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Voice to Congress | |
Define comprehensive, measurable requirements for a U.S. Democracy system that protects constitutional government, preserves free and fair elections, strengthens representative accountability, protects civil rights and civil liberties, maintains the rule of law, prevents corruption and authoritarian capture, strengthens democratic resilience, maintains public trust, and protects the American people.
These requirements remain in the requirements-engineering phase. Metrics, scoring, rollups, issue grades, member grades, report cards, leaderboards, legislative mapping, and public action tools remain disabled until later review and approval.
The Democracy system is treated as a whole-of-nation civic system integrating election administration, voter access, election integrity, representation, legislative deliberation, checks and balances, judicial independence, executive accountability, ethics, anti-corruption controls, campaign-finance transparency, civil rights, civil liberties, public records, civic education, peaceful transfer of power, public evidence, oversight, and legal / civil-liberty safeguards.
U.S. Constitution, amendments, federalist system principles, separation-of-powers doctrine, equal protection, due process, free-speech, free-press, and voting-rights authorities.
Voting Rights Act, National Voter Registration Act, Help America Vote Act, Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, Electoral Count Reform Act, Federal Election Campaign Act, Ethics in Government Act, Freedom of Information Act, and related election, ethics, transparency, and civil-rights references.
Election Assistance Commission, Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Federal Election Commission, Census Bureau, NIST, GAO, CRS, CBO, OMB, state election offices, courts, and other primary or high-quality oversight sources as applicable.
SMART-D requirements discipline: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound, and Distinct.
MIL-HDBK-520A-style requirements engineering principles adapted for civic review use.
The Democracy system shall operate as an integrated public-interest system that enables eligible citizens to participate, protects lawful voting and vote counting, supports fair representation, preserves checks and balances, enforces the rule of law, protects constitutional rights, prevents corruption and abuse of power, resists political violence and authoritarian pressure, recovers from institutional stress, and maintains public trust.
Register, inform, vote, count, certify, represent, deliberate, legislate, adjudicate, oversee, disclose, enforce, educate, protect, recover, and improve.
Protect eligible voters, constitutional government, peaceful transfer of power, representative institutions, civil rights, civil liberties, transparent public decision-making, public evidence, and accountable use of public authority.
Use measurable requirements and clearly identified source data before any scoring or report-card use is enabled.
The list below is grouped by SMART-D reviewer-detail page. Each Requirement ID links to the detailed SMART requirements page in 001 - SMART Requirements.
Color Rule: Red text = bad current value, bad trend, missing critical data, or unfavorable gap. Green text = favorable value or improving trend. Amber text = context-dependent, incomplete, or source-method review needed. Neutral black text = descriptive value that is not inherently good or bad.
Reviewer Feedback Dashboard (Reviewer / Administrator / ADM comments)
Loaded 104 requirement entries from 18 SMART-D detail pages plus 1 consolidated reviewer index.
DEM-MIS-001: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall preserve constitutional governance, separation of powers, individual rights, representative government, due process, equal protection, and peaceful transfer of authority.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-002: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall maintain broad public confidence in elections, governing institutions, public decision-making, and the peaceful resolution of political conflict.
Current Metric: Public trust in federal government: 17%; Public view of Congress: 34%. Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Public trust supports voluntary compliance, peaceful transitions, institutional legitimacy, and democratic stability.
DEM-MIS-003: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall ensure that eligible citizens can participate meaningfully and that elected bodies reasonably reflect the will, interests, and rights of the people.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-004: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall apply laws fairly and consistently to citizens, officials, institutions, corporations, and government actors.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-005: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall ensure that elected and appointed officials can be held accountable for votes, actions, performance, conflicts of interest, misuse of power, and failure to perform core duties.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-006: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall make public decisions, votes, spending, legal authorities, emergency actions, and program outcomes visible and understandable to citizens.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-007: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall produce measurable public outcomes through lawful, efficient, evidence-based, and publicly accountable government action.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-008: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall detect, resist, and recover from authoritarian pressure, political violence, election interference, corruption, disinformation, emergency-power abuse, and institutional capture.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-009: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall support meaningful citizen participation beyond election day through public comment, constituent communication, civic education, public meetings, petitions, hearings, and transparent legislative engagement.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-MIS-010: Mission and Outcome Comment / Review
Requirement: The democratic system shall encourage and measure leadership behavior that respects truth, constitutional limits, peaceful transfer of power, public service, institutional integrity, and the legitimacy of lawful opposition.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy mission-outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Clarifies what a healthy democracy must accomplish before the site measures, scores, or grades anything.
