Announcement

Day One on Change Politics

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Yesterday we launched Change Politics, a new app to empower voters to engage directly with candidates and find endorsements for Election Day from your smartphone.

Secretary Hillary Clinton, Governor John Kasich, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Marco Rubio, Governor Mike Huckabee, Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Chris Christie, Doctor Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Mayor Martin O’Malley have all signed on to respond to questions submitted by Change Politics users.

So far, the response from American voters has been astounding. Within the first day of launch, we had over 500 new questions!

Check it out now at www.changepolitics.org

And for further reading, here’s a selection of media coverage from launch:

TECHCRUNCH
Change.org Introduces Change Politics, Helping Voters Make Informed Choices on Election Day

It’s a great development for voters like me, who often scramble with what to do once ushered into a voting booth, having waited until the last minute to learn about issues that may be less central.

Change Politics is a smart attempt at improving the practice for the 80 percent of people who are expected to walk into a voting booth with a smartphone this year. Whoever owns that real estate could well become a very important force in politics.

FASTCOMPANY
This New Site May Finally Make the Smartphone a Must-Have Tool for Voting

Call it “social voting” or whatever you want, but the idea makes sense. Many voters go into the voting booth with almost no real knowledge about the majority of candidates or policy initiatives. On many, they may recognize a familiar last name, or remember an attack ad they saw…More informed votes has to be a good thing—with the caveat that voters don’t just go along with what their friends or favorite media figures are doing. Hopefully voters will weigh influencers based on their arguments for voting one way or another.

NATIONAL JOURNAL
Meet the New Political Power: An E-Boss

Ima­gine walk­ing in­to the vot­ing booth in Novem­ber, pulling out your smart­phone, and down­load­ing a brief­ing from your trust net­work – ag­greg­ated opin­ions and rat­ings on every race, from mu­ni­cip­al bal­lot ini­ti­at­ives to the pres­id­ency, from the only people whose opin­ions mat­ter to you.

What this plat­form might lead to is a new kind of polit­ic­al lead­er: an e-boss, the 21st cen­tury equi­val­ence of the Gil­ded Age ward boss who ruled via pat­ron­age and de­riv­at­ive power. “It’s not about who the richest or who’s been around the longest,” he said. “It’s about who is most trus­ted.”

What if this works? What if Change.org can tap voters more dir­ectly in­to their trust net­works, dis­rupt­ing the meth­ods for tar­get­ing, com­mu­nic­at­ing, and per­suad­ing dur­ing cam­paigns? Per­haps then, trust nav­ig­at­ors could rally their fol­low­ers be­hind policy changes in Wash­ing­ton. Per­haps this is how we, the people, re­form gov­ern­ment.

CNN
Change.org launches new site: Change Politics

If you’ve always wanted to ask a political candidate a question but are too busy to make it to a town hall or a Reddit AMA, there’s a new tool just for you

The mobile-web app and desktop site crowdsources questions for politicians. Anyone can submit a question, then people vote for the best. The most popular queries are passed on to politicians. Early questions include “How will you fix the $18 trillion national debt?” and “What is your plan to reduce gun violence in America?”

BUSINESS INSIDER
A new platform makes it a lot easier to decide how to vote in elections

Change Politics, a new mobile web app debuted this week by Change.org, aims to simplify that process,  making it a lot easier to find endorsements from both organizations and friends.

“Our goal is to build a new network of influence on politics — of people and local communities who have the trust and respect of people around them but no way to communicate and share information,” Change.org founder and CEO Ben Rattray tells Tech Insider.

HUFFINGTON POST
Change.org’s New Site Helps You Send Tough Questions To Presidential Candidates

If you’re intimidated by the noise surrounding this election season, worry not: A new online tool could help you deliver the right questions to presidential candidates and, hopefully, get them to give the answers you need.

TOWN HALL
Change Politics Launches New Grassroots Election Platform

Voters have a new resource this election cycle to help them cut through the noise of the primary and general process. Influential petition platform Change.org launched their new mobile web app and desktop site, Change Politics, Thursday morning, increasing access to candidates in the presidential field.

CNN TV: Change.org’s new mission: Inform voters

NPR: How Change.org Is Trying To Give Voters More Power In 2016

BLOOMBERG TV: Demystifying Ballots: Change.org’s Platform for Politics

Written by
Change Politics Team
January 15, 2016 7:47 pm