How specifically to you plan to reach voters? Would these be ad buys? You might consider sponsoring youtube videos from prominent creators with audiences likely to be interested.
When i went to the site i was expecting to see cleanly presented and organized analyses (538 style). Condensing data into concise, impactful, and shareable content will probably be essential to your success. Personally i expect to see demonstrations of that capability before i would consider donating. Nicely articulating a cause in essay format isn't enough unless you're just trying to sell your skills as an essayist.
An example might be making baseball card style images for each candidate which also contain some sort of supporting data. Anyone can trivially fire up an image editor and put checkmarks or crosses next to someone's name. The value is in the persuasive capability of the analysis. I just wanted to echo other commenters suggestions to present as much of the data as possible. The content you make should provide people with information that they can use to persuade others. If someone juat tells me that x organization supports y candidate, i generally couldn't care less. That has to be immediately followed by "because"
We have started some early data collection. I tentatively feel there is a very strong "because" for some of our representatives. An example: We strongly oppose candidate X because they permitted the unconstitutional Presidential Surveillance Program while sitting on the Senate Intelligence Committee. You can run ads in their district "Your government is actively breaking the law. Candidate X is allowing it. Vote them out."
The November 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee meeting (recording available online) has some pretty good quotes that would line up nicely with the supreme courts ruling on the program.
I'd like to get someone who knows more than me to weigh in here, but as a 527 I'm raising the money to directly influence elections as a primary purpose. Most 501s can only focus on issue advocacy and can't run ads like this without losing their non-profit status. From what I understand of election law, we should be in the clear for running ads supporting/opposing representatives.
A 527 that advertises 'vote them out' has to comply with state and federal campaign finance regulations. A 527 that doesn't explicitly do that doesn't.
I'd like to get someone who knows more
I want to say this as politely as I can but... shouldn't you have that sorted out before taking money from people?
> Shouldn't you have that sorted out before taking money from people?
I believe I have, though haven't done a great job of sharing that context! I've gotten input on our structure from folks w/ experience and legal background saying this is sound, but very much welcome additional input. I understand that ignorance of the law doesn't retroactively exempt you from the law. The more eyes we have on our structure the better; I suspect we will come under quite a bit of scrutiny as we make progress and would like to have our house in order when that happens.
I guess my question is, if you're raising money not-for-a-campaign but on issues, how are you then going to use that money for explicit advocacy for a candidate's election, where limits actually kick in. Isn't that the whole point of 'superpac' style 527s - that they don't do that and are thus not subject to those regulations? Can you talk a bit about this? 'Vote for this person' is precisely the type of ad these orgs don't make because their financing is regulated.
There are different forms of 527s. We are specifically a 527 that supports/opposes more than one Federal candidate, is not a segregated fund or party committee, is not a Lobbyist/Registrant PAC, and is not a Leadership PAC. (On FEC form 1 this is box (f) under section 5)
Under this, the guidance I've been given is that we can publicly support and oppose candidates, make unlimited independent expenditures and we can raise funds in unlimited amounts. The primary restriction is that we can not use those funds to make contributions, whether direct, in-kind, or via coordinated communications, to federal candidates or committees. Our interpretation of that is we can run ads like these as long as we don't coordinate those ads directly with a campaign.
The FEC has a support line for getting guidance on campaign finance law. I've taken the guidance we've been given and run it through them. The FEC indicated we were in the clear. That being said, I'll call back Monday morning when they are open and ask your specific question to make sure our green light isn't a result of how I worded my questions.
Wanted to follow up after calling the FEC. The way we’ve incorporated, directly advocating for/against one or more federal candidates isn’t just an option, it’s mandatory. In order for us to qualify as the type of 527 we have registered for we are legally required to campaign for/against candidates.
We are able to raise money without limits and spend that on advocating for or against candidates. The limits kick in when we are donating to a campaign or coordinating with a campaign.
> We are specifically a 527 that supports/opposes more than one Federal candidate, is not a segregated fund or party committee, is not a Lobbyist/Registrant PAC, and is not a Leadership PAC. (On FEC form 1 this is box (f) under section 5)
> I guess my question is, if you're raising money not-for-a-campaign but on issues, how are you then going to use that money for explicit advocacy for a candidate's election, where limits actually kick in.
Agreed and appreciate the feedback. Today is our official launch, we have a long way to go.
