Easy and worthwhile

If you want to get someone to do something, you need to make the benefit of doing it greater than the effort required.

The common perception that ‘my vote doesn’t really count’ lowers the perceived benefit. The perception that ‘all politicians are the same’ lowers the perceived benefit. Difficulties in getting to the polls during voting hours raise the required effort. It isn’t surprising voting rates have been falling.

People who view voting as their civic duty continue to vote. People who believe they will get more out of the system by voting continue to vote. Through this, government has become more plutocratic.

However, over the past few years, more people are saying, ‘no, your vote really does matter. Look at how close the last election was’. Between motor-voter and various voter registration drives, the effort required to register to vote is being decreased. A good Get Out the Vote drive can lower the effort required for people to vote.

This is not enough. Democracy is more than just registering and voting. You need people to run for office, and that is hard work. You need volunteers and donors. Yet even fewer people believe the benefit of volunteering or donating outweighs the effort required. It has been said that less than one percent of the people in country are providing half of all federal campaign finances.

Why is this? Well, until the Dean campaign’s use of the Internet as an online telethon, it was pretty difficult to donate to federal campaigns. Granted, anyone who really wanted to make a donation could try contact the candidate, try to find a local campaign committee, or search around other ways, and eventually find where to send the check. But that is a lot of effort without a lot of benefit, unless you expect to be able to influence legislation.

Even though it is now easier than ever to donate to the Bush or Kerry campaigns. At the next level down, it still isn’t as easy as it should be. As we reach the end of the quarter, there are several big fundraising events where I live that I only know about because my wife is running for State Rep. Even my Senator, who is running for re-election doesn’t have a site where you can donate online.

Enabling online contributions, even for small races, like my wife’s, requires little effort and provides a great benefit. Nearly half of the donations my wife has receive has come from small online donations. It is trivial to add a Paypal button to a website. (For details read my entry, http://localpols.fordean.net/Paypal)

In terms of finding larger events, I list those that I can find on regional sites that I run, and I send out emails as widely as possible, yet finding out about events and getting permission to publicize them is difficult. Really, campaigns should have much easier to find lists of events.

Finding and managing volunteers is a similar issue. More and more campaigns have sections where you can send them your contact information if you want to volunteer. Yet they rarely provide mechanisms for volunteers to get in touch with one another and self organize. Public mailing lists and weblogs are incredibly important tools for this, as are Meetups. The ability to meet one another and self organize can make volunteering easier. In many cases, this ability has resulted in new friendships and relationships that make meeting up even more worthwhile.

The same issue exists at the national level. The DNC has made progress in opening up the platform process. In their FAQ, they provide information on how to write to the platform committee, including an email address. They describe the process of drafting the platform, and who the chairs of the committee are. They also provide a mechanism to submit comments, and to review comments that they chose to highlight.

Unfortunately, they don’t provide a good list of who the platform committee members are. There is even less easily accessible information about other committees like the Rules or Credentials committees, or even who the delegates are. I’ve set up my own website, http://platform.smartcampaigns.com where I list the names I’ve received and hope to put up drafts of the platform as soon as I receive them. It is set up so that others can add information as well.

If you want to change Democracy, you need to make it easier and more beneficial for people to be involved in all aspects of politics, from registering, to voting, from volunteering and donating, to running for office and helping shape policy.

Posted by Aldon Hynes at June 24, 2004 11:17 AM | TrackBack