DEM-FUN-001: Elections and Voting Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall define, measure, and report whether elections are secure, auditable, verifiable, legally administered, and protected against fraud, interference, intimidation, and unlawful manipulation.
Current Metric: Candidate election integrity, access, auditability, certification, and lawful administration indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens see whether elections are secure, lawful, accessible, auditable, and trusted.
DEM-FUN-002: Elections and Voting Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall define, measure, and report whether eligible citizens have practical, equal, and non-discriminatory access to voter registration, ballot access, early voting, absentee or mail voting where applicable, accessible polling places, and accurate election information.
Current Metric: Citizen voting-age population turnout: 65.3%; Citizen voting-age population registration: 73.6%. Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Makes the right to vote real in practice, not merely available on paper.
DEM-FUN-003: Elections and Voting Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify and display public evidence concerning election rules, ballot counting, certification, recount procedures, audits, and results reporting.
Current Metric: Candidate election integrity, access, auditability, certification, and lawful administration indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens see whether elections are secure, lawful, accessible, auditable, and trusted.
DEM-FUN-004: Elections and Voting Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify national, state, and local election-administration standards relevant to democratic performance and distinguish between required standards, best practices, and policy proposals.
Current Metric: Candidate election integrity, access, auditability, certification, and lawful administration indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens see whether elections are secure, lawful, accessible, auditable, and trusted.
DEM-FUN-005: Elections and Voting Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall define and track evidence related to peaceful transfer of power, acceptance of lawful election outcomes, certification integrity, and prevention of political violence or unlawful interference.
Current Metric: Candidate election integrity, access, auditability, certification, and lawful administration indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens see whether elections are secure, lawful, accessible, auditable, and trusted.
DEM-FUN-006: Representation Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall define and report indicators of fair representation, including district fairness, competitiveness, proportionality, voter influence, and barriers to representation.
Current Metric: Candidate representation fairness and voter influence indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Shows whether voters have fair influence and communities are represented without artificial dilution or exclusion.
DEM-FUN-007: Representation Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify whether ballot access rules, candidate access rules, and election procedures support fair competition while protecting election integrity.
Current Metric: Candidate representation fairness and voter influence indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Shows whether voters have fair influence and communities are represented without artificial dilution or exclusion.
DEM-FUN-008: Representation Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall include indicators that help evaluate whether communities are represented fairly without diluting voting power or excluding eligible citizens from meaningful participation.
Current Metric: Candidate representation fairness and voter influence indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Shows whether voters have fair influence and communities are represented without artificial dilution or exclusion.
DEM-FUN-009: Checks and Balances Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall define and measure whether Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Judiciary operate within constitutional limits.
Current Metric: Candidate checks-and-balances, oversight, and constitutional-limits indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps prevent concentration of power and makes institutional accountability visible.
DEM-FUN-010: Checks and Balances Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall track whether Congress conducts meaningful oversight of executive agencies, spending, emergency powers, ethics violations, corruption, civil liberties risks, and institutional abuse.
Current Metric: Candidate checks-and-balances, oversight, and constitutional-limits indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps prevent concentration of power and makes institutional accountability visible.
DEM-FUN-011: Checks and Balances Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify legislation, oversight, litigation, and public evidence related to executive accountability, emergency powers, enforcement discretion, agency transparency, and administrative law compliance.
Current Metric: Candidate checks-and-balances, oversight, and constitutional-limits indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps prevent concentration of power and makes institutional accountability visible.
DEM-FUN-012: Checks and Balances Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify and report indicators related to judicial independence, court access, ethics, public trust, case transparency, and resistance to political intimidation.
