When Paul Everton wanted to express his frustration to the government during the $700 million bailout he found himself unsure of where to turn. Tapping into this growing sentiment he and his brother created VisibleVote.us to solve what they saw as the major challenges to the average individual today: 

 

•  The average citizen feels powerless in making a difference in today's government and policies.

•  We are not sure where to get fair and unbiased information on issues being voted on.

•  We don't understand how laws and politics affect us personally.

•  The system is too large and complex to be engaged using old technology like faxes and voice mails.

•  Political opinions are charged with emotion.

 

Visible Vote does a good job of focusing on and addressing those aforementioned issues. Once you enter your personal information, you are provided with a visual list of your local representatives and locally relevant topics. From there you are able to vote on a wide variety of issues; the Arizona immigration law (even though I am in New York City) and healthcare are just two examples among many. Beyond voting on issues currently in front of Congress, you can also support new bills and participate in user polls.

User Education

My first concern was how a person is expected to vote on an issue when the majority of us are not going to have time to read the entire bill and debate it with our peers in order to gain an informed opinion. Can we really rely on the average American to have anything other than a shallow and biased view on a topic? Perhaps that's a bigger issue about how complex our government has become, but Visible Vote does its part in helping to educate their users. 

Intuitively understanding that the average person has a short attention span while on the web, Visible Vote lists a few of the main bullet points underneath the question with links to more details. This paints enough of the picture for average Americans to be able to register their opinions.

Multi-Platform Support

Visible Vote makes it easy to make your voice heard no matter where you are or what platform you are using: an iPhone app, Facebook app, compatibility on a PC or a Mac, and even a simple web based version. Now while you are waiting in line at the coffee shop in the morning you can pull out your iPhone and make sure you are up-to-date on the latest topics in front of Congress.

 

Statistics and Summarized Data  

The "stats" section contains a very slick map of the United States where, by selecting an issue from the drop down menu, you can see support for a specific issue by state. The same can be done for Presidential and Legislator approval ratings.

 

 

Where Does It Go?

Fascinating stuff. But the big question is, so what?! So what if this site is capturing your opinions? Do they do anything useful with it? VisibleVote says in its FAQ section that it faxes the data to Congress: 

"Congressional officials don't allow anyone to email them directly and they require you to contact them through convoluted websites. To solve this problem Visible Vote had to send all messages via Fax. Visible Vote sends faxes to each legislative official for the Vote Tallies and individual messages through Visible Vote. The faxes are received electronically by Congress (we called them to make sure we weren't using too much paper)."

Bottom Line

This is where the crux of the potential success or failure of Visible Vote sits. If government officials don't care, don't read the data and aren't impacted, then what's the point? I suppose it still presents the average person with a way to learn and register their opinion, but it seems much less interesting and relevant.  

From a government official's perspective however, I do see a tremendously positive possible use. They are constantly polling, trying to understand their constituency and trying to better tailor their messages. Visible Vote would provide them with an almost real-time view into the minds of their voters.  What more could you want come election season?