I'm not happy with the state of our data. We had the trade-off conversation about waiting to ship until we felt it "complete" and shipping now to get feedback and spread the message.
We have a bet that we aren't the only ones who are disturbed by what our mission addresses. We wanted to condense our mission down into an articulation of our take on the problem domain and try to spread it. This articulation is meant to cut to the core of the problems in an easy to follow way. Today is part litmus test of our mission and part litmus test of our articulation.
I've updated the homepage with our current strategy. But this is early and we are looking for help in cultivating that strategy.
I have to say, right now, it looks like some kind of parody site. Every single senator and representative has 3 red X's next to them, and there's nothing to represent any of their opponents, or any third party candidates. I think I would have left that part off entirely at this point, since those pages have effectively zero information content.
Another thing that came to mind: typically i think of the EFF as being front and center in many of these fights. Even if you don't mention them by name, it might be good to communicate if you have capabilities they don't that can be complimentary.
> A majority of candidates agree on undermining civilian oversight of our government.
Citation?
> We aim to fix that by taking away their power every two years.
Uh oh. Have you even considered the unintended consequences of such a thing or ever read anything of the philosophy underlying democratic governance? I'd wager you have not.
> We decide whether to keep our current elected officials in office with three simple measurements.
> We decide
> We
Oh no
> With your donations, we are going to fund analysis of candidates coming up for re-election.
As per my previous prediction [1] this is a donation sourced political hit squad.
> End Mass Surveillance
The above has literally nothing to do with what you "intend" to do. It's a smokescreen to make it seem more reasonable. What is the relationship between this and biennial elections?
> Stop Big Money Politics
Well, it worked for Trump as mantra.
Honestly this is very poor. Furthermore trying to state you are a political entity wanting to influence election outcomes and remaining anonymous is beyond cowardly
This is a highly cynical but great perspective. The person posting here, involved in the project, might not be completely anonymous, but no name associated with their HN handle and no names on the site are definitely a red flag. As are many other things you point out.
The concept is interesting but overall this is either a terrible execution, terrible idea, something more nefarious, or a combination of those things.
I'm sorry you feel this way. It's a side project that has taken considerable effort so far. It's being done in good faith.
I've added a link to our GitHub organization to the footer, all contributions are under my personal account. My HN handle is the same as my social media handles across the board (though some are l33t-ified depending on the availability of the handle).
I hope that, as we get further down this path and have more substance, we can demonstrate more transparency and earn more trust. Yesterday's launch validated the idea is worth iterating on for us, we intend to keep learning and pushing forward.
Appreciate your feedback. I'll take time reflecting on your takeaway reading our website. Some quick points:
> We
Your quote is coming from a philosophical block, and the context is lost when you quote it like this. "We" is the collective "us" including you. Our org intends to open source our analysis, be transparent, and take feedback in the process. The homepage is describing a different approach to engaging in the voting process. I've spoken with many disenfranchised voters who chose not to vote because neither candidate on the ballot represents them, and voters who vote but really aren't happy about it for the same reason. Instead of taking the "who do we pick given these options" approach, we ask "do we let the incumbent continue given their track record". This breaks through the points candidates agree on, since voting an incumbent out due to their track record gives a strong incentive to their replacement not to repeat those mistakes less they meet the same fate. It's an election outside of the election, and a (likely not) unique way of wielding our power as voters beyond the partisan options presented.
I think there is some super valuable feedback here. Our homepage conflates the philosophical "different approach to voting" block with our organizations metrics. Our set of criteria for evaluating a candidate may not represent yours. Those might be worth separating out. The two ideas are meant to stand on their own, the first leading into the second.
> this is a donation sourced political hit squad
This is valuable feedback, I hope there aren't many folks walking away from engaging with us feeling this way. I feel this is a negative take on mobilizing potential voters who already exist, already have these views (or at least likely would given access to information), and feel disenfranchised. Our bet is that there are many voters like this. Our goal is to help coordinate that existing sentiment, not drum up a fake movement. It's about reminding representatives that they are supposed to be representative. They _should_ worry when their views significantly break from their constituents; our goal is to organize those constituents.
As an aside, I also feel the term "hit squad" describes, at least partially, all 527 Super PACs. If you read the leading Super PACs websites listed on opensecrets, many includes phrases like "take the fight to candidate X". 527s are founded to directly support and oppose candidates, by definition. Our goal is to be a 527 that supports/opposes candidates based on constituent sentiment and federal law, not our own self interest.
