Vote Smart was becoming a whole pile of spinach with no bacon. People eat what tastes good not what is good, just as they like to hear what sounds good but not what is.
It’s what was making Vote Smart’s reality difficult for citizens hungry for anyone corroborating what they already believed true.
Finding a new Vote Smart home would have to wait, even as a dozen universities, including Duke, New York University College of Law, University of Washington, University of Florida, University of Texas, USC, Berkley, Rutgers, and my own alma mater, the University of Arizona, would make offers to house Vote Smart.
Their interest was in some part because of the dozens of studies and reviews of our work, including:
AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION’S STUDY
Scholars appointed 7 committees representing political scientists in each region of the country. All were to study political websites and then nominate three organizations they thought were the best and most useful, announcing their winners at their national convention. They took months studying. I had heard nothing the week of their convention and was nervous that we would not be amongst the 21 organizations nominates announced.
Apologizing to the committee chair when I called pleading that “Our young staff and students had been doing the very best they could, but we were still young and would have difficulty surviving if we were not at least one of the 21 finalists announced. Can you at least tell me if Vote Smart is on the list?” My question solicited a burst of laughter, “What, you mean you haven’t heard?”. “No,” I pleaded, “Can’t you tell me before your meeting?” Still amused, he then told me that they had cancelled their final meeting to decide because it became unnecessary. All seven committees reported back their nominees and Vote Smart was listed as number one by each and every one of them.
As our local newspaper proudly reported, Vote Smart won “BEST PICTURE.”
THE MARKLE FOUNDATION STUDY
Headed by the founder of Sesame Street, the Markle Foundation in New York conducted a study comparing sources of political candidate information. They tested a dozen or more major sources including the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, USA Today, Politics Yahoo and Vote Smart.
Had I been less a thoughtless ass, my focus on the end game — getting the Grail to voters — I might have let the staff pause to celebrate the results, but NO, as I recall, another academic result was so meaningless to me I am not sure I even shared the results, which were:
Ability to provide new information? Winner Vote Smart
Ability to increase confidence in internet use? Winner Vote Smart.
Ability to increase user desire to learn more? Winner Vote Smart
Ability to increase willingness to talk more about politics? Winner Vote Smart
DR. BRENT STEEL (Oregon State University) SURVEY
Perhaps most importantly, as a brilliant political scientist, Vote Smart Board Member and survey specialist, Dr. Steel did a study of key minority precincts in Atlanta and the San Francisco Bay area to ascertain the effect Vote Smart had on minority populations. His results showed that there was a 5% increase in political involvement in precincts where Vote Smart was active. In political science terms that is huge movement in a single year’s efforts.
REVIEWS
“Project Vote Smart is so good that even the Federal Government recommends it.” – The New York Times
“[Project Vote Smart] would make the Founders weep for joy!” –
US News & World Report
“Vote Smart is a bright light in an often desultory civic culture.” – Bill Moyers
“Project Vote Smart jammed a wrench into the spin machine, the political and media apparatus that anoints candidates and disenfranchises the vast majority of voters.” – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“For reliable, meat and potatoes political information, research experts nearly all recommend Project Vote Smart” – The New York Times
“Vote Smart is Heaven for political junkies.” – USA Today
“Vote Smart’s materials are so good that we are distributing them to all of our affiliates.” – CNN
The national Webvisonary Awards selected Vote Smart as “Best Picture” in the “Visualize This” category.
The New York Museum of Modern Art chose Vote Smart to display in MoMA’s “Talk To Me” exhibit as the best example of complex data being made useful.
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You might notice that most all the studies and reviews were done by gadflies, intensely interested in politics, in our democracy not The People.
The studies, the reviews had only one effect and that was on my ego. I had kissed the Blarney Stone and thought citizens would explode in love for what we were doing.
Who could not take all that and fail to deliver “The Grail?” Well, that would be me.
(New chapters will be added roughly once a week)
Richard Kimball, Vote Smart Founder 1988
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