I joined Ross Reynolds on Monday for a 15-minute interview on Alignvote. We discussed its origins, how it works, and what I’m trying to accomplish with the project. You can find it here on this page, about halfway down.
When you’ve completed the interview on Alignvote, you’ll get a result list of candidates in the race, sorted by how much they agree with you. You can now click the “Show Detail” button, and it will show you, issue by issue, whether the candidate is in alignment with you (thumbs-up) or not aligned with you (thumbs down): Example — for each candidate, you’ll see where you agree and disagree We hope this new level of…
Today I’m shipping several updates to Alignvote. These new features help voters share their rankings with others. This release also provides summarized Alignvote log data to participating candidates. Alignvote does not collect or store any personally identifiable information — this is just aggregated data on the user sessions as input by voters, including what issues and stances are most often input to the system, how strongly people feel about different issues, and how well the…
Just a note, as previously written on Twitter and this blog: the platform is frozen until early July, likely some time late in the first week of July. All candidates can still update their elaborations on issues during this code freeze via the private link sent to their official campaign email address. (Search for messages from alignvote[at]gmail.com on your official campaign email address, and be sure to include the spam folder.) Those candidates who have…
Today, I received an official request, via the confirmed Twitter candidate address, from D2 candidate Christopher Peguero to opt out of ALIGNVOTE. Within an hour, per his request, his listing was changed from stances-known — even though he had previously confirmed all of his stances to voters — to “cleared and unranked” and “opted out.” Per the outline of the “Want to Opt Out?” section in the introductory blog post, his listing now shows as…
New ALIGNVOTE Feature: Candidate Voices Immediately upon launch of the candidate-facing preview of ALIGNVOTE last Wednesday, I heard a great feature request from D4 candidate Heidi Stuber. Paraphrasing our exchange: “I understand why multiple choice is great for finding a match, but often, multiple choice questions have a need for explanation as to why a particular stance was selected. Please allow me to elaborate on an answer.” A few days later, I heard that request…
Ever wish you had help discovering which candidates agree the most with you? Simply answer a few questions, and ALIGNVOTE will tell you. It’s free, quick, and it works easily on your phone or desktop. Are you a Seattle voter? There’s a very important City Council election coming up on August 6th. Seven of nine spots on our City Council are up for election: Visit https://alignvote.comPoint to where you liveAnswer a few questionsSee which candidates…
About Me Hi. I’m Steve Murch, and I’m the sole person behind ALIGNVOTE. I think it’s reasonable to know who’s behind the site, and I’d always planned to disclose my founding role when we rolled it out. So now that we’re in beta, let me introduce myself. I’ve lived in Seattle since 1991. I love Seattle and the larger Pacific Northwest. I grew up on the east coast, and have lived in several different cities…
The Stranger is a smug, snarky and occasionally clever Seattle media institution that makes some great nightlife recommendations. But when it comes to city politics, it’s on the wrong track. With 50+ candidates running for City Council, many Seattle voters are going to be looking for ways to winnow down their choices come August 6th. City Council Primary Ballots are mailed July 17th. For what are likely historical or sentimental reasons (hey, remember Grunge?), The…
In the urgent debate around Seattle’s homelessness crisis, many articles (such as this otherwise great one in Crosscut) cite the statistic that 35% of those who are homeless in the Seattle region have some level of substance abuse. It’s often a very central part of the framing, especially by those who wish to portray substance abuse as a relatively low contributor to the problem. Among other things, presenting that statistic at face-value implies that presumably,…