Imagine this scenario: You go to a website, briefly register for an account, and up pops a form, like a ballot, that shows each office that you will vote on in the next election: statewide offices, plus your congressional district, your state Senate and House districts, and any ballot initiatives. (“Blue sky” version: also shows your local county and city/town districts, your polling place, and early voting locations, dates, and times.)
You are able to expand a particular office to view every candidate running for it, their party, website and social media links, news items, videos, issue positions, voting records, and campaign finance records. You can optionally answer a short survey about your own issue positions, and the candidates will be ranked according to how well their positions match yours.
Regardless, you are able to select a candidate that you like best, and save your choice to the applicable position on the mock-up ballot. The ballot is customized just for you: your districts, your chosen candidates. You can come back and change your mind at any time and save your changes.
When it’s election time, if you wish, you can download your completed ballot to your mobile device, or print it, and take it with you to the voting booth.
What would you give to have that? Would you give your brainstorming time, your design or coding skills, a little cash to entice those with said design or coding skills, or your moral support? More importantly, would you use it? Would you invite your friends, who probably pay less attention to elections than you, cherished reader of this site?
There is a working model that performs parts of the above, made by the good folks at Project Vote Smart. The Chicago Tribune put together something similar for the 2008 elections, and I’ve seen other similar efforts. I want more. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for five years, but now there’s better technology and more data sources. (Project Vote Smart has an API, for starters, but there’s more yet.)
I really want this for the 2012 elections, so there’s your dreaded arbitrary project end date.
If I get consensus from you that it’s a worthwhile endeavor, then let’s talk about next steps. You can leave comments below, or use the Contact form if you’d rather.
Thank you.