I agree with Laura that it seems that a key major advantage for Vota Inteligente compared to some of the other projects we've reviewed is that such a large percentage of Chileans are considerably tech-savvy. However, I think it is also interesting to look at when Vota Inteligente was successful in bringing about accountability and when it was not. The successful example is when a small team of researchers working for the organization published their review of the information made available on the candidates' websites. They then worked with mainstream media (notably Spanish-language CNN) to spread more awareness about their findings. The candidates then responded by making more information available on their websites in order to raise their position in Vota Inteligente's rankings. That's a great example of using online publishing and then working with mainstream media to demand a response and more specific information from candidates. But it was done by a relatively small group.

An example of where Vota Inteligente was not successful was in their use of an adaptation of FixMyStreet to encourage citizens to submit reports of illegal election-related banners and publicity. Rather than relying on the work of just a few researchers, they hoped to attract the contributions of regular citizens out in the streets. But they weren't able to attract those contributions. Is this because Chileans don't feel that illegal campaign publicity is a problem, or does it reveal something more general about the difficulty of crowdsourcing information? How could that initiative have been made more successful? Should Vota Inteligente have worked with mainstream media to more aggressively spread awareness about the initiative? Did they need to hold training workshops in communities where illegal publicity is common?

And are there any other examples that Vota Inteligente can point to where really broad civic participation led to specific accountability by public officials, institutions, or candidates?