County Board begins testing innovative public engagement platform | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors
October 13, 2017
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors announced its launch of Polco today, an innovative civic engagement platform where residents can directly influence the County’s decision-making process.
“Supervisors want to hear from the public. This tool allows us to seek out citizen views on timely issues and collect responses in a way that is useful to us as policymakers,” said County Board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb, Sr.
Polco is a platform designed to increase civic engagement, improve government transparency, and inform governments of constituent input which, in turn, will help better guide public policy.
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Using Polco’s civic analytics website and apps, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors will post questions directly to residents and receive insightful, reliable data to drive local policy decisions. By increasing civic engagement through web-based polling, there is an opportunity to meet Milwaukee County residents where they are and collectively move policy forward.
“When all constituents feel a part of the decision process, communities inherently become more resilient to future challenges,” said Nick Mastronardi, Founder and CEO of Polco.
Polco is committed to a strict privacy policy where they only share aggregated de-identified results. Participant detailed data and votes are never shared.
Polco provides the tools for municipalities to collect residents’ views concerning proposed legislation, meeting agenda items, and broader issues.
Residents can become active users by visiting https://polco.us/milwaukeecounty and creating an account. Polco’s platform is available via web, mobile, email, and any place Polco e-ballots are found online. This service is free to all residents of Milwaukee County.