needed
to win elections this year with national unemployment at 8.3%.

~~~
grourk
Perfect handle.

