Problem 1 Hill 4 - Citizens can easily ascertain the voting record themes or trend of their elected officials and political candidates without prior knowledge of who they are. (May overlap with group #3)
Theme:
Politicians make many claims on the campaign trail and while in office, but their voting record speaks louder than words. Using NLP, we can compare their public statements versus their actual voting record to see if they are upholding the promises they made or the stances they claim to have.
Brief description of your idea:
A wealth of data is publicly available for each elected official, including public statements, campaign trailers, interviews, speeches, etc. Natural Language Processing can be used against this corpus to determine the stance of each official across a variety of issues. This can then be compared against their public voting record to ensure that the officials are voting in a manner consistent with their stated ideals and for which the voters likely elected them.
What makes your idea unique?:
Even with access to public voting records, it is hard to compare that to thousands of sound bites from various sources to form an informed and unbiased opinion. Your sources are likely inherently skewed to reinforce your current positions, so statements from other sources may be excluded in your search. By extending the scope of data to include all communications made by the official, we can gather a much more accurate view of his/her stance on relevant issues to compare against their voting record.
What would be the impact of your idea if implemented?:
Easily see which officials are voting in accordance with their stated beliefs and in favor of their constituency.
Skills to contribute (e.g. development, architecture, research, design or anything else):
development, data science, NLP, research, design
Problem 1 Hill 4 - Citizens can easily ascertain the voting record themes or trend of their elected officials and political candidates without prior knowledge of who they are. (May overlap with group #3)
Theme: Politicians make many claims on the campaign trail and while in office, but their voting record speaks louder than words. Using NLP, we can compare their public statements versus their actual voting record to see if they are upholding the promises they made or the stances they claim to have.
Brief description of your idea: A wealth of data is publicly available for each elected official, including public statements, campaign trailers, interviews, speeches, etc. Natural Language Processing can be used against this corpus to determine the stance of each official across a variety of issues. This can then be compared against their public voting record to ensure that the officials are voting in a manner consistent with their stated ideals and for which the voters likely elected them.
What makes your idea unique?: Even with access to public voting records, it is hard to compare that to thousands of sound bites from various sources to form an informed and unbiased opinion. Your sources are likely inherently skewed to reinforce your current positions, so statements from other sources may be excluded in your search. By extending the scope of data to include all communications made by the official, we can gather a much more accurate view of his/her stance on relevant issues to compare against their voting record.
What would be the impact of your idea if implemented?: Easily see which officials are voting in accordance with their stated beliefs and in favor of their constituency.
Skills to contribute (e.g. development, architecture, research, design or anything else): development, data science, NLP, research, design