App Tracks Argentina’s Congress Voting Records · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

An app called “Década votada” (A decade in votes) [es] aims to help citizens understand “Argentina’s National Congress elections and the degree of each candidate’s allegiance to their party at the moment of voting,” as Knight International fellow Mariano Blejman writes in Source.
Mariano, who specializes in data-driven journalism, interviewed the team behind the app. They told him, among other things:
We wanted to have a general snapshot of every vote to compare and visualize elections. Using colors to identify each political bloc, we were able to see how legislators were regrouped for various votes and understand the composition of Congress and which bloc approved or rejected each issue. By identifying individual legislators it’s possible to see how often they vote according to their party’s agenda.
We believe that we’ve solved the problem in a simple way that allows an easy querying of the role of blocs and legislators through time.