the data and sociotechnical system including the criteria/algorithm/system

Assignment Format and Submission: :

• Your written assignment should be no more than 3-pages, double spaced, 12-point font, Times New Roman, 1-inch margins.

In Step 4 of Lab Assignment #1 (attached in the file), you created a set of system requirements to purge CA state voter rolls. You then reflected about the strengths and limitations of your system design, thinking specifically about how your system may systematically include or exclude particular groups of people.

Given the excellent work that you did in this lab, Governor Newsom’s office has asked you to advise the State of California on their system for purging voter rolls for:

(a) people convicted of felonies

(b) people who have died.

The Governor’s office has specifically reached out to you because they feel you are well equipped to understand the strengths and limitations of the system requirements while, at the same time, being attuned to the potential to wrongly disenfranchise people, particularly differentially along race, class, gender, or other social or cultural dimensions.

Governor Newsom wants to know:

(a) what sort of requirements the state should place on the data and the socio-technical system within which it’s embedded? This should include: requirements on the format and completeness of different data, processes to notify people who will be purged, streamlined processes for people to contest wrong decisions.

Please write a memo addressed to Governor Newsom that includes: 

• A short description of the system requirements that you propose the state should place on the data and socio-technical system within which it’s embedded. These can include the criteria/algorithm/system requirements you developed in lab or others that you think are important.,
• 2-3 key strengths of the system described above, with particular attention to how the system accounts for different situations (e.g., a person changes their last name). You should highlight both strengths with the data as well as the sociotechnical system.
• 2-3 key weaknesses of the system, with particular attention to how the system may continue to systematically exclude particular groups of people and/or lead to incorrect disenfranchisement. You should highlight both weaknesses with the data as well as the sociotechnical system.
• Provide a strong justification for why your system does or does not treat the felony and deceased datasets differently

In addressing Governor Newsom’s concerns, you should deeply engage with Langdon Winner’s article, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” and Rob Kitchin’s chapter, “Conceptualizing Data” from his book The Data Revolution. Do not summarize the readings (we have read them). Rather, use the reading to strengthen your recommendations to Governor Newsom.

Citations: 

Kitchin, R. (2014). Conceptualising Data. In The data revolution (Links to an external site.) (pp. 1-26). New York: SAGE.

Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Daedalus, Vol. 109, No. 1, Modern Technology: Problem or Opportunity? (Winter, 1980), pp. 121-136 The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024652