If you’re like Kim Cranston, you’re well versed about the big political candidates but have little luck finding information on lesser known contenders and state propositions. Cranston used to collect the political junk mail that bombarded his mailbox and review it the night before voting day. But now he can consult TransparentDemocracy.org, a Web site he co-founded with chief technology officer Jeff Manning last October. The site allows users to see how organizations, opinion leaders, and even friends think people should vote. Cranston knew from both his immersion in politics (he’s the late U.S. Senator Alan Cranston’s son) and his years running Social Venture Network that people make all kinds of decisions—political, investment, shopping—based on what well-informed friends or experts think.
The site also offers detailed, balanced information about political candidates and propositions, a corporate shareholder proxy guide (Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig’s suggestion), and a ballot you can mark and print out.
Some 10,000 voters visited TransparentDemocracy.org before the presidential election, which bodes well, say pundits.
“If everyone voted on the basis of recommendations from TransparentDemocracy, then the playing field would shift from trying to mislead voters via money to trying to convince opinion leaders through ideas,” says Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist Steven Kirsch.
Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, adds: “Transparent Democracy should eventually lead not only to better, more informed voting, but also to more voting and more transparency in the electoral process. The impact could be especially great in proxy votes, as these are the most opaque, with the lowest levels of participation. This could lead to greater corporate social responsibility.”
Read more stories by Jennifer Roberts.