Vote4Democracy is a nonpartisan community network dedicated to strengthening democracy by helping citizens become better informed, better connected, and better represented.

The name Vote4Democracy has two connected meanings.

At election time, if you want a stronger democracy, you need to vote for the candidate who has demonstrated the strongest support for democracy. The person elected as your federal Member of Parliament becomes the formal representative of your electorate, so choosing that person is one of the most important democratic decisions a community makes.

But democracy does not end when the election is over.

Between elections, bills continue to come before Parliament. Decisions continue to be made. Communities continue to be affected. For democracy to function properly, citizens need a way to keep paying attention, discussing issues, voting on bills, and making their views visible to the people who represent them.

So Vote4Democracy means both things.

Vote for democracy at election time by choosing the strongest democratic representative.

And vote for democracy between elections by taking part in the bills and issues that shape our shared future.

Voting at elections matters.

The ballot box is where citizens choose the Member of Parliament who will formally represent them. For that reason, Vote4Democracy includes election-focused tools such as the How To Vote Card page and the Democracy Model, which help voters think carefully about candidates, representatives, and the kind of democracy they want to support.

At election time, one of the most important democratic choices a community can make is to elect the candidate who will be the strongest possible supporter of democracy.

Democracy cannot stop at the ballot box.

Once the election is over, the community still needs ways to stay connected, informed and heard while decisions are being made. Bills continue to come before Parliament. Public issues continue to affect people’s lives. Citizens continue to think, discuss, disagree, learn and change their minds.

Vote4Democracy is about joining these two parts of democracy together.

It supports ballot-box participation so citizens can choose better representatives, and it supports community democracy between elections so citizens can remain visible after those representatives have been elected.

The Lawnton community group is the first local expression of this network.

A small group in the electorate of Dickson has been meeting for several years to socialise and talk about current political events, democratic renewal, and how local people can stay connected, informed and heard between elections.

Part of this work is the development of VoteWrap, an IT-supported infrastructure designed to help communities hear what they are thinking about the bills that come before Parliament.

VoteWrap is being built to help citizens discuss public issues, understand bills before Parliament, vote directly when they choose to, delegate their vote to someone they trust when they choose to, and make the views of local communities more visible.

This website currently brings together the wider Vote4Democracy ideas, the election-focused democracy tools, the VoteWrap model, and the growing Lawnton community group. Over time, the national site and local community sites will become separate spaces within the broader Vote4Democracy network.

For now, this is the shared doorway.