Making Democracy Data Faster and Easier to Explore

Summary 

To resolve a critical search performance bottleneck ahead of a major publication launch, BRAINSUM upgraded International IDEA’s Democracy Tracker’s archive with Amazon OpenSearch and added a new interactive election map and calendar. 

These targeted improvements reduced search response times on the archive from over 12 seconds to under 2 seconds and made global election data easier to explore through a visual, user-friendly interface. 

The Challenge: Critical Search Performance and Limited Election Map Visualization 

The Democracy Tracker’s archive contained more than 2,000 reports, but its legacy SQL-based search backend could no longer deliver acceptable performance. Search load times exceeded 12 seconds, creating major friction for users who needed quick access to relevant democracy-related information. 

The issue was not only technical. The slow response times made the archive “almost unusable” for researchers and users relying on the platform. 

At the same time, International IDEA needed to make election data easier to explore. The existing interactive map did not yet provide an elections-focused view, year-based filtering or a structured calendar of upcoming and completed elections.

The Solution

High-Performance Search Architecture Upgrade 

To enhance the archive’s search functionality, we implemented Amazon OpenSearch and integrated it with Drupal through Search API. This replaced the slow database-driven search logic while preserving the existing user interface.

The upgraded search setup enabled: 

• indexing of more than 2,000 reports; 

• search response times under 2 seconds; 

• improved OR/AND keyword logic; 

• Drupal-based reindexing and maintenance; 

• a more scalable foundation for future archive growth. 

Interactive Map and Election Calendar 

To enable the discovery of election data, BRAINSUM extended the existing interactive map with a new “Elections” view. Users can filter by year, visually distinguish upcoming and completed elections, see election dates on hover, and access related country pages or election reports directly from the map and supporting table. 

To support users who prefer structured data, we also added an election calendar table below the map. The table presents key election information in a sortable format, making it easier to scan, compare and access election-related content.

Technology Used 

• Drupal and Drupal Search API

• Amazon OpenSearch (Elasticsearch fork)

• AWS / ECS (Elastic Container Service)