It’s election year in the US, and if you’re an American, you’ve likely already been bombarded with political marketing of every form and fashion. In 2008, online spending for campaigns in the presidential election totalled about $177 million. Experts estimate that online spending in the 2012 presidential election will total somewhere between $1 and $1.5 billion. Knowing that, online interaction with potential voters is of extreme importance for candidates.
Votizen, a site connecting politics and social networking, is hoping to capitalize on that need for interaction. Votizen provides you with a way to connect with other voters via social networks and verified voter registration. Once you are signed up you can explore campaigns, endorse candidates and view voter statistics. Even if you’re not running for office, you likely have views about the election that you’d love to share, and Votizen gives you a modern way to do that in a dedicated political social network.
Set-Up
The first step when creating a Votizen account is to get all of your information and accounts linked and synced correctly. Votizen allows users to connect via Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin (or any combination of the 3). I chose to connect my Facebook and Twitter accounts, as I’m less concerned with the political affiliation of my Linkedin connections.
Connecting to social networks.
After connecting with the appropriate social networks, you are asked to enter your address. This is to confirm that you are actually a registered voter, so if you are registered to vote at a different address be sure to enter that address instead. Votizen spent 2 years digitizing millions of voter registrations in order to have this valid connection. You must connect your voter registration in order to access all of the site functions, although you do not have to share any information you do not wish to.
Verifying my voter registration.
Campaigning
Once your accounts are connected, it is time to start campaigning. First, let’s discuss party affiliation. Users are able to select one of many major or third parties to affiliate with, or you can “decline-to-state.” No pressure is put upon you to affiliate with any party, and Votizen definitely emphasizes that they are a non-partisan site.
Stickers to claim a party affiliation.
After you choose a party, a big part of the site is the ability to endorse candidates. The ballot section of the site contains all campaigns that affect you, and also shows any endorsements that you have made. I was able to endorse candidates for the presidential election as well as candidates in elections for positions in the Senate and House of Representatives. Other types of campaigns are available, but I was disappointed in the small number of campaigns available. I certainly hope that as Votizen expands more campaigns are available for local or state-level races.
Once you endorse a candidate, you can share referral links inviting your connections to endorse the same candidate. Statistics regarding the referral link are shown directly on the ballot page, allowing you to see the influence that you have over your peers.
The ballot – a list of upcoming elections
It wouldn’t make any sense to blindly endorse a candidate. Luckily, you can see the campaign page for all candidates by simply clicking on their name. Some candidates do, of course, have bigger and better campaign pages. The page for Obama’s re-election was chock full of information, whereas the candidates running for the House of Representatives from California had little to no information. Hopefully as Votizen’s popularity increases their information pages will become more full-featured for all campaigns. Votizen has great potential as a way for people to learn more about candidates in lesser publicized elections, hopefully creating a more aware public.
A campaign page for Barack Obama.
Networking
Of course, a big part of Votizen is the connection to your peers via social networking. The “voter network” page is where you can find out all about your peers and how they vote. The first thing you see on the page is a map which sort of breaks down the connections to your account. It shows breakdowns by registration state, party affiliation and endorsed candidates. The map has good potential, but doesn’t really offer much functionality. I would like to see Votizen expand the map so that clicking on areas brings up more detailed information.
A map showing my voter connections across the country.
While the map doesn’t offer a great way to see individual members of your network and the way that they vote, the section below the map allows you to see much more information about your friends, including party affiliation and voting history. Votizen does show all potential connections in the list, so it can get overwhelming. For example, I have about 550 connections but only around 120 of them have any information on Votizen. Luckily, Votizen has easy sorting options for the list. You can narrow down the list by selecting specific party affiliations, states, and candidate endorsements. This list also allows you to ask friends without any information for details about who they would endorse for certain campaigns.
Sorting through a list of connections by party affiliation.
Last but not least, you might want to add some bling to your profile before you make connections with your friends. Votizen has a number of stickers you can attach to your profile, based upon party affiliation and voting history. I voted in the 2008 general election, for example, so I got to add that sticker to my profile. These stickers are a great way to prove that you are a dedicated voter and to show who you have supported in the past.
Stickers showing my voting history.
Final Thoughts
Votizen is a site with a lot of potential, one investors have noted as they funded the site over the past years. The idea to sync legitimate voter registration so that endorsements actually mean something is especially clever and unique.
Votizen is definitely lacking in a lot of areas, though, especially in regards to smaller, local elections. Most Americans already know a lot about the presidential candidates, but are less likely to know about local and congressional candidates. I think Votizen has incredible potential to be a great way for citizens to gather information about elections on all levels, from local to national. I also would like to see more ability to interact with other users and better ways to view statistics about your connections.
Votizen has the potential to be an incredible site in a year or two, and I’m excited to see where it goes. I want to hear from you. Do you use Votizen, or would you consider using it? Why or why not? As always, share your thoughts below.