Eduardo Robles at work in nVotes.The Politics of Code is an interview series curated by Marco Deseriis with software engineers and political activists about a new generation of decision-making software that allow movements, organizations, and parties to make collective decisions online. Rather than reducing technology to the status of a tool, the interviews explore the different conceptions of political participation and democracy embedded in each software, the relationship between online and offline deliberation, as well as questions of authentication, verifiability, ownership, trust, and leadership.
Over the past two weeks, two large Internet-based consultations have been held in Spain. From February 4 through February 11, over 155,000 members of Podemos voted online to renew the party leadership and political line before the second party congress held in Vistalegre, a suburb of Madrid. A few days later, over 150,000 madrilenos voted in the first binding city referendums concerning public transport, a sustainability programme, and the renovation plan for Plaza de Espana.
In both events, party members and citizens relied on Agora Voting, an open source software developed by a small team of Spanish programmers and tech activists that allows the members of any organization to vote online.