> What is the relationship between [mass surveillance] and biennial elections?
The elected officials who oversaw (sanctioned, approved, understood, etc.) the Presidential Surveillance Program are part of a biennial election cycle. Many of them, still in office, defended its existence and legality in public hearings and continue to oversee its current form today. While 501(c)(3) non-profits and citizens are in courts trying to hold the government accountable to it's own laws, these representatives are actively undermining them [1][2]. We feel part of this is caused by our representatives not feeling they need to be representative, which leads into the other two points in our mission; they don't respect civilian oversight because we haven't given them a reason to.
> Furthermore trying to state you are a political entity wanting to influence election outcomes and remaining anonymous is beyond cowardly
I am not anonymous. I can't be. This is a 527. If you donate directly you aren't anonymous either; your donation is reported by us to the FEC [3]. I'm personally associated with this org in multiple places many of which are public (FEC). I'm also here, using my public handle, talking to you about it.
> Have you ever read
I have read quite a lot but if you have some resources you'd recommend I always love reading more. There is always more to learn <3
[3] If you want to donate anonymously, there are instructions for laundering your donation through a non-profit on the website. Many candidates use this washing of donations to raise money from politically sensitive sources. We think that is wrong but we want to be on equal ground; it's hard to win a game without adopting a lusory attitude.
It might make sense to try to tie this into the ideas of the current defund the police demand that's getting some traction. Who uses mass surveillance? The cops of one sort or another. Take away their money, take away their toys.
While I side with your missions, that's also the problem. Three missions is two too many. Pick one. Start with a focused product and find a market. Etc.
When was the American form of representative democracy ever great? You do remember from your history classes that initially, only white, male, landowners could vote, right?
I understand you are taking offense at "again". I've had a hard time grappling with the past. It's dark. The history that brought us to this point violates every aspect of the values I hold as "critical path" for the future of humans.
America's past is dark. But we have a legal system and founding documents that allow for peaceful revolutions through civilian oversight.
I'm with you on this. I wasn't taking offense at the word "again," simply stating that trying to claim American democracy was ever "great" was historical revisionism.
It didn't become "great" when black people got the vote, either. People in power tried their damnedest to keep them disenfranchised.
It didn't become "great" when women got the vote. We've still gone on to commit mass atrocities, some of which took place on our own soil (internment of the Japanese, for instance).
It wasn't suddenly "great" after landmark civil rights legislation and Johnson's Great Society programs passed. We still shot peaceful protesters at Kent State, and began a hopeless War on Drugs.
Why do you muddle the issue with campaign finance reform? I strongly disagree with your views on that, and even though I agree on stopping mass surveillance I can't support your org.
As for money in politics - if bloomberg and hillary clinton don't proved that money doesn't just buy votes, I don't know what will.
Lastly, anonymous speech is important - you would think people arguing against mass surveillance would understand that.
This spawned from an observation that our representative democracy isn't representative. We worked backwards from what caused that.
We've split the mission out into sub-goals but the primary goal is to make our representatives, well, representative. We identified what, in our opinion, was undermining that and set to work.
I don't think it's fair to attach everything to Bloomberg and consider the matter a closed case. Large donors do indeed influence the outcomes of elections, if they didn't we wouldn't have large donors. Conflating money with speech isn't healthy, they can be exchanged for one another. Tracking that exchange as part of campaign financing laws wouldn't constitute a warrantless search while storing the "metadata" of peoples communication very well might.
Warrantless searches, and the government organizations wielding them, have been used to systematically disenfranchise and suppress voters. The civil rights movements have been actively undermined by the government wielding this power. I may be operating under an availability heuristic here, but a sweeping majority of the folks I've crossed paths with in my life do not support the government's mass surveillance programs. Yet the persist, being sanctioned and overseen by our "representatives".
The mission is cultivated from identifying and disrupting the viscous cycle of power imbalance. The strongest branch of the U.S. government is supposed to be the voters, not the few but the many, we aim to make that happen.
The problem with campaign finance isn't that there's nothing there, it's that everything is there. "Money is speech" isn't a law of the United States, it's a law of physics. Money buys staff and billboards and newspapers and TV stations. Fox News works for the Republicans and CNN works for the Democrats even if neither of them donate a dollar to anybody's campaign. Google can put a banner on google.com that will be seen by the whole world.