Current Metric: Candidate checks-and-balances, oversight, and constitutional-limits indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps prevent concentration of power and makes institutional accountability visible.
DEM-FUN-013: Checks and Balances Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall distinguish between healthy checks and balances and harmful institutional paralysis by measuring whether major public problems receive timely hearings, votes, decisions, and implementation.
Current Metric: Democracy bill advancement rate: 0 / 136 (0.0%) advanced beyond introduction/referral. Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Shows whether Democracy-related bills receive meaningful legislative action or die at introduction.
DEM-FUN-014: Rule of Law and Civil Liberties Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify evidence that laws are applied consistently regardless of office, wealth, party, status, or institutional power.
Current Metric: World Justice Project overall rule of law score: 27 / 143; WJP constraints on government powers: 36 / 143. Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Keeps law from becoming a weapon for the powerful or a shield for insiders.
DEM-FUN-015: Rule of Law and Civil Liberties Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify legislation and public actions affecting due process, free speech, free press, assembly, privacy, equal protection, religious liberty, and protection from unlawful government action.
Current Metric: Candidate rule-of-law and civil-liberties protection indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects citizens from arbitrary government power, unequal legal treatment, and civil-liberty abuse.
DEM-FUN-016: Rule of Law and Civil Liberties Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall support public understanding of legal processes by linking laws, regulations, enforcement actions, court decisions, oversight findings, and plain-English explanations.
Current Metric: Candidate rule-of-law and civil-liberties protection indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects citizens from arbitrary government power, unequal legal treatment, and civil-liberty abuse.
DEM-FUN-017: Ethics, Corruption, and Conflicts of Interest Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify and report whether elected officials and senior public officials disclose financial interests, gifts, conflicts of interest, outside income, and other ethics-relevant information as required by law.
Current Metric: Candidate ethics, corruption, conflict-of-interest, and accountability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Reduces corruption and conflicts of interest by making official conduct measurable and accountable.
DEM-FUN-018: Ethics, Corruption, and Conflicts of Interest Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall classify and evaluate legislation related to bribery, corruption, lobbying transparency, campaign finance transparency, public contracting integrity, and misuse of public office.
Current Metric: Candidate ethics, corruption, conflict-of-interest, and accountability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Reduces corruption and conflicts of interest by making official conduct measurable and accountable.
DEM-FUN-019: Ethics, Corruption, and Conflicts of Interest Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall track whether violations of democratic processes, public ethics, election law, corruption laws, or institutional rules have timely, transparent, and meaningful consequences.
Current Metric: Candidate ethics, corruption, conflict-of-interest, and accountability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Reduces corruption and conflicts of interest by making official conduct measurable and accountable.
DEM-FUN-020: Transparency and Open Government Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall make congressional votes, sponsorships, cosponsorships, bill actions, committee activity, amendments, and legislative timelines traceable to official sources.
Current Metric: Bill data availability: 816 / 952 required fields present (85.7%). Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Lets citizens inspect votes, bills, amendments, sponsors, and timing without relying on unsupported claims.
DEM-FUN-021: Transparency and Open Government Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall link democratic accountability to federal spending, program objectives, and measurable public outcomes where relevant.
Current Metric: Candidate transparency, open-government, source-traceability, and public-records indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Allows citizens to see decisions, sources, spending, votes, and performance instead of relying on slogans.
DEM-FUN-022: Transparency and Open Government Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall not present public grades, conclusions, or claims without evidence links, source notes, review status, and confidence labels.
Current Metric: Candidate transparency, open-government, source-traceability, and public-records indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Allows citizens to see decisions, sources, spending, votes, and performance instead of relying on slogans.
DEM-FUN-023: Citizen Engagement Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall help citizens identify relevant federal elected officials by location or jurisdiction when technically available.
Current Metric: Candidate citizen engagement and public-participation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps people participate between elections through clear information, communication, and public action.
DEM-FUN-024: Citizen Engagement Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall provide citizen-ready communication tools, including email drafts, printable letters, call scripts, talking points, and issue-specific action prompts.
