Benefit: iVote4U's Google-powered process certifies voters as constituents, whose collective power can drown out lobbyists and email campaigns.

Proof statement:
Politicians value their constituents' advice 32% more than lobbyists and 75% more than Internet messages.
Of 16 factors rated on a scale of 1-7, constituents influenced politicians the most (5.92) and Internet-based messages the least because on the Internet, no one knows you're a constituent.
(John A. Hird, Power, Knowledge, and Politics, Georgetown Univ. Press, 2005, p. 139)

Feature: iVote4U's Google-powered process certifies voters as constituents

Benefit: Super (certified) Voters closely monitor politicians to weaken their party loyalty and increase loyalty to their district or state.

Proof statement:
"Members appreciate the consequences of party loyalty, and strategically move toward the party when constituents are least likely to notice."
(John A. Hird, Power, Knowledge, and Politics, Georgetown Univ. Press, 2005)

Features:

iVote4U members constantly signal their voting inclination with Yes-No clicks

iVote4U members constantly signal their mood with seven emoticons.

Wow! | Good | OK | ???? | frown | Cry | Angry!

iVote4U members Pledge their votes and create a calendar appointment with their ballot box to vote their pledge

iVote4U members create Vote Bombs: "Let's pledge 250 new votes for Senator Smith by the end of the month."

iVote4U members invite other Facebook friends to join iVote4U and to manage their own politicians."

iVote4U members send Facebook Causes to their politicians, guiding their committee actions and voting record.

iVote4U members pledge money to their politicians, often linked to their support of the voter's causes.

iVote4U publishes the pattern of Causes sent to each politician.

iVote4U publishes the pattern of Causes sent to all politicians.

Benefit: Blocs of Super Voters promote new politicians who have demonstrated more intereste in constituents than their party.

Proof statement:
"U.S. Senators shirk in the direction of their party when elections are distant."
(John A. Hird, Power, Knowledge, and Politics, Georgetown Univ. Press, 2005)

Features:

iVote4U members constantly signal their voting inclination with Yes-No clicks

iVote4U members constantly signal their mood with seven emoticons.

Wow! | Good | OK | ???? | frown | Cry | Angry!

iVote4U members Pledge their votes and create a calendar appointment with their ballot box to vote their pledge

iVote4U members create Vote Bombs: "Let's pledge 250 new votes for Senator Smith by the end of the month."

iVote4U members invite other Facebook friends to join iVote4U and to manage their own politicians."

iVote4U members pledge money to their politicians, often linked to their support of the voter's causes.

Benefit: Super Voters express their new-found power by voting in primaries, the greatest threat to incumbents.

Proof statement:
"500 voters changes the balance of power in any district in the country."
(Micah Sifry, WikiMania Conference at Harvard's Berkman Center)

Features:

iVote4U members learn the importance of voting in primaries, drastically shifting the balance of power.

iVote4U members constantly signal their voting inclination with Yes-No clicks

iVote4U members constantly signal their mood with seven emoticons.

Wow! | Good | OK | ???? | frown | Cry | Angry!

iVote4U members Pledge their votes and create a calendar appointment with their ballot box to vote their pledge

iVote4U members create Vote Bombs: "Let's pledge 250 new votes for Senator Smith by the end of the month."

iVote4U members invite other Facebook friends to join iVote4U and to manage their own politicians."

iVote4U members send Facebook Causes to their politicians, guiding their committee actions and voting record.

iVote4U members pledge money to their politicians, often linked to their support of the voter's causes.

Benefit: Super Voters pledge their votes in return for loyalty. Politicians profit because they need less money to sell themselves.

Proof statement:
"When you're handed a stack of messages at the end of the day, most of which are from people you've never heard of, and one from someone who has given you $1,000, which call do you think you're going to make?"
(Senator Paul Simon, one of the most ethical Senators in US history.)

Features:

iVote4U members Pledge their votes and create a calendar appointment with their ballot box to vote their pledge

iVote4U members create Vote Bombs: "Let's pledge 250 new votes for Senator Smith by the end of the month."

iVote4U members pledge money to their politicians, often linked to their support of the voter's causes.

iVote4U members attract more voters and money in a rising curve.

Benefit: I vote for you by lobbying my politician to support your cause, and vice versa.