Counting influence only when it's in cash and not in kind only makes the asymmetry worse. It transfers influence from millionaires who can "only" afford advertising to billionaires who own the media outlets themselves and gain airtime for themselves by not selling it to someone else. But counting third party speech as a political donation because it benefits a political campaign is intractable.
The easier problem to solve is to fix the voting system, because there is an uncontroversial and straight forward solution. Switch to range voting or approval voting, which dismantles the two party system. Then, when there are twelve parties in Congress, it's much harder to buy elections with money or airtime because the election winner's original chance of winning was 8% instead of 50%, which makes it much easier to waste your money on a loser and thereby reduces the payoff from spending it that way.
#1: Focus on one issue. Or create one org per issue. You can't assume allies will support your entire platform, so remove deal breakers.
#2: Pace yourself for a marathon. For example, a friend of mine worked EIGHTEEN years to get the first statewide family leave act law passed. Had to build the coalition one vote at a time.
#3: What are you for? Where's your model legislation? Be specific. Offense beats defense, have an affirmative agenda, etc.
#4: Start locally. It's easier to move the needle, one jurisdiction at a time.
#5: Why not partner with existing orgs, create a local chapter? Is there something wrong with the current public financing advocates? The people fighting for RCV?
Bonus #6: Pick a strategy for privacy. Like extend property rights to personal data. Like new accounting rules to make data aggregation a financial liability. Something, anything that people can wrap their heads around.
This is super valid, and something I spend a lot of time thinking about. The task ahead is monumental, but these are sub-goals. This spawned from an observation that our representative democracy isn't representative. We worked backwards from what caused that. The mission is cultivated from identifying and attempting to disrupt the viscous cycle of power imbalance. The strongest branch of the U.S. government is supposed to be the voters, not the few but the many, we aim to make that happen. I don't think any of these three points can succeed without the other two.
Mass surveillance, if you click through, isn't about mass surveillance. It's about a government not being held accountable to it's own laws, which are meant to be governed by civilian oversight. Our government must follow it's own laws, it must pass laws that are foremost in line with our founding documents and then inline with their constituent's desires. The mechanism for civilian oversight is broken.
While reading the ACLU FOIA requests and court documents, it was clear to me that the government wasn't playing by the rules. When you read the reasons the government kept these programs secret on write-ups from leaked documents, it was for fear of being subject to civilian oversight. This isn't how our government was designed to operate.
I think you should at least talk to people who have a broader range of views about the causes of mass surveillance. I've worked on fighting it for a while and I've come across a lot of different theories about why it exists and persists. A few of them include
* international anarchy theory: the world is really dangerous (much more dangerous than the public has any idea of) and so security agencies need to be more powerful than people, including the security agencies themselves, would really prefer in order to combat that danger or keep it at bay; surveillance is one part of the security agencies' toolkit for managing it
* international hegemony theory: the U.S. got its current position in the world partly via unsavory means and means that are very poorly understood or poorly remembered by the public (at least in America) (cf. Huntington's "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion [...] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.") and there is some reason for the U.S.'s sake, U.S. allies' sake, or the world's sake that the U.S. should continue to maintain this position, including by continuing to use the tools that allow it to do so
* realpolitik theory: the U.S. in some sense can't afford to be that much more ethical than other actors because they will somehow take advantage of this
* military-industrial complex theory: surveillance is super-profitable for surveillance vendors and contractors, so they want to keep it going
* self-perpetuating elites theories: civil servants are accustomed to seeing surveillance activities that they participate in, or whose intelligence products they consume, as part of the way the world works, and they normalize it among themselves while just not caring very much what anyone else thinks about it
* non-political theory: currently the ideological anti-surveillance constituency is so tiny that most legislators find it rational to ignore it, as contrasted with other issues that generate multiples or orders of magnitude more passion, contributions, or votes
* public support theory: public opinion actually favors current surveillance programs, at least in broad outlines
* class conflict theory: someone, or some coalition, is relying on surveillance in order to keep suppressing the lower classes
* racial conflict theory: someone, or some coalition, is relying on surveillance in order to keep suppressing racial minorities
* other conflict theory: some other kind of powerful coalition finds surveillance important in order to maintain its power
* surveillance is actually good theory: sophisticated legislators and other officials have taken a look at the laws and institutions that carry out surveillance in the U.S. today and concluded that they are basically OK under the constitution, are basically subject to half-decent oversight, and represent a broadly politically acceptable trade-off in terms of what they accomplish and the risks they create
I think approximately two to five of these are well-aligned with your view that campaign finance reform would be relevant to achieving surveillance reform, but the others aren't so well-aligned. Although I have my own opinions, I don't feel like I know for sure which of these theories are most correct.
