The intelligence that supports democratic and free societies
Imagine for a moment, that you are an elected official, maybe a state senator, Congressman or mayor.
And an issue has come up in which you don’t necessarily have all the facts about the matter, and the clock is ticking on a vote or a decision you have to make regarding the policy that will impact your entire district and beyond.
Now this is a very contentious issue, people on all sides of the debate are passionate and loud and you are getting phone calls, and emails and your social media is blowing up from all sorts of people who are trying to sway you in one way or another to make a decision they want.
You’re just not sure what the answer should be, so what do you do?
Well, traditionally, you have some trusted sources, maybe some lobbyists or academics who can fill you in on the matter, but the truth is you don’t know.
But none of these resources has any clue as to how your constituents feel.
How do you engage with the hundreds or thousands of emails, calls and social media posts you are getting?
More importantly, how do you know who is actually a constituent, vs who is not?
This scenario happens every day in public offices around the country, and traditionally, at best, these elected officials take information down on a spreadsheet for record keeping, and at worst, they completely ignore the incoming communications because there is no way to know who is actually sending them.
It is because of the ambiguity of these messages that they are virtually worthless and contribute nothing to the actual decision-making process a politician will make. This dilemma is the key reason the internet has yet to solve the ongoing crisis of confidence the people have in their government, and it’s the root cause of much of the corruption in politics.
It’s not because politicians don’t care. Rather, it’s because they have no better way for making decisions than to ask a small number of insiders what they think.
You see, when it comes to politics, access is everything.
And the anonymity of emails, social media and phone calling your representatives is the main roadblock to making an impact on their decisions.
WeVote was started in 2012 by a small group of diverse activists from democratic, republican and independent backgrounds after they realized there was a need to better way to connect citizens with their elected representatives online.
Our mission is to help politicians better understand who their various constituencies are online so they can represent them better.
We have developed a unique platform for voters to come together and build consensus on legislation, media and ongoing issues facing our society that is protected from trolls and spammers by validating our users as 100% real registered voters.
The WeVote platform is a new kind of distributed model of crowdsourcing sentiment that is protected from the noise of the web, giving clear signals to elected officials everywhere on how exactly their constituents are feeling about any issue.
We leverage mobile technology, public data and voter enthusiasm to produce tools that provide transparency, insight and access to the public policy process for anyone who wants to make an impact on their world.