Current Metric: Candidate citizen engagement and public-participation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps people participate between elections through clear information, communication, and public action.
DEM-FUN-025: Citizen Engagement Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall generate or display talking points that map back to Democracy requirements, metrics, legislation, and report card evidence.
Current Metric: Candidate citizen engagement and public-participation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps people participate between elections through clear information, communication, and public action.
DEM-FUN-026: Citizen Engagement Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall support future measurement of whether elected officials respond to citizen communications within defined timeframes when reliable data is available.
Current Metric: Candidate citizen engagement and public-participation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps people participate between elections through clear information, communication, and public action.
DEM-FUN-027: Civic Education Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall explain democratic concepts, such as checks and balances, rule of law, judicial independence, voting rights, and oversight, in plain English.
Current Metric: Candidate civic education and democratic-literacy indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens understand democratic rights, responsibilities, institutions, evidence, and public decision-making.
DEM-FUN-028: Civic Education Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify high-performing democracies and best-practice models for elections, transparency, trust, anti-corruption, legislative responsiveness, and civic participation.
Current Metric: Candidate civic education and democratic-literacy indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens understand democratic rights, responsibilities, institutions, evidence, and public decision-making.
DEM-PER-001: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Each public Democracy requirement shall be measurable or explicitly labeled as qualitative, developmental, or pending source definition.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-PER-002: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: At least 80 percent of active public Democracy metrics shall have identified source definitions before the issue is labeled public-beta ready.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-PER-003: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: At least 80 percent of public Democracy report-card scoring factors shall include evidence records before member grades are publicly presented as more than preliminary.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-PER-004: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall define update frequency for each Democracy metric, including daily, weekly, monthly, annual, election-cycle, or manual-review cadence.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-PER-005: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Where official source data is available, public Democracy dashboards shall show the source date, last refreshed date, and review status.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-PER-006: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Democracy legislation shall be traceable from bill identification through issue classification, requirement mapping, member activity, evidence status, and scoring status.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-PER-007: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Every public grade, metric, or conclusion shall display an appropriate status such as Draft, Candidate, Preliminary, Public Beta, Final Pending Approval, or Final Approved.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-PER-008: Performance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Public pages shall provide enough plain-English explanation for a non-expert citizen to understand the issue, the score, the evidence, and the recommended action.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-governance performance and outcome indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Connects democratic principles to measurable public outcomes, not just political promises.
DEM-DAT-001: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall maintain a Democracy source registry identifying each source, source owner, URL or location, dataset name, update frequency, metric mapping, data limitations, and review status.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-002: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall prefer official government sources, authoritative nonpartisan datasets, academic sources, and reputable international benchmark sources.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-003: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Each metric shall include source notes explaining what the data measures, what it does not measure, and any known limitations.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-004: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Each Democracy metric shall include a data quality label such as Good, Watch, Info, Pending, Candidate, or Manual Review Required.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-005: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall preserve historical metric snapshots to support trend analysis and avoid overwriting prior public records.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-006: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Human-review data shall be stored in CSV or another maintainable review format that can be audited, backed up, and regenerated.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-007: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Report Card evidence records shall include source, date, bill/action identifier, member identifier when applicable, issue code, requirement mapping, scoring effect, confidence level, and reviewer status.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-008: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall prevent stale data from appearing current by displaying source dates, refresh dates, and stale-data warnings when appropriate.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-DAT-009: Data and Information Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall separate evidence collection and scoring logic from partisan conclusions, slogans, or unsupported claims.
Current Metric: Candidate evidence completeness, data freshness, and source-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects public trust by ensuring evidence is source-traceable, current, and labeled for confidence.
