The right to vote is being chiseled away by voter ID laws that require voters to show government-issued photo ID in order to vote.

In December, the Department of Justice blocked South Carolina’s voter ID law on the grounds it would make it harder for minorities to vote in violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Mississippi and Texas voting ID laws also must be pre-cleared but Texas is not waiting. The Lone Star State filed a federal lawsuit in an effort to speed up a decision.

Strict photo ID requirements will be in place in at least five states – Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin — In November. With Election Day less than nine months away, voters without an official photo ID cannot wait for the challenges to play out at the Justice Department and in the courts.

In Wisconsin, for instance, voters must navigate “The 4 Proofs.”

I am a founding member of the Election Protection Coalition. Still, looking at the infographic makes my head hurt. More worrisome, it discourages voters from completing the application process. So I presented the problem of TMI (read: disenfranchisement by design) at Random Hacks of Kindness and the Hackathon for Social Good. Citizen programmers developed solutions to quickly provide voters with information on how to get a voter ID.

During Social Week Washington, DC, I gave a demo of the Cost of Freedom web-based app developed by Kin Lane, API Evangelist for CityGrid.

Users in Wisconsin can forget about “The 4 Proofs.” Instead, in four clicks or less, they will be able to access information about the state’s voter ID requirements, how to obtain a certified copy of their birth certificate (the document that’s typically produced to establish one’s identity), and the location, hours and directions to the Office of Vital Records using public transit.

I also gave a live demo of the Cost of Freedom text-based app developed by Jack Aboutboul, Twilio’s API Evangelist. Twilio is making an in-contribution of text message services to promote voter education.

To commemorate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we plan to launch the Cost of Freedom App on April 4, 2012.

I will post regular updates about the Cost of Freedom Project and other initiatives that are using civic innovation to protect the right to vote. The conversation about voter ID also gives us an opportunity to raise awareness about disruptive technologies in the public sector beyond election administration.

For more information, please visit us at Facebook.com/CostofFreedom. You can sign up to receive notice when the Cost of Freedom App is launched.

The Star also says “according to NIC, the work will require a ‘significant investment’ by the company to rebuild the state agency’s database.”

That’s one serious schema.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Esquibel

Fresh off off getting recognized as the 2011 GovFresh Awards ‘Public Servant of the Year,’ we asked the City of Austin’s Matthew Esquibel, Programmer Analyst Supervisor for Internet/Intranet Web Design in the Office of Communications & Technology Management, to share more about his work.

What are you working on in Austin that inspires you most?

We just launched a new Open Source website (austintexas.gov) and Open Data Portal (data.austintexas.gov) this week. It was the culmination of a lot of work between the city and the community and puts Austin in a great position to advance our goals of transparency, efficiency and collaboration. It is great to work with a variety of teams and individuals who believe so strongly in these initiatives. I am particularly excited about the City of Austin’s 2012 partnership with Code for America and look forward to working with them to bring great solutions to Austin.

What general trends do you see in government technology and open government that are changing the way government works?

I think there is a strong trend to try and learn lessons from the private sector and startup companies and to figure out how to apply those strategies to how government does business. It is clear that there is a large gap between the agility and innovation you typically find in a startup company and the business-as-usual approach often found in government. Focusing on open platforms, open data,agile project methodologies and collaborative community/non-profit partnerships–government is finding ways to do things smarter and we are starting to see the positive effect.

What big plans does Austin have for 2012?

2012 is all about building on the open platform and data initiatives we started this year. In many ways, our work in these areas is just beginning. We are obviously very excited about our partnership with Code for America and know that this relationship will really help keep the momentum going. We definitely want to show the world that being open to new solutions and partnerships will lead to great things for Austin and government in general.

Who gets a shout-out?

I definitely want to recognize the leadership at the City of Austin who have embraced open platform and data initiatives–it is crucial to have support at all levels to be successful. I also want to thank the web project team leaders Chris Florance and Charles Purma who never gave up on helping to push these initiatives forward–and the staff of the web team who did all the awesome work to implement them. Also, the Austin community, particularly OpenAustin, for being an articulate and energizing force. Raja, the Master Blaster! And finally, Mackenzie Kelly, a neighbor I have never met, but appears to be equally deserving of this honor.

Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn and Twitter at @escribbles and Austin Government at @austingovonline.

E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful neatly summarizes my beliefs on how society should work and provides the most appropriate slogan for the way I approach much of my life.

‘Small is beautiful’ best describes manor.govfresh, held this past Sept 20-21, in Manor, TX, and exemplifies where I believe we can have the most impact on changing how government works and where the open government community should turn its focus. The theme around manor.govfresh was government and technology, but the underlying premise was learning how we can strengthen community at its most local. So much is discussed at the federal, state and major metropolitan levels that we see small-town America as an after-thought. It’s not sexy, but it’s where change can happen faster and have a more immediate impact on citizens.

manor.govfresh was a special event for me personally and professionally, and I want to thank the City of Manor, TX and the Manor Independent School District for letting GovFresh (and me) play a little part in your big role in changing the face of government.

I also want to thank ‘Team manor.govfresh,’ including Dustin Haisler, Geovanna Ricaldi, Mark Headd, Kevin Curry, Sara Moore, Bob Greenberg, Sid Burgess, Margarita Quihuis and Andrew Krzmarzick for your time and hard work in planning everything. You guys helped put on a big-time event in small-town America and believed in its importance from the beginning.

Much of what was reported real-time came from Alex Howard, and I can’t thank him enough for making the trek, re-introducing me to Scotch and being a great friend.

manor.govfresh highlights include making over City of De Leon, having U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Beth Noveck attend and speak, getting a warm welcome each morning from the Manor ISD student choir and band (video below), connecting in real life with people I greatly admire in the open government community and, of course, getting a key to Manor.

