Represent: A Civic Democracy Experiment (2014-2018)
This site is an archive of Represent, a pioneering civic technology platform that ran from 2014 to 2018. Represent was an experiment in making democracy work every day, not just at elections.
What Was Represent?
Represent was a multi-channel democracy platform that allowed people to:
Vote on issues that mattered to them, from hyperlocal concerns to international challenges
Discuss and debate with others across the political spectrum
Delegate their votes to trusted people on specific topics (liquid democracy)
Engage through web, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Kik
Unlike traditional petitions, Represent welcomed all perspectives. The platform provided anonymized maps, demographic breakdowns, and clear analysis to help groups make informed decisions together.
The Numbers
Between 2015-2017, Represent facilitated:
927,946 votes cast by 16,793 voters across 61 countries
19,447 registered users (86.7% voted at least once)
3,335 questions discussed and voted on
93 active groups including the “Undivided” Brexit campaign (285,718 votes)
96 delegations set up (an early experiment in liquid democracy)
Who Used It?
The platform served four key audiences:
Citizens - everyday people wanting more say between elections
Representatives - elected officials listening to constituents directly
Organisations - civil society groups making collective decisions
Government - public bodies engaging residents on policy
The Vision
Represent explored several ideas that were ahead of their time:
Everyday democracy - participation beyond the ballot box
Liquid democracy - delegating your vote to trusted experts by topic
Multi-channel engagement - meeting people where they already were (messaging apps)
Transparent analysis - open data about who supports what and why
What’s Here
This archive contains:
86 blog posts - insights on civic tech, democratic innovation, case studies, and political analysis (2014-2017)
20 pages - product information, features, team details, and documentation
The content reflects the civic technology landscape of the mid-2010s: a period of optimism about digital democracy, participatory platforms, and distributed decision-making.
Context for 2025 Readers
Some context for modern readers:
The 2015-2017 period saw experiments like Podemos in Spain, participatory budgeting movements, and blockchain governance
Brexit and Trump raised questions about traditional representative democracy
Messenger bots were new and exciting (pre-ChatGPT!)
Liquid democracy has since influenced DAOs and Web3 governance
What Happened?
Represent operated for four years as an independent civic tech startup. Like many experiments in this space, it faced challenges around:
Scaling beyond early adopters
Sustainable business models for civic infrastructure
Competing with established social platforms for attention
The difficulty of changing political habits and institutions
The platform was sunset in 2018, but the questions it asked remain relevant.
The Represent Story
Contact
If you’re interested in discussing Represent, civic technology, or democratic innovation, reach out to Ed Dowding.
This archive preserves the work, thinking, and experiments of a team that believed technology could make democracy better. The posts and pages reflect the ideas, language, and optimism of their time.