DEM-MET-001: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall maintain a Democracy Metrics Catalog listing every candidate and active metric, including requirement mapping, data source, calculation method, status, owner/reviewer, and public display decision.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-MET-002: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Democracy metrics shall be grouped into understandable public domains, such as Elections, Representation, Rule of Law, Checks and Balances, Transparency, Accountability, Civic Participation, Leadership Norms, and Government Performance.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-MET-003: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Each scored metric shall document whether higher is better, lower is better, target thresholds, normalization method, weight, and grade conversion.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-MET-004: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Candidate metrics shall not affect public grades until source definition, review status, and scoring method are approved.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-MET-005: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy dashboard shall include a data confidence score based on source coverage, evidence completeness, freshness, review status, and scoring maturity.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-MET-006: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy dashboard shall show trend information when at least two valid snapshots exist.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-MET-007: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall distinguish issue-level democratic health metrics from congressional member grades so users do not confuse national conditions with individual member responsibility.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-MET-008: Metrics Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Metrics shall support root-cause analysis by identifying whether poor performance is caused by weak legislation, lack of oversight, poor implementation, weak enforcement, low trust, low participation, blocked voting access, corruption risk, or data gaps.
Current Metric: Candidate metric readiness, scoring-control, and grade-band approval indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Turns requirements into measurable indicators that can be reviewed before any public scoring.
DEM-RC-001: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The ETL system shall classify bills, resolutions, amendments, votes, and other congressional actions related to Democracy using transparent keywords, subjects, summaries, official titles, and manual overrides when needed.
Current Metric: Democracy bill universe count: 136 Democracy bill candidates (119, 2025). Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Shows the size of the legislative universe before members are judged.
DEM-RC-002: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Each Democracy bill or action used for scoring shall map to one or more Democracy requirements.
Current Metric: Bill-to-requirement mapping coverage: 98 / 136 (72.1%) mapped to candidate requirement IDs. Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Prevents disconnected legislative scoring and helps citizens see why a bill matters.
DEM-RC-003: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall score member activity based on relevant evidence, which may include sponsorship, cosponsorship, votes, committee leadership, oversight activity, public accountability actions, and legislative advancement.
Current Metric: Member sponsorship score: Evidence count only: 136 sponsor rows; 91 distinct sponsors; Member cosponsorship score: Evidence count only: 1191 cosponsor rows; 436 distinct cosponsors. Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Lets citizens see legislative participation while avoiding premature member grades.
DEM-RC-004: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall distinguish symbolic introduction from meaningful legislative advancement, including committee action, floor action, passage, enactment, oversight result, or institutional reform.
Current Metric: Member legislation advancement score: Evidence count only: 0 advanced bills; no member points assigned. Public display approved; scoring disabled.
Trend: Display value available; current trend not yet approved; source-method review required before scoring.
Value to the People: Avoids rewarding symbolic bill introduction without action.
DEM-RC-005: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: No Democracy member grade shall be displayed as final unless the evidence, scoring method, source coverage, and review checklist are complete.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy report-card readiness and evidence-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens evaluate congressional performance using evidence rather than party labels alone.
DEM-RC-006: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall account for differences in member roles, such as rank-and-file member, committee member, committee chair/ranking member, party leadership, chamber leadership, and relevant oversight responsibilities.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy report-card readiness and evidence-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens evaluate congressional performance using evidence rather than party labels alone.
DEM-RC-007: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall support vote integration for Democracy scoring when reliable vote data and issue mapping are available.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy report-card readiness and evidence-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens evaluate congressional performance using evidence rather than party labels alone.
DEM-RC-008: Congress Report Card Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Users shall be able to click a Democracy grade or score and view the evidence, formula, source notes, and limitations supporting that result.
Current Metric: Candidate Democracy report-card readiness and evidence-traceability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Helps citizens evaluate congressional performance using evidence rather than party labels alone.
DEM-INT-001: Interface Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy Requirements page shall present requirements in clear sections with stable requirement IDs, plain-English descriptions, and verification methods.
Current Metric: Candidate usability, accessibility, printability, and link-quality indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Makes Democracy pages easier to use, understand, print, review, and maintain.
DEM-INT-002: Interface Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy Metrics page shall include an executive summary, snapshot selector, score summary, domain summaries, top strengths, top weaknesses, trend summary, metric table, data confidence, and source notes.
Current Metric: Candidate usability, accessibility, printability, and link-quality indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Makes Democracy pages easier to use, understand, print, review, and maintain.
