Here's something interesting: POPVOX

[blogslut]

http://www.popvox.com/
http://www.popvox.com/about/howitworks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/11/18/prweb4810454.DTL

With angel backing from Silicon Valley icon Tim O'Reilly and deep experience on Capitol Hill, a new company, POPVOX, today announces its beta to begin bridging the gap between the input the public wants to provide to Congress, and the information Members of Congress need to receive.

"Constituent communications are overwhelming Congressional offices," says POPVOX CEO Marci Harris, who has first-hand experience as a Congressional staff member. "Members of Congress really do want to hear what constituents have to say. Unfortunately, today's communication tools increase the messages going in to Congress without helping Congress handle the influx. The increasing emails, Tweets, Facebook comments, petitions, form letters, faxes, etc. are having the unintended effect of turning genuine citizen engagement into unintelligible noise."

POPVOX solves this problem by providing a platform for citizen communication with Congress - letting Congressional staff know that the people contacting them are located in their district, channeling activity to bills pending before Congress, and providing data dashboards to identify which organizations are weighing in on each side of any issue. POPVOX helps advocacy organizations highlight their work on specific legislation, increase visibility on Capitol Hill and easily identify potential partners. Additionally, POPVOX provides a curating interface for anyone - including the public and the media - to access and understand the voice of the people.

"Many grassroots campaigns don't take into account that Members of Congress have limited ability to respond to general expressions of outrage or support. They can introduce, co-sponsor, or vote yes or no on a bill. That's about all they can realistically do," continues CEO Marci Harris. "By focusing the POPVOX platform on pending legislation and not general 'issues,' and making comments on POPVOX public, searchable and sortable by anyone, we are able to turn constituent voices into something that a legislator can actually use."

[glinda]

1. Is this prone to Bristol Palin over-voting methods? Seems like it can be freepered.

[blogslut]

3. Well, it's in BETA right now

You have to either register or provide access to one of your your social media accounts in order to "vote". My hope is that the BETA testing involves creating methods for blocking repetitive votes from one person.

[veganlush]

2. I wonder what steps will be taken, if any,

to prevent astro turf abuse. If that part is addressed, this could be really good news for those of us who believe in citizen input. ( i call congress nearly every weekday to weigh-in on issues) Thanks for posting!