Been chewing on this reply. This is terrific. I very much support doing this kind of analysis. I wish I had this kind of analytical framework back when I was active.
To better understand the opposition, and rebut their rhetoric, sure.
But also to better advocate one's own policy, to message craft an affirmative agenda.
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Say what you're for, not what you're against. Whatever the issue, there's a positive message. Say "Walk please" instead of "Don't run". For privacy it might be "I have the right to control my public persona" vs "Stop the panopticon!"
I did election integrity activism for about 10 years. Utterly exhausting. Any effort rebutting your opponent's talking points is wasted resources. And they'll always come at you with ever more inane irrelevant points, seeking to discredit you, overwhelm you, muddy the waters.
For law makers, anything ambiguous is radioactive. Make it easy for them to choose your policy. A great analog is Steve Krug's book "Don't Make Me Think".
FWIW, lawmakers and their staff can only seriously consider 10s of the 1000s of bills up for discussion. It's an attention economy, they're doing triage, just like everyone else.
I'm trying, and failing, to make the point that policy work is real work, and that if you want to make a dent, I encourage you to learn how the professionals get it done.
But you don't need all that to get started.
Just call your rep, at any level, and get on their calendar. You'll have 5 minutes to make a pitch. You'll probably meet with a legislative aide. Bring some position papers. Weigh in on current (or recent legislation). If there's an upcoming vote, specifically request they vote Yay or Nay (per your position).
I appreciate that it is real work, and I hope I don't come across as making light of that. I've spent a lot of time the past few weeks grappling with imposter syndrome while trying to set this up and constantly questioning whether I would be a net positive in this space. I hope I will. Part of shipping was to try to cultivate the relationships to do that learning and bring in resources to fund folks to do that learning, and work, full time. If you have resources that could help me ramp up, I would really appreciate them, and could use mentorship if you know of anyone. On nights and weekends, I've been sitting through days of senate hearing recordings and reading hundreds of pages of court documents over the past few weeks. I do feel that is helping, but there are definitely "meta" parts of this field I'm missing (like legal research).
I also feel policy work is different than influencing elections. Part of what we benefit from, as voters, is having representatives handle some of this policy work. When you listen to the first Senate Intelligence Committee hearing after the 2013 leaks, it's clear they are out of touch with who they are representing. When it comes to the Presidential Surveillance Program, that committee knew about it and oversaw it. They were actively involved in keeping evidence out of the courts, preventing citizens doing the policy work necessary to hold them accountable. I don't fully understand how professionals do this, but I do get the feeling these senators had a non-negligible impact on making that surveillance program a reality. Only one senator put truth to power during that hearing, everyone else defended the program and focused on "restricting access" to the database and improving reporting. Many of those senators are still sitting in their seats. An underlying goal of this project is to rally the voting population against the current representatives. I want to understand and be involved in the policy to apply that pressure correctly, but at the end of the day I want our representatives to be driving that policy change. We apply pressure to them, through a downward pressure during their election cycle, to guide them towards doing right by their citizens.
Everyone's faking it. Believe me. Except maybe the judges.
Strongly agree that policy work has been separate from campaigning. I've been out of the game, so don't know the current landscape. What's always true is the game continues to change. Improvise, adapt, overcome.
Law makers, by necessity, lean on their staff and lobbyists (both the good and bad kind) to navigate policy choices. Any given law maker has a handful of issues that they really care about, for which they are willing to spend political capital. Everything else is in response to public debate.
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I collect books about policy and law making. So much free advice!
A really good starting point is Rep. Henry Waxman's The Waxman Report. It'll give you a taste of one person's experience.
Are you considering any options to allow donations to choose certain pools? For example, I think I'd be really interested in donating towards maintaining a thorough breakdown of politicians' records on mass surveillance or their stance on options like ranked-choice voting, but not as stoked about directly having my donation used for boots-on-the-ground campaigning in a district across the country. An option to ask for a donation to support different initiatives might be attractive, even if there were only three or four options.
