Online eVoter aims to enlighten 2012 electorate with candidate, campaign information

DECATUR — “Where’s my polling place again?”

The number of people asking themselves — and Google — that question before elections can be in the tens of thousands, according to Adam Kravitz.

He would know. Kravitz is the CEO and founder of eVoter, a nonpartisan election information site that can tell voters who is on their ballots, what those candidates say about themselves and what organizations have endorsed them.

“There’s still kind of this thought in political campaigns that the Internet is for, you know, young voters … when in fact, it’s how you reach everybody,” Kravitz said.

The service is accessible through the Herald & Review website, www.herald-review.com.

“It’s a good service for our readers and helps keep them informed,” said Dave Dawson, Herald & Review managing editor. “They can go to our website and find a lot of information about candidates in our databases and also plug their addresses into eVoter and get a sample ballot. It must be doing its job, because we are getting a lot of traffic going to eVoter.”

Candidates and organizations can create profiles and list endorsements on the website for free. Kravitz said they must enter their ID numbers and the profiles are reviewed by staff to make sure they are legitimate.

Illinois was the first state to debut the service during its 2010 primary. Now, Kravitz said eVoter has expanded to all 50 states, although it remains particularly useful in Illinois, where the information online varies from county to county.

Kravitz said the service offers a centralized location to learn about all the candidates on the ballot, including those that do not particularly get a lot of media coverage.

“People are going to come into the booth, and it’s going to take them 10, 15 minutes to vote. By the time they get to these races at the bottom they’re going to be tired, uninterested,” Kravitz said. “… If a local candidate can touch these people at the time they’re actually interested, at the time they’re actually making their decision, this is a huge opportunity for down-ballot candidates to reach voters.”

apetty@herald-review.com|421-6986

via Online eVoter aims to enlighten electorate with candidate, campaign information.

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About eVoter.com

eVoter.com is the unbiased, non-partisan election information site where voters can instantly generate a personalized sample ballot, view candidate profiles, make contributions, view endorsements, find polling places, request absentee ballots, and more.

eVoter was designed to provide voters with concise unbiased information on every candidate & measure on their ballot and has quickly become the leading online destination for election information, serving hundreds of thousands of voters in California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The eVoter.com service will be expanding to include all 50 states for the 2012 election cycle, making it the single source for national election information.

With an Advisory Board including David Wilhelm, former Democratic National Committee Chair and Jo Ann Davidson, former Republican National Committee Co-Chair, eVoter is uniquely positioned to take advantage of not only the historic transition to online campaigning, but also the new political climate, one in which voters are increasingly looking online for relevant and unbiased political information.

Follow eVoter

• Facebook.com/eVoter
• Twitter.com/eVoterUpdates
• eVoterNews.wordpress.com
• Youtube.com/eVoterVideos
• Google+
• Subscribe to RSS Feed

Adam Kravitz CEO of eVoter.com Appears on the Social Media Panel at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (CSPAN VIDEO)

Adam Kravitz, CEO of www.eVoter.com appeared on the Social Media panel at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference on January 20, 2012 in Charleston, South Carolina.  In addition to eVoter.com other companies represented on the panel included: Facebook.com, Twitter.com and Google.com.  Panelists talked about the ways social media continue to change political campaigns and elections. Among the topics they addressed were the changing demographics of Internet use, social media use by campaign staff and the public, and online fundraising. They responded to questions from the audience.

View the video here:  http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/MediaandPoli/start/24/stop/4194

View Adam’s CSPAN biography here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/adamkravitz

Social media politics: Social media influences politics on Facebook, Twitter – OrlandoSentinel.com

“The Holy Grail of social media from a candidate’s viewpoint is to ‘go viral,’ get noticed and hope that exposure translates into votes,” said Adam Kravitz, CEO and co-founder of the nonpartisan election information website eVoter.

And having volunteers promote the agenda of the candidate or party is “more organic and less planned,” he said.

“The fact is that many of the young, eager volunteers and staffers who are drawn to political campaigns and organizing are the kind of people that are fully immersed in the Facebook and Twitter culture,” Kravitz said. “They are surrounded by a universe of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ [who] comment and re-tweet in kind, resulting in a viral effect.”

via Social media politics: Social media influences politics on Facebook, Twitter – OrlandoSentinel.com.

wpacheco@tribune.com or 407-420-6262. Read his blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/techblog