Voterheads.com Launches Richland County Candidate Research Blog
October 17, 2012
Voters Now Have Handy Research Tool For 2012 Election
COLUMBIA, SC – October 17, 2012 – The new citizen empowerment/voter education technology venture, Voterheads.com, has begun publishing a blog dedicated to assisting voters in finding user-friendly research on all candidates that will appear on Richland County ballots for the upcoming 2012 election. Matt Hudson, the firm’s creative director said We are excited to bring this information to the voters of Richland County in time for this year’s election. We’re still working on developing the code that makes our ballot system automated, so we decided to do what we can in the meantime to make it easier to research candidates and this blog is the answer.
The web address is blog.voterheads.com. Karl McCollester, Voterheads CEO, says Our goal is to add all Lexington County candidates within the next few days. Then, he adds, we’ll have our home territory of the Midlands covered for this election. The blog has each candidate listed from county council to US Representative with links to news, blogs, campaign web sites, social media pages, etc. for each name. The same research is also provided for county and statewide referendums and amendments. Information is gathered from Internet searches and is presented in a non-partisan format.
Voterheads seeks to bring an easy, user-friendly way for people to participate in local, statewide, and national politics, through more educated official voting at the ballot box and by becoming involved in voting on agenda items at local school board, and city/county meetings. By the end of 2013, the company expects the website to be able to allow someone to simply enter their zip code (or to get even more specific info, a street address) and see their next ballot with each item on the ballot having links to additional info such as news, blogs, candidates’ web sites, etc.
When election time is done, Voterheads will help citizens stay informed by providing a consolidated view of all actions taking place at city, county, and school board meetings. A user can also be notified anytime a local meeting agenda has been released that contains any item that matches their interests or is affecting a location near their home or work. For example, if someone is a cyclist and the Town or County where they live has an upcoming vote regarding bicycle paths, the user will know about it and be offered the opportunity to cast their own vote in favor or against (including adding comments), which their local elected officials will be able to see. The user will also be able post the item to Facebook or other social networks, in order to leverage the power of friends, family, and neighbors to bring about change.
Voterheads will also keep a running tally for users, showing how an elected official voted versus how they voted on items of interest. McCollester adds, We expect that our features will be particularly attractive to groups seeking assistance in persuading their elected officials to be more aware of certain ‘hot button’ issues. We believe advocacy groups like a local watershed alliance, for example, to become early users of the tools available at Voterheads.com.
Elected officials will also find this valuable because they will have an organized, user-friendly way to see how their constituents feel, and the data will also be broken down (anonymously, of course) by whether the voters are in their precinct, locale, or otherwise. Voterheads also plans on delivering mobile apps to its users so all the information can be accessed in a user-friendly way with cell phones and tablets.
Interested citizens and elected officials can sign up now to receive notifications of the project’s progress at www.voterheads.com.