We hadn't considered this, but certainly will. At this stage (we just launched today) I don't think we have the resources to effectively manage donations that way. As we grow, I'll fit this into the roadmap.
Also, if you feel passionately about a specific area and want to provide help/feedback, donations of time are always welcome and we are always here to listen.
This is an area I know enough to be dangerous in, so would love to learn more if anyone has resources.
From my understanding a 501(c)(4) is a social welfare organization that can engage in political activity as long as it isn't its primary purpose. I didn't want to risk us breaking that restriction.
This is really good feedback. I tried to sum it up with "vote them out" but I don't think that really captures what this PAC positions us to do.
We are a 527, which allows us to attempt to directly influence elections. 501(c)(3)s can't do this.
My goal is to use the donations we gather to fund analysis of the voting records, legislation, comments on the floor, etc. of our representatives, and then actively campaign against them when they are up for re-election.
We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains.
As a 527, we aren't stuck lobbying and paying lawyers to try to go through the court system. The key is that, as a 527, we can actively campaign against these representatives in their districts. We can directly fund political ads that put their record on mass surveillance _directly in front of their voters_.
By collecting email addresses, we can send out our analysis ahead of election day. By collecting donations, we can run ads in their district.
I don't know much about this area, but I understand that some single-issue PACs have had to actively think about how to convince campaigns that they are genuinely single-issue and non-partisan (for example because the PAC's staff or donors might primarily support or be perceived as supporting one party—and because many PACs do exclusively support one party even they don't advertise themselves that way!). It might be helpful to talk to other single-issue PACs, consultants, or lobbyists to about how they manage this issue.
This is important because single-issue PACs don't want campaigns or legislative offices to dismiss them as someone who would never want to support them or work with them, or prospective donors who otherwise identify with a party to fear that their donations will only harm that party.
> We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains.
In this polarized and super-partisan world, people will instinctively find it hard to believe that you really did that whenever you end up on "the other side" from them in a race they care about. So again, I think you'll end up having to consider what you'll tell those people about why your strategy is the best strategy for your issue and how they can be confident that you really followed it.
This is super insightful. I wish I could give you more of a response, but your feedback really cuts to the core of something I need to reflect on and I don't have much to add beyond that.
I am jaded when it comes to promises of change. If you want to reach others like myself, that explanation of what you're doing needs to be up front. What are you doing that's new? Will you show your work, share those analyses?
Rattling off "501(c)(3)" and "527" is technical detail. Keep it somewhere, but not the first thing on the "friendly" pages. I need to know that you'll spend my money on campaigning, not the laws that allow it.
I agree, it's technical jargon.. Do you have a better way of wording it?
The core is that a 501(c)(3) legally _can not_ spend money on campaigning without losing their non-profit status. They are stuck in courts, lobbying, and talking about their causes.
A 527 is allowed to actively campaign. If you donate to a 501(c)(3) you're money can't be used to campaign. If we want to vote them out, we need to do it on the same ground they do, a 527 puts us on equal footing.
Just state that there is a difference, and leave the details to be dug up later. "The laws governing non-profits mean that many popular organizations cannot campaign. However, we can, and we intend to call out yada yada yada."
> We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains.
If I may offer a suggestion, optimize also on how close an election is expected to be. It may take a lot of ads to swing some elections, but only few to swing others, and you want the most bang for your buck.
Agreed. We are open source from day one: https://github.com/every-two-years. The only piece that isn't open source at the moment is our donations page and I'm working to fix that.
We don't have any formal analysis yet, being a bit more transparent about why everyone has an X right now (it's the default) might help too?
> being a bit more transparent about why everyone has an X right now (it's the default) might help too?
I think that would be helpful.
Also maybe add a sort functionality for the data. Just a simple asc/desc. Scrolling the entire House to see if there was anything but a red X was tiring :)
Edit: adding a link to Github on the site would be a good idea too IMO.
I've dropped the Senate and House pages from our website for now until we have concrete data. Once we start building out our analysis, it will be transparent and open.
I've added a link to our GitHub organization in the footer of the website under "Open By Design".
When i went to the site i was expecting to see cleanly presented and organized analyses (538 style). Condensing data into concise, impactful, and shareable content will probably be essential to your success. Personally i expect to see demonstrations of that capability before i would consider donating. Nicely articulating a cause in essay format isn't enough unless you're just trying to sell your skills as an essayist.