DEM-INT-003: Interface Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy Report Card shall present congressional performance in a simplified public table with grade, detail link, evidence link, public status, and data confidence.
Current Metric: Candidate usability, accessibility, printability, and link-quality indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Makes Democracy pages easier to use, understand, print, review, and maintain.
DEM-INT-004: Interface Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy Act Now page shall provide clear actions, including writing, calling, printing, and using talking points tied to Democracy requirements and current legislative priorities.
Current Metric: Candidate usability, accessibility, printability, and link-quality indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Makes Democracy pages easier to use, understand, print, review, and maintain.
DEM-INT-005: Interface Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Administrative functions related to Democracy shall be organized under 90 - Admin / 110 - Master Control Panel or a clearly related subfolder.
Current Metric: Candidate usability, accessibility, printability, and link-quality indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Makes Democracy pages easier to use, understand, print, review, and maintain.
DEM-INT-006: Interface Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Public Democracy pages shall use readable layout, accessible headings, clear tables, meaningful link text, printable formatting, and minimal avoidable clutter.
Current Metric: Candidate usability, accessibility, printability, and link-quality indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Makes Democracy pages easier to use, understand, print, review, and maintain.
DEM-SEC-001: Security, Privacy, and Misuse-Resistance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall avoid collecting unnecessary personal data from citizens using Democracy pages or Act Now tools.
Current Metric: Candidate privacy, security, misuse-resistance, and audit-control indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects citizens, sources, privacy, and scoring integrity from misuse or silent manipulation.
DEM-SEC-002: Security, Privacy, and Misuse-Resistance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Administrative Democracy tools shall require appropriate administrator or reviewer access and shall not expose sensitive controls to guest users.
Current Metric: Candidate privacy, security, misuse-resistance, and audit-control indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects citizens, sources, privacy, and scoring integrity from misuse or silent manipulation.
DEM-SEC-003: Security, Privacy, and Misuse-Resistance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall preserve source URLs, dates, evidence records, and audit logs so public conclusions can be independently reviewed.
Current Metric: Candidate privacy, security, misuse-resistance, and audit-control indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects citizens, sources, privacy, and scoring integrity from misuse or silent manipulation.
DEM-SEC-004: Security, Privacy, and Misuse-Resistance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall distinguish verified facts, source-based findings, analysis, opinion, candidate metrics, and unverified claims.
Current Metric: Candidate privacy, security, misuse-resistance, and audit-control indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects citizens, sources, privacy, and scoring integrity from misuse or silent manipulation.
DEM-SEC-005: Security, Privacy, and Misuse-Resistance Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall protect scoring methods from silent changes by requiring versioned formulas, review notes, and audit trails.
Current Metric: Candidate privacy, security, misuse-resistance, and audit-control indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Protects citizens, sources, privacy, and scoring integrity from misuse or silent manipulation.
DEM-OPS-001: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The public Democracy folders shall contain only necessary public files, data files, and support files. Drafts, reviews, scripts, and work products shall be stored under support or ETL folders.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-002: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy issue shall include an _issue_support folder for source definitions, review files, metric catalogs, audit outputs, and draft materials not intended for direct public navigation.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-003: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall support a Democracy architecture audit that inventories folders, files, ZIPs, dependencies, admin gaps, public files, App_Data, includes, scripts, and unusual files.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-004: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Before significant Democracy folder reorganization or file replacement, the operator shall create or verify a dated backup root using the established backup pattern.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-005: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: ZIP files shall be inventoried before movement, deletion, or archival.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-006: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Data ingestion, scoring, audit, source processing, and report generation shall be handled by Python scripts where practical.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-007: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: ASPX/JScript pages shall focus on display, controls, simple public rendering, and admin trigger interfaces rather than complex data transformation.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-008: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Python-generated Democracy outputs intended for public display shall be written as JSON files consumable by ASPX/JScript pages.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-OPS-009: Operations and Administration Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: CSV files shall be used where practical for human-editable source review, manual overrides, promotion decisions, and metric review checklists.
