PopVox

POPVOX is a platform that combines legislative data with personal reactions, delivering the users' opinions to governmental officials on policies. Formed in 2010 by Rachna Choudhry and Marci Harris, POPVOX was developed as a civic engagement resource to connect the citizens and the government, with the mission to "empower effective participation, and create a transparent record that influences policy-making and fosters accountable, responsive governing." [1] As a source to convey the constituents' opinions on legislative measures, POPVOX is able to politically engage the citizens in a rather direct way. POPVOX is a civic engaging source that enables citizens to not only feel valuable in the political spectrum, but also gain a sense of representation in regard to the policymakers, demonstrating the use of technology in its governmental applications.[1]

History

The two founders of POPVOX, Rachna Choudhry and Marci Harris, met in 2009, bonding over how the governmental system was broken; they realized that they both wanted to make their voices heard by lawmakers. They began to communicate more in an effort to establish a solution to their shared problem, and eventually took their idea to Tim O’Reilly, who became their first angel investor. Afterwards, Choudhry and Harris raised additional funds from family and friends before quitting their jobs.[2] After launching the first version of the platform, they saw just how much people wanted a "transparent advocacy platform" when military families used POPVOX to ask Congress to pass a bill that would continue to provide compensation regardless of a government shutdown.[3]

Marci Harris

Marci Harris received her law degree from American University and spent years in public service working on health reform. She was working as a congressional staffer at the time she met Choudhry.[2]

Rachna Choudhry

Rachna Choudhry studied Political Science at UCLA and then went on to get her masters in Public Policy at Georgetown University. She worked on political campaigns prior to becoming a lobbyist, where her personal frustration grew due to how difficult it was for people to have their voices heard by lawmakers.[2]

Function

From its creation to its current state, POPVOX has grown immensely in usage and in performance. This platform "collects correspondence between constituents and their representatives on certain bills and issues, organizes the data by state, and packages the information in pie charts and maps so lawmakers can easily spot where voters stand on a proposed bill."[4] The pie charts and maps facilitate the support and opposition of bills and assist in understanding where people side on certain issues. They enable the users of POPVOX to see where people around the country and on different sides of the spectrum vote on issues they are concerned about, in an effort to assist in their own perspectives on the issue and make their voices heard in the political realm.[4]

POPVOX establishes communication between the lawmakers and their constituents for the sake of making the people's voices heard on bills concerning them. Through the tracing of real-time legislative action on Congress.gov, individuals and organizations can utilize POPVOX to follow bills and their progress in the Congress in addition to emphasizing their stake in the legislative processes through communicating with lawmakers in regard to these congressional processes.[5]

As it was built around expressing support or opposition to Congressional bills, POPVOX aims to improve civic participation within the political realm to influence policy-making towards transparent and more effective governing.[1] Its functionality and accountability separate POPVOX from the other related transparent platforms, as it "verif[ies] constituent addresses, focus[es] comments on specific bills pending before Congress, [and] give[s] [their] users an opportunity to simply “support” or “oppose” a bill if they don’t want to write a personal comment."[6] These enable POPVOX to improve the transparency of Congress for the benefit of voters on issues concerning them so that their concerns are communicated directly to their representatives on specific issues/bills. POPVOX verifies an actual constituent that is from the same district as the lawmaker.[7] This becomes more personalized and direct in regards to communication between constituents and their representatives through Congressional Web Forms and improves the transparency of the legislative processes within the Congress.[8]

Members of Congress rely on their constituents' opinions that in one way or another have an effect on their policy-making and legislative strategies. It was found in a survey by the Congressional Management Foundation that 88% of Congressional staffers have claimed that personal messages have influenced their decisions regarding policies and bills.[9] This provides the foundation for POPVOX and its intent on personalizing the concerns and opinions of voters/users for the sake of creating a more transparent governance system and legislative process in the Congress. POPVOX is progressing towards enhancing the usage by lawmakers and congressional staffers/members and it appears that time has come for POPVOX to gain enough credibility for this to occur. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced that House Democrats would start to use POPVOX "to feed into the official intranet for House Democratic staff."[10] This is a sign of change towards increased transparency in the government and towards furthered communication between incumbents and their constituents, so that the people know what their representatives are voting for in the Congress.

Collaborations

POPVOX has teamed up with Politix to help readers share their viewpoints on pending legislation. After readers reach the bottom of certain Politix articles, they have the option to be directed to POPVOX to learn about bills and have the unique ability to "communicate their stance on the bill directly to their elected representatives."[11]

References

  1. 1 2 3 https://www.popvox.com
  2. 1 2 3 McKinney, Sarah. "The Future Of Political Engagement Is Here (And It's Called POPVOX)". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
  3. ↑ "DCinfluencer/Q&A.: Start Your Search!". eds.b.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
  4. 1 2 "Start-ups aim to change lobbying: Start Your Search!". eds.b.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2016-11-08.
  5. ↑ "POPVOX: The Newest Platform for eAdvocacy". Epolitics.com. 2011-04-04. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
  6. ↑ "Using POPVOX to Email Congress". heritageaction.com. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
  7. ↑ blog.popvox.com Use POPVOX? https://blog.popvox.com/about/title=Why Use POPVOX? Check |url= value (help). Retrieved 2018-02-13. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ↑ "PopVox: How to advocate your cause in Congress". Socialbrite. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
  9. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions - POPVOX". POPVOX. Retrieved 2016-11-08.
  10. ↑ "Start-ups aim for a more democratic lobbying system". Washington Post. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
  11. ↑ "Politix Signs Two New Partners; Continues Driving Online Political Discussi...: Start Your Search!". eds.b.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2016-11-08.
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