Super Voters manage their politicians as easily as they manage their iTunes.

Proof statements:
"A new president -- even one as talented and well-motivated as Obama -- can't get a thing done in Washington unless the public is actively behind him. As FDR said in the reelection campaign of 1936 when a lady insisted that if she were to vote for him he must commit to a long list of objectives, 'Ma'am, I want to do those things, but you must make me'...
"Find friends and family members in red states who agree with you, and get them fired up to do the same. For example, if you happen to have a good friend or family member in Montana, you might ask him or her to write Max Baucus and tell him they want a public option included in any healthcare bill. "
(Robert Reich former Labor Secretary and Obama adviser, in Salon, July 6, 2009.)

"SCHIP advocates were joined by six Republicans who had voted against the bill last year. Interestingly, one of those lawmakers was Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI). So what changed?
McCotter faced enormous discontent from many of his constituents after his “nay” vote [on the SCHIP bill], as did many of his colleagues. In fact, 11 Republicans who voted against SCHIP lost their seats in 2008. McCotter held on to his seat, but just barely — he won only “51% against a Dem who raised just $29K.”
Yesterday’s SCHIP vote may be part of the new McCotter. After the sweeping progressive victories in the November elections, McCotter, said, “We’re rock bottom. We are now free to start thinking again, acting again, and doing the right thing by what our constituents and our country need.”
(Amanda Terkel, Think Progress, Rep. McCotter Votes For SCHIP, Loses His ‘Soul’, January 15, 2009)

Features:

iVote4U members Pledge their votes and create a calendar appointment with their ballot box to vote their pledge

iVote4U members create Vote Bombs: "Let's pledge 250 new votes for Senator Smith by the end of the month."

iVote4U members pledge money to their politicians, often linked to their support of the voter's causes.

iVote4U members attract more Super Voters and money in a rising curve.

iVote4U members send Facebook Causes to their politicians, guiding their committee actions and voting record.

iVote4U members pledge money to their politicians, often linked to their support of the voter's causes.

iVote4U publishes the pattern of Causes sent to each politician.

iVote4U publishes the pattern of Causes sent to all politicians.

John A. Hird

The power of constituents

"It has been demonstrated that party loyalty has a negative effect on electoral success in the U.S. It has also been shown that U.S. Senators shirk in the direction of their party when elections are distant. These findings suggest that many members appreciate the consequences of party loyalty, and strategically move toward the party when constituents are least likely to notice. This implies that the relative importance of constituents and party in U.S. legislators' decision-making calculus varies across time. We theorize that the instability in the relative importance of principals is directly related to the system of elections and the monitoring capabilities of the principals. At the extremes, single-member district systems should correspond to greater instability in member positions than list systems since (1) parties have less influence over electoral success, and (2) constituents have greater variability than parties in terms of their capacity to monitor legislative behavior. We conduct a cross-national study of legislative position-taking. We analyze several legislatures that vary in terms of partisan control of reelection, and hypothesize that increasing partisan presence leads to greater stability in legislative positions."

Power, Knowledge, and Politics By John A. Hird, p.139,

H97
2004-023155
1-58901-049-3
Power, knowledge, and politics; policy analysis in the states.
Hird, John A. (American governance and public policy)
Georgetown U. Press, [c]2005
240 p.

In a unique comparative focus on state policy, "Power, Knowledge, and Politics" dissects the nature of the policy institutions that policymakers establish and analyzes the connection between policy research and how it is actually used in decision making. Hird probes the effects of politics and political institutions--parties, state political culture and dynamics, legislative and gubernatorial staffing, partisan think tanks, interest groups--on the nature and conduct of nonpartisan policy analysis. Through a comparative examination of institutions and testing theories of the use of policy analysis, Hird draws conclusions that are more useful than those derived from single cases.

Lawmakers' relative influences

"Members appreciate the consequences of party loyalty, and strategically move toward the party when constituents are least likely to notice. This implies that the relative importance of constituents and party in U.S. legislators' decision-making calculus varies across time. We theorize that the instability in the relative importance of principals is directly related to the system of elections and the monitoring capabilities of the principals."

"constituents have greater variability than parties in terms of their capacity to monitor legislative behavior."