Democracy is not inevitable or a given; it must be sustained and strengthened by each generation. Today, American democracy is challenged by unlimited political contributions, polarized legislatures, gerrymandered districts and opaque processes.

But efforts such as the Voting Information Project, open government data repositories, online voting, ParliamentWatch and TheyWorkForYou have demonstrated that technology can make an important contribution toward improving our democratic institutions.

Do you have an idea for an app that will improve this fall's election?  What tools do we need to improve citizen engagement?  Is there an app that would get your friends to the voting booth in November?  What app might help mitigate the impact of voter ID laws?  What data would make your local city council and board of elections more transparent?  Join civic hackers, election officials, journalists, data analysts and designers to make progress on these and other questions related to elections and politics.

This effort will begin with a brainstorming session before the main hackathon event over the weekend. But we are also going to encourage the continued development of the projects that emerge from the hackathon event by hosting a series of follow-up events, culminating in a second round of judging on October 5, one month before the general election.  None of the follow-up events are required, but we're encouraging teams to continue developing what they start over the weekend.  Here's the full schedule:

• Fri, Sept 14, 6:30pm – 8:30pm, API and Project Idea Presentations, Azavea, 340 N 12th St, Suite 402
• Sat, Sept 15, 9am – 5pm, Hackathon, Venturef0rth, 417 N 8th St, 2nd fl, Philadelphia, PA  19123
• Sun, Sept 16, 9am – 5pm, Hackathon, Venturef0rth, 417 N 8th St, 2nd fl, Philadelphia, PA  19123
• Mon, Sept 17, 6pm – 9pm, Hack evening, Azavea, 340 N 12th St, Suite 402
• Mon, Sept 24, 6pm – 9pm, Hack evening, Azavea, 340 N 12th St, Suite 402
• Mon, Oct 1, 6pm – 9pm, Hack evening, Azavea, 340 N 12th St, Suite 402
• Fri, Oct 5, 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Final judging and awards, Azavea, 340 N 12th St, Suite 402

There will be food at every event, and we'll be handing out prizes to the top projects at both the hackathon and the followup judging on Oct 5.  For more info check out:

• HacksForDemocracy.org
• Project Statements: HackerLeague.org
• Resources page listing APIs and data sets related to elections and politic

We are grateful for our sponsors that are supporting this event.  In particular:

• Knight-Mozilla OpenNews project
• Azavea
• ElectNext
• Esri
• Jarv.us
• SecondMuse
• Venturef0rth