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Monitoring how my house or senate rep voted on current or past issues that I care for
The idea: Have a small computer application developed similar to weather or stock report monitor that runs in the system tray that would constantly monitor voting statistics from the house and the senate. This application could be personalized by selecting your congressman and senators by entering your zipcode. It would also allow you on the ongoing basis to select the important issues (important issues for you) from the house and the senate calendar (and marking which result you're hoping for) and soon after the vote results are available, it would popup a window with the voting result plus how your own house or senate rep voted on the issue that's important to you. You could also have an option to do a quick statistics on how your house and senate reps voted on the important issues in the last 12-24 months.

Why Is This Idea Important?

This idea is important because it would help you to see how well you and your principles are represented by your congressman and senators looking back a year or two and decide whether you will vote for them again. I've been chewing on this idea for a long time, everyone should consider it as a basic, raw idea and I hope that if more folks pitch in, it can evolve into a really great tool.
Comments
smugould 10 months ago
I refer you to opencongress.org -- a great site for tracking the votes of your congress people along with all proposed legislation --- Everything you propose except for the running monitor ---
dudemanfellabra 10 months ago
I have a widget on my MacBook's Dashboard that tells me all this.. it's called "Vote Watch." You should look into it.
rgunn 10 months ago
xxx
rstepno 9 months ago
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/rss/

This may do what you want. The Post's program generates "an RSS feed for every current member of Congress, so you can get notified each time your elected officials vote. Each member-specific feed includes the member's position in the latest 10 votes."

It also creates feeds of recent votes in Congress
and one of upcoming committee events in Congress.
This needs to be consolidated with the multiple similar ideas along these lines. US Government either does not want to take this web initiative serioiusly, or id deliberately "handcapping it" by dumbing down what we can do here--this is a 1998 web site, at best.
klingspoon.troy 9 months ago
The complexities of business and invention need not be compromised in supporting standard portal connections. The ability to connect to the rest of the world and access the strength of community the web has to offer is vital for all humanity to compete in future learning environments. The fundamental secure portal that this writing refers to is a high level secure portal connection, the device offers the user the immediate ability to connect and transmit or receive data on the move. It unifies what is technically possible and marketable into a single device. Vital statistics would be monitored and available to the user for analysis. Applications that enhance the user in interactions with the community at large offer advantages that right now while available, are weakened in usefulness by fragmented and independent design. The trends in communications design and embedded applications have made rapid acceptance in society. The convergence with green power generation from the user coupled with embedded applications that provide enhancements for connectivity would also assist in societies efforts to reign in cybercrime. A standard portal device will offer encryption levels that are hack proof and will be designed to ensure user privacy. A citizen standard connection portal, in the spirit of transparency the strength in the adoption lies in the societal acceptance. When all citizens have the power of connectivity to participate in the strength of community, opportunity for enhanced learning becomes more powerful as well.
The costs of governance have the potential for drastic reduction. By merely giving every person in America immediate connectivity no matter where they are in the world reduces the infrastructure costs of providing the services of government and society as a whole. By giving this level of possibility to all Americans the strength of what it means to participate in building success will become immediately apparent. The design of this device through peer review across the population’s diverse spectrum of scientists’, business leaders, social network professionals and government agencies, along with the public at large will give 21st century clout to the protection offered within the constitution.
Cyber security will be made highly affordable to implement as the standard would have the largest audience not only in its creation but as well in its deployment. Once deployed the increased connectivity to efficiently deliver the services primarily of government but of all aspects of societal interactions, will be the 21st century platform for all cumulative societal efforts engaged in national and global prosperity.
Wireless connectivity offers the most efficient transition to full participatory access for all Americans.
politisal 9 months ago
Project Vote Smart is a good site, too: www.votesmart.org
We don't need to expand government to do this.
politisal 9 months ago
Well, I voted this idea down, but the count went up: I hope two people were voting for it while I was voting against. . .
asylumx 9 months ago
I like this idea, I hope it can also be expanded and useful at state and local levels someday.
William Haverty 9 months ago
opencongress.org does what you need, also congress.org does it as well
itstheuh 9 months ago
http://www.govtrack.us/
paul.a.white 9 months ago
www.numbersusa.com has a system like that already!!

you can get email updates as to how a member voted on a bill and the site allows you to send a free fax to a member expressing your concerns..

Yes the Fax is preformatted with text however you can also add your own text or start with a blank slate to completely write your own fax!!
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