Current Metric: Candidate issue-operations, backup, audit-readiness, and maintainability indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Keeps the Democracy issue maintainable, auditable, backed up, and separated between public and support files.
DEM-RSK-001: Risk Management Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify metrics and evidence related to election interference, voter suppression, fraud claims, certification disruption, intimidation, and administrative failure.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-risk detection and mitigation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Identifies democratic failure modes before they become normalized or misused.
DEM-RSK-002: Risk Management Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify risks related to concentration of power, politicization of neutral institutions, corruption, retaliation against oversight, or weakening of independent checks.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-risk detection and mitigation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Identifies democratic failure modes before they become normalized or misused.
DEM-RSK-003: Risk Management Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify risks related to judicial intimidation, unequal enforcement, lack of due process, or public loss of confidence in legal institutions.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-risk detection and mitigation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Identifies democratic failure modes before they become normalized or misused.
DEM-RSK-004: Risk Management Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall identify risks related to disinformation, loss of shared facts, false election claims, manipulation of public records, and inability of citizens to distinguish verified sources from propaganda.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-risk detection and mitigation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Identifies democratic failure modes before they become normalized or misused.
DEM-RSK-005: Risk Management Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall reduce the risk that users misinterpret preliminary, incomplete, or low-confidence grades as final conclusions.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-risk detection and mitigation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Identifies democratic failure modes before they become normalized or misused.
DEM-RSK-006: Risk Management Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The system shall document scoring logic, data sources, weights, and review status to reduce perceived or actual partisan bias.
Current Metric: Candidate democratic-risk detection and mitigation indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Identifies democratic failure modes before they become normalized or misused.
DEM-VV-001: Verification and Validation Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy requirements shall be reviewed for completeness, clarity, measurability, consistency, and traceability before being used as the controlling basis for metrics and scoring.
Current Metric: Candidate requirements, metrics, source, ETL, and report-card validation-readiness indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Ensures requirements, metrics, sources, ETL outputs, and report-card scores are reviewed before public release.
DEM-VV-002: Verification and Validation Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Each proposed Democracy metric shall pass a readiness review before it is promoted from candidate to public display or active scoring.
Current Metric: Candidate requirements, metrics, source, ETL, and report-card validation-readiness indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Ensures requirements, metrics, sources, ETL outputs, and report-card scores are reviewed before public release.
DEM-VV-003: Verification and Validation Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Each source used for active Democracy metrics shall have an approved source definition or documented review status.
Current Metric: Candidate requirements, metrics, source, ETL, and report-card validation-readiness indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Ensures requirements, metrics, sources, ETL outputs, and report-card scores are reviewed before public release.
DEM-VV-004: Verification and Validation Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Democracy ETL outputs shall be validated against source counts, expected fields, data freshness, and known sample records.
Current Metric: Candidate requirements, metrics, source, ETL, and report-card validation-readiness indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Ensures requirements, metrics, sources, ETL outputs, and report-card scores are reviewed before public release.
DEM-VV-005: Verification and Validation Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Public Democracy pages shall be checked in the browser after each major content, data, or code update.
Current Metric: Candidate requirements, metrics, source, ETL, and report-card validation-readiness indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Ensures requirements, metrics, sources, ETL outputs, and report-card scores are reviewed before public release.
DEM-VV-006: Verification and Validation Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: Democracy Report Card scores shall be validated with sample members before public release.
Current Metric: Candidate requirements, metrics, source, ETL, and report-card validation-readiness indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Ensures requirements, metrics, sources, ETL outputs, and report-card scores are reviewed before public release.
DEM-VV-007: Verification and Validation Requirements Comment / Review
Requirement: The Democracy issue shall receive at least annual review to update requirements, metrics, sources, weights, and public explanations.
Current Metric: Candidate requirements, metrics, source, ETL, and report-card validation-readiness indicator set; source-method review required.
Trend: Not yet approved for scoring; source-method review required.
Value to the People: Ensures requirements, metrics, sources, ETL outputs, and report-card scores are reviewed before public release.