Those of you who were computer science majors in college may have belonged to your school’s student chapter of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). If you were a dues paying member, you likely received their quarterly magazine XRDS (called Crossroads when I was a student).

The latest issue of XRDS is themed around “CS in Service of Democracy”, and I’ve contributed an article about Sunlight Labs to the issue. If you’re able to get a copy, you’ll also find articles by friends of Sunlight like Josh Tauberer of GovTrack and POPVOX, and Harlan Yu and Stephen Schultze, who built RECAP.

My article is reprinted after the jump.