Where we are headed

Product Roadmap

Votes is an evolving civic platform. This roadmap outlines what we have built, what we are building next, and where we are headed. We believe in building in the open.

Glossary
Community: An electoral boundary at one layer of government. Your Federal district, Provincial riding, and Municipality are each a separate community.
Representative: The elected official who holds a seat for a given community. One representative per community, per election cycle.
Constituent: Any person who lives within a community. If you live in a riding, you are a constituent of that riding at every layer of government.
Candidate: A community member who is running for election, either affiliated with a political party or standing as an independent.
Enrichment: The process of using AI to clean, fill gaps in, and improve data that has already been sourced from official government records.
Complete

Completed

Complete Map of Government Boundaries✓ Done

We mapped every Federal, Provincial, and Municipal electoral boundary across Canada. This involved extensive data sourcing, processing, and standardization to create a single, consistent picture of how communities are divided for each layer of government.

Representative Directory✓ Done

Using official government sources and web research, we built a directory of elected officials for every boundary layer. Every MP, MLA, and Councillor is linked to their community so Canadians can instantly see who speaks for them.

AI Data Enrichment Pipeline✓ Done

We built an automated process that continuously rotates through community and representative data, using AI to clean, fill gaps, and create a rich, accurate profile for each community and the people representing it.

Community Event Extraction✓ Done

Using AI, we surface community events such as town halls, public meetings, and elections from across the web and link them directly to the communities and representatives they belong to.

Federal Grants and Community Spending✓ Done

We extracted and mapped over 247,000 federal grants and contributions to the communities they flow into, making public spending visible and searchable at the community level for the first time.

Multi-Language Foundation✓ Done

We laid the groundwork for full bilingual support, with initial infrastructure in place to serve Canadians in both English and French, with broader language support planned.

Up Next

Up Next

Policy Priority Scorecard

A simple, visual tool that lets constituents, representatives, and candidates express how they would distribute their attention and energy across the functions of government. This helps surface what matters most to communities and creates a common language between the people and those representing them.

Legislative Discourse Simplified

We will extract, summarize, and simplify the real records of debate and voting from the House of Commons, provincial legislative assemblies, and municipal councils. Every statement, vote, and decision will be mapped directly to the community and representative it belongs to, making the public record genuinely accessible.

AI Language Translation

Building on our multi-language foundation, AI-powered translation will make all content summaries available in the preferred language of the reader, removing language as a barrier to civic participation.

Horizon

On the Horizon

Representative and Candidate Team Features

Tools for elected officials and candidates to manage their presence on the platform, coordinate with their teams, and publish their platform directly to constituents.

Community Engagement and Education

Features built specifically around community learning, discussion, and participation, helping constituents understand their government, connect with neighbours, and take informed action.

Continued Research and Expansion

Votes is built to grow. We are continuously investigating new data sources, new layers of government, and new ways to use technology in service of democratic participation.