More manor.govfresh coverage and discussion here:

• White House: City in a Box: Municipal Makeover Comes to Texas
• Huffington Post: Harnessing the Civic Surplus for Open Government
• TechPresident: In Texas, a Small Town Hopes for a Gov 2.0 Makeover Miracle
• TechPresident: All Government is Local 2.0: manor.govfresh
• CityCamp: Why Manor?
• Gov 2.0 Radio: Innovation for Local Government
• O’Reilly Radar: How do we get government to share data?
• TeleWorks: Ground Zero for Gov 2.0 Innovation: Texas?
• GovLoop: Manor.GovFresh – Beth Noveck: “OpenGov Is Not Something Nice to Do…”
• GovLoop: Pouncing on De Leon
• Twitter: #manorgf hashtag
• Flickr: manor.govfresh photo pool

Thanks again to everyone who participated in such a wonderful event. Until next time …

Announcing the new site, Karen Robinson, Executive Director of the Texas Department of Information Resources, the department responsible for Texas.gov, said:

“We want Texas.gov to be the first choice for Texas government information and services. We talked to thousands of Texans to understand what they wanted to see on our official website. With today’s launch, we are responding to their requests while making government more approachable and giving Texans the opportunity to quickly and easily complete transactions online.”

What does open beta mean?

Open beta is the stage of product release where the alpha product is released to a larger community group, usually the general public, for feedback. The testers report any bugs that they found and sometimes minor features they would like to see in the final version.

How will Manor operate in open beta?

Manor has become a model for municipal innovation and we understand that our model must continue to change and adapt to forces at work within our community. We want our citizens to be able to respond to our agency like individuals testing out a beta product (beta-testers). If they see a problem- they can report it. If they have an idea- they can submit it. If they have a question- they can ask it.

What’s next?

We think it is in the benefit of other cities to operate in open beta. We want to demonstrate that it is OK to say to our citizens, ‘that we’re re-inventing ourselves with your help.’ Operating in beta does not degrade the permanence of your established city, it only adds value by demonstrating to your citizens that your listening and acting what they have to say.

More information about how you can participate is forthcoming.

The answer: Education.

Like most agencies, we have done a significant amount of research at the City of Manor to determine how we could best use new technologies to interact and engage our citizens. In the process, we have discovered that there is one element that is quite often overlooked within the Gov 2.0 movement- education. Citizen and employee education is critical to the adoption of new technologies because the technology will not be used if it is misunderstood.

So now the big question, how do you educate employees and citizens?

For employees

We deploy and train employees on new technologies internally (before public release) so they can develop and understanding of its functions and discover new ways to utilize the technology. Essentially, our employees are the beta-testers and we make final decisions based on their feedback.

For citizens

Currently we speak at numerous civic events within our community to explain the value of utilizing these technologies to communicate and understand open government concepts.

What does the future hold?

The existing channels of education are not as effective as we would like, and as a result, we have partnered with the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW) to further training within Gov 2.0 technologies. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 institutions of higher education and associated organizations from around the world that are creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.

Manor’s participation will consist of:

• Creating 10 free and open courses by 2012 centered around Gov 2.0, Open Innovation, etc. to educate citizens and employees to learn from.
• Providing incentives to Manor Labs’ users that participate in OCW courses (Innobucks on Manor Labs).

Now what?

We want to know what you think about our plan. We want your ideas and feedback on how we can best education our employees and constituents on Gov 2.0.

We’ve created a portal on our open innovation platform for you to share your ideas/suggestions (and you don’t have to live in Manor to participate).

When GovFresh first started, I got an email from Dustin Haisler, CIO of Manor, TX, who shared with me all the work they were doing there. At that point in time, I was new to ‘Gov 2.0′ and what could be considered ‘government innovation.’ I was skeptical. I never really thought government could innovate itself out of a paper bag. To think a small-town in Texas could do it was completely laughable.

Was this guy for real?

We talked a few days later and now communicate regularly, sometimes daily, about what they’re working on, new ideas and what’s happening in open government as a whole. Dustin has even chronicled some of Manor’s work here on GovFresh. As someone who’s worked in and with several start-up companies, I’m intrigued by Manor’s efficiency and all they’ve done with such a small IT budget.

Today, Manor is a ‘Field of Dreams’ Gov 2.0 story. When it comes to innovation, Manor has built it from the ground up, and governments from near and far have come to learn more. Manor has been featured on the White House Blog, Wall Street Journal and Austin Statesmen, to name just a few.

For a while now, people have asked me when GovFresh would do a Gov 2.0 event. When I mentioned the idea to Dustin, he half-jokingly said, “Do it in Manor.”

I half-heartedly laughed and replied, “Let’s do it.”

So, we’re doing it. We’re just getting started, but wanted to reach out to the community and any of you interested in participating (see form below).

From Dustin:

“Manor wants to help re-define what it means to have a conference. Conferences are traditionally centered around knowledge transfer, and we want to transfer immediate, tangible value to other communities like ours. We want to show other local governments that Manor is not a unique, one-time experiment. Everything we’ve done in the last three years can be replicated cost-effectively and applied within the context of their agency or community.”

Stay tuned.

Yes, send me manor.govfresh updates!

Beginning next month, I’m starting a new type of operations evaluation for the City of Manor. I will work for up to one week within each department to gain a comprehensive understanding of each department’s current processes as they exist today. After circulating through each department, I will submit analysis and recommendations for each department head to review based upon my experiences.

From a management prospective, it’s easy to find a technology to make something appear to be easier, however, I want to go in the trenches and see what works and what doesn’t. It will be an interesting experience, and I look forward to posting my experiences (via videos) and final analysis online for you to watch.

Any suggestions for me or thoughts on what you want to learn from the process?