Episode 63: An Interview with Steve Thompson of e-VotingBooth.com
May 9, 2008
Episode 63: An Interview with Steve Thompson Part II [33:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (36)If you listened to Part I (and we hope you did) you’ll know that e-VotingBooth.com is your online tool for voting on ANY of the over 10,300 congressional bills/resolutions listed on thomas.gov since the 110th Congress in January 2007. In Part II, Kim and I continued to ask Steve about how he thought e-VotingBooth.com was going to change the way people participate in the democratic process in America…and on down the line in other countries.
Kim started the show by actually visiting the registration page on eVotingBooth.com and beginning the registration process. She discovered that it was easy, quick and secure. Listen to Kim’s conversation with Steve and visit the site for yourself!
During registration, you can choose a language other than English. Right now, the only language available to eVotingBooth users IS English and the bills are from the US Congress, but as they collect information about the other languages users can speak and use, however, that could change. Remember, the site is still just a young site but Steve does have plans to enahance it with more features as it grows. Someday, he hopes to have eVotingBooth.com sites for other countries beside the USA.
I couldn’t help but ask Steve if mobile users (like my favorite Blog Queen) can access and vote with their cellphones. Although Steve and his team have tested the site for usability with computers, they haven’t yet tested portable devices. He has successfully voted using his PDA. If you have a cellhpone or other portable device you use to connect to the internet, I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you’d visit e-VotingBooth.com, give it a try, and send him feedback about your experience.
Kim and I were both curious about what type of demographic information eVotingBooth.com collects and why they collect it. Steve assured us that they collect the same type of information that the census collects. Why? Providing demographic information to congressional representatives along with how users are voting can help them see more accurately how certain voters are voting on specific bills. Unlike many online polls, each vote you cast on eVotingBooth.com also contains a field for comments. For example: If you happen to agree with most parts of a bill, but there’s one part that causes you to vote against it, you can add that comment and your congressional representative will know exactly why you voted against it.
Right now, the site database only contains bills from thomas.gov (The Library of Congress online) and there aren’t any additional summaries or explanations. That, too, is a goal Steve has for the future: to provide additional descriptive/explanatory information to help users more clearly understand the bills on which they’re voting. Also, the only ways you can currently search for a bill is by bill number or by stage. I’d like to see a time when I can search for a bill by district, keyword or topic. How ’bout it, Steve?
Steve recommends using other resources to enhance your experience using eVotingBooth.com:
- Login every day/night! This ensures that you stay current with bills as they get introduced.
- Visit The Library of Congress website and scan bill titles/descriptions before you vote.
- Flag the bill(s) on which you cast a vote so you can pull them up and monitor the progress.
- Watch/listen to you favorite new sources.
- Google it!
The bottom line at eVotingBooth.com, according to Steve, is trust and confidence. This website belongs to all of us. Steve likes to think of it as a public trust as opposed to a private company. Kim and I think everyone should check it out so take a minute and visit today!
Posted in Interviews, Views From The Coop
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