What is Consul Democracy?
Consul Democracy is an open-source platform for civic participation and participatory budgeting originally developed by the City Council of Madrid, Spain. This software enables communities to engage directly in governance processes, allowing citizens to propose initiatives, vote on budgets, and participate in decision-making without the traditional bureaucratic barriers.
NTARI's Forge Lab has begun developing a Louisville-based instance of this program, offering local organizations an alternative to conventional administrative processes. The platform fundamentally challenges our assumptions about democratic governance by creating a digital space where community voices can be collected, organized, and amplified without being filtered through public officials.
The Madrid Model
Madrid serves as an impressive case study for digital democracy implementation. As the historic capital of Spain and home to 3.5 million residents in its metropolitan area, Madrid represents a complex urban environment where Consul Democracy has been successfully deployed at scale.
What makes this implementation particularly fascinating is how it manages to maintain signal amid noise. Despite serving millions of users across a diverse urban landscape of 233.3 square miles, the platform doesn't devolve into the chaotic, counterproductive environment we often see in social media. Instead, it effectively coordinates governance participation across Spain's capital city—the heart of the world's 14th largest economy—and has become a model adopted by numerous other communities globally.
Expanding the Project in Louisville
The open-source nature of Consul Democracy allows for customization based on local needs and requirements. NTARI is currently recruiting volunteers through VolunteerMatch and the Louisville Tech Slack Channel to assist organizations with implementing and modifying the platform for their specific contexts.
Our primary interest in Consul Democracy extends beyond its technical architecture to its social implications. We aim to understand several key questions:
How does Madrid manage citizen access to specific issues across its diverse metropolitan area?
Is access to all governance issues equally available to all residents?
What modifications have other communities made to adapt the platform to their unique needs?
From Consul Democracy to Democracy Console
Consul Democracy essentially creates a terminal for visualizing and editing public policy, comparable to how Visual Studio Code functions for software development. After studying Madrid's implementation and examining adaptations in other communities, we plan to develop our own version that meets American certified voting system standards—Democracy Console.
Join Us
Become a Tester
We're seeking nonprofit organizations throughout the Greater Louisville Metro area interested in testing Consul Democracy. This is an opportunity to help shape the future of participatory governance in our community.
Volunteer
We need volunteers with skills in:
Software development
Team management
Documentation
Get involved by visiting www.NTARI.org/volunteer. For organizations outside of Louisville interested in implementing similar systems, please contact Jodson Graves at info@ntari.org.
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Madrid is a historic capital city at the center of the Iberian Peninsual with 3.5 million residents
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