Pardon Hub: Django Rebuild

The Problem

As the Pardon Me Campaign grew, the team was tracking applicants, volunteers, and hubs across spreadsheets, with no central system and no way to coordinate communications. There was no document management, no automated outreach, and no single place for staff to see the full picture of a case.

No central database: applicant data lived in spreadsheets with no enforced structure
No integrated communications: follow-ups happened by hand with no audit trail
No document management: court records and supporting files had no secure, organized home
No role-based access: staff, coaches, and admins shared the same view of everything
Staff spending significant time on coordination tasks that could be automated

The Solution

A full-stack Django web application purpose-built for the Pardon Me Campaign. One codebase, one database, one place for staff and coaches to work.

Role-Based Access

Four roles: super admin, hub manager, volunteer, and a future applicant portal. Every list query is scoped to the user's role. A volunteer's URL cannot expose another volunteer's applicants, even if guessed directly.

AI Case Review

Gemini 2.5 Flash via Vertex AI summarizes court documents, evaluates applicants against pardon criteria, and can pre-fill conviction history fields. Prompts are stored in the database and editable by staff without a developer. Every output is reviewed before any action is taken.

Communications Pipeline

A queue-based email system with named trigger classes (status change, hub assignment, coach pairing). Every message is logged, BCC'd to a sysadmin mailbox for audit, and per-recipient opt-out is respected at send time.

PA UJS Portal Integration

One-click copy of name and DOB for court lookups, plus a bookmarklet that auto-fills the PA Unified Judicial System search form and bulk-downloads every docket sheet on the results page. Cuts document collection from 20 minutes to under two.

System Architecture

Public Intake
Multi-step form

Django App

Core logic + auth

SQLite DB
Source of truth

Google Drive

Proxied doc storage

Vertex AI

Gemini 2.5 Flash

Email Queue

Comms + audit BCC

Google Sheets

Weekly fallback sync

Auth uses magic-link email. Users click a time-limited link to start a session. No passwords, no OAuth flow, no Google account required for volunteers.

Application Mockups

Applicants (staff view)

Search

Status

Hide closed

	Last name ▲	Status	DOB	Hub	Coach	Follow-up	Added	Updated
View	Applicant A Addition	New	1982-04-09	Unassigned	Unassigned	-	2026-05-01	2026-05-01
View	Applicant B	In Progress	1978-11-22	West Philly Hub	Coach 1	2026-04-30	2026-03-14	2026-05-08
View	Applicant C	Submitted	1990-07-03	Kensington Hub	Coach 2	2026-06-01	2026-02-28	2026-05-10
View	Applicant D	Approved	1975-02-17	North Philly Hub	Coach 3	-	2025-11-05	2026-04-22
View	Applicant E	In Progress	1986-09-14	Germantown Hub	Coach 4	2026-05-28	2026-01-19	2026-05-12

Applicant Detail

Applicant B

In Progress Submit an update Upload documents

APP-0412 · added 2026-03-14 · last updated 2026-05-08 10:31 · hub West Philly Hub

Personal info

Updates (3)

Documents (2)

Communications (4)

AI Summary (1)

Assignments

Hub: West Philly Hub

Coach: Coach 1

Conviction history

CountiesPhiladelphia

OffensesPossession w/ intent

Sentence typeProbation

ViolationsNo

Yrs since completion10+ years

Copy for UJS search Open the portal

AI Summary Tab

Generate View current prompt ↗

Summarize court documents · 2026-05-08 10:22 · gemini-2.5-flash · 2 document(s) · latest

Conviction summary: One conviction on record (Philadelphia County, 2013). Possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance (35 P.S. 780-113(a)(30)). Docket CP-51-CR-0002847-2013.

Sentence: 2 years probation, completed without violation. No incarceration.

Years since completion: Sentence completed approximately 2015. Approx. 11 years elapsed.

Notes: No additional arrests or charges found in the record set provided. One alias on record (maiden name). Employment records referenced in RAP sheet indicate current employment. Strong candidate for positive board evaluation based on time elapsed and clean record post-conviction.

Fill Conviction History from this summary

Check the fields you want to replace with the AI's values, then apply. Review each one carefully.

Replace?	Current value	From this summary
Counties	Philadelphia	Philadelphia
Offenses	Possession w/ intent	PWID (35 P.S. 780-113(a)(30))
Sentence type	Probation	Probation
Yrs since completion	(blank)	10+ years

Apply checked fields

Impact

Replaced disconnected spreadsheets with a single, maintainable Django codebase and a real relational database
Volunteers log in with just an email, no Google account required, removing a significant barrier for community members
AI reduces document review time substantially: court records are summarized in under two minutes versus manual reads of multi-page dockets
Every communication is automated and auditable, with per-recipient opt-out respected at send time and a full log on each applicant and volunteer
Duplicate intake submissions are caught at the form level, before they become data integrity problems in the case log
Staff can search, sort, and filter in real time across the full applicant list, with overdue follow-up dates surfaced visually
The PA UJS bookmarklet turns court record collection from a 20-minute manual process into a two-click download

Tech Stack

Django Python SQLite Google Drive API Vertex AI / Gemini 2.5 Apache + Gunicorn systemd Google Sheets API Magic Link Auth