EveryVote.org

From: Mitch Downey <mitch@everyvote.org>
Date: Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 6:22 PM
Hi Newswire,
We're big admirers of the work being done here, and we're excited to
share with you a technology we hope will enable people to take a more
active and informed role in their government or organization. Our
project is called EveryVote, and will be hosted at
http://www.everyvote.org.
EveryVote will be an open-source, non-profit civic engagement social
network platform, and will rely on donations and grant funding to
subsist. Since anyone can add their own government with its own
parameters into the platform, EV can also be used as a civics
education tool for students to run their student councils, or for
teachers and parents to run their PTA. Our goal is to enable all world
governments and organizations the opportunity to use the EV platform.
At the core of EveryVote will be the complete and up-to-date
legislative and electoral body of any governing body. For EveryVote's
debut, we will be drawing off the comprehensive legislation data of
the US Congress that is already available in API format online
(available through a site like http://www.govtrack.us). Our goal is to
keep this tool as intuitive and attractive to use to as we can,
meanwhile providing a number of useful features that to our knowledge
are not offered in existing legislation tracking websites.
We are still in very early stages of development, and if any members
of the Newswire listserv would be interested in volunteering to help
create this platform, we'd love your help. Our primary goal is to
present a video introduction and a PowerPoint presentation of the
functionality of the EV platform at Transparency Camp (
http://www.transparencycamp.org ) and its related Hackathon at George
Mason University between April 28-30. We have begun to actively seek
grant funding, and since the vision for EV is pretty vast, we expect
to need to hire full and part-time help in order for EV to be finished
and sustained. For now at least, we have no funding, so we are only
seeking volunteers.
To explain what we find so compelling about the functionality of the
EveryVote platform, we're posting below this correspondence our most
recent draft of a narration that will be used for an introductory
animation, which we plan to have completed by 4/21/2012. If you visit
www.everyvote.org, you can find this narration along with images and
visual design documents to help you picture the functionality.
If you are interested in collaborating on EveryVote in any capacity
(coding, design, legal assistance, outreach, anything), please send an
email to contactus@everyvote.org. Also, let us know if you think
EveryVote could help with your project, as we plan to set it up as a
convenient hub for as many empowering technologies available on the
internet as possible.
Thank you for your time and consideration Newswire listserv! Keep up
the great work.
Mitch Downey
mitch@everyvote.org
Northern Illinois University
Vincent Schramer
vincent@everyvote.org
Northern Illinois University
---
You want to get more involved in your government, but where do you
begin? Right now there are over 7,500 bills before the US Congress,
and nearly as many at the state and local levels. How can you stay
well-informed and active in government, and still have time for a life
of your own?
With EveryVote.org, your Digital Political Assistant.
EveryVote is a non-profit, open-source, civic engagement social
network platform that helps users find the objective political
information most relevant to them, and offers a variety of tools that
make civic engagement easier than ever. Although it will make its
debut containing all the legislative and electoral data of the US
Congress, the EveryVote platform can be used with any government or
organization with a legislative or electoral process.
To understand how EveryVote can help you get more civically engaged,
let's take a quick tour...
Start at EveryVote by signing up for a profile, and begin browsing the
site. As you scroll through lists of actual bills, elections,
officials, users, and groups or organizations; you can select the
bills, individuals, or groups you support or oppose. You can keep
these votes private, or opt to share them with the EV community. The
more you cast, the more EveryVote can show you how your votes compare
to the votes of others.  Using EveryVote's dynamic databoxes, you can
learn at a glance how the officials, candidates, users, and groups you
support or oppose stand on legislation. After casting some votes, you
can see at a glance how the people or groups you support or oppose are
voting on each bill, displayed as a percent correlation.
If all of the officials you support vote in favor of this bill, a
green +100% displays in the upper-leftmost box. If all of them were in
opposition to this bill, the same box would display a red -100%, and
any other combination would display somewhere in between.
To learn more, you can hover your cursor over the box and see how each
person or group in that category voted; move the cursor over a name to
view that user's explanation for their vote; and click the explanation
to begin a dialogue with that user.
Dynamic databoxes are also found next to the profile pictures of
individuals and groups on the site. These display the % correlation
between your own voting record and the voting record of that person or
group. For example, if you and George voted the same on 8 out of 10
officials, the uppermost field would display an 80% correlation. If
you both voted the same on only 2 out of 10 officials, that field
would display a value of 20%.
Roll your cursor over the box to see a head-to-head comparison of your
votes; slide the cursor over a person or group's name to see their
explanation; and click if you'd like to send a message to that user.
You can also click the total supporters, opposers, and trackers fields
below the picture to display demographic data of those users.
In addition to vote tracking and discussion functionality, EveryVote
lets you submit posts and links into the EV content management system
-- similar to reddit's system -- by sliding out the Track Bar on the
left-hand side of the screen.
By clicking a name in your Track Bar, you will be taken to that bill,
individual, or group's subforum, where you can browse the user
submitted posts and links receiving the most attention from the EV
community. Think more people should see this link? Vote the story up.
Think this story is a waste of time or misinformation? Vote the story
down.
What's more, EveryVote even lets you filter the CMS page to count only
votes from supporters, opposers, or undecideds when sorting the
stories, making it easier than ever to hear all sides of the issue.
Although not required for basic site use, EveryVote has advanced
social networking capabilities, allowing you to send messages and
friend requests to other users, post status updates, send out event
invitations, participate in debate threads, administer and participate
in polls, and more.
Plus, EveryVote will be cross-over compatible with the world's largest
social network -- Facebook -- and will have an app version for iOS and
Android mobile devices, allowing you to take EV with you everywhere,
up until the moment you enter the voting booth.
EveryVote will also help you participate in local elections by helping
sending reminders of upcoming voting registration deadlines and
election days to your email or Facebook account. And if you decide to
run for office yourself, declare your intention to run through
EveryVote.org, and receive assistance with every step of the candidate
registration process -- from gathering petition signatures, submitting
calls for volunteers, to helping your supporters make campaign
donations right through your EV profile.
Last but not least, EveryVote can be used as a powerful and fun
experiential-learning tool for civics education. Since the platform
allows anyone to add their own governing body with its own custom
rules, students can use EveryVote to manage and participate in their
student councils, helping them propose and vote on legislation, debate
ideas, hold elections, and more. In fact, school PTAs, teachers
unions, and any other organization that wants to can freely make use
of these features at EveryVote.org.
With EveryVote, staying civically engaged has never been easier. Visit
www.everyvote.org today :)
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