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Election fact checking
The sheer volume of election coverage can be daunting to follow for even the most hard-core election junkie, let alone the casual observer. A few sites do everyone the favor of breaking campaign reports and statements down to the facts, attempting to separate the truth from the truthiness. FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. It is essentially a multimedia blog that responds to the factual assertions and allusions made in politics at the federal, state, and local levels. FactCheck.org's staff elegantly analyzes candidates' statements on such issues as a potential gas price fix for factual consistency. They dutifully list their reference sources and, for contextual emphasis, they frequently provide audio and video links to the candidates' actual comments. PolitiFact, mentioned previously on FreeGovInfo, is a service of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly Inc. PolitiFact's trademark is its Truth-O-Meter, which measures political statements on a scale of "True" to "Pants on fire." It's handy for those who want bottom-line analysis straight away. Like FactCheck.org, PolitiFact does have full articles with which it provides sources and multimedia links, although the analysis is not quite as deep. But PolitiFact does a better job of organizing and integrating its content: you can browse statements by Truth-O-Meter rating, by subject, by the person who said it, by whom it was said against, and even by where it was said (TV ad, blog post, speech, etc.). Other interesting fact-checking sites include: The Center for Public Integrity - A "nonprofit, nonpartisan, non-advocacy, independent journalism organization" that uses investigative journalism to examine political and campaign issues in depth. Of particular note is the Buying of the President site which looks at how money influences the presidential campaigns. Opensecrets.org - Tracks money in politics and distills it into graphs, charts, and brief summaries. It is run by the non-partisan, non-profit Center for Responsive Politics. The Fact Checker - A Washington Post blog that analyzes campaign statements in a similar way to FactCheck.org and PolitiFact. The difference here is that topics are prompted by user suggestions. It employs a "Pinocchio Test" similar to PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter. -Brian Continue reading
Consumer Satisfaction with E-Government on the Downturn
Recent statistics released by the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) show that consumer satisfaction with federal government websites and e-government in general have fallen in the first quarter of 2008 as compared with the final quarter of 2007. The score represents the third quarter of decline in consumer satisfaction in a row and is the lowest level of consumer satisfaction with e-government websites in three years. There are a couple of possible factors in the decline. Consumers seem to be dissatisfied that government websites are not evolving into more than information dumps. Consumers want to see government websites that allow them to do business online, to take care of required paperwork, and to control their experiences of the website -- which is something that many commercial websites allow, at least on a limited scale. So far, that is not happening with government websites as much as consumers expect. Another factor: presidential candidates on the campaign trail are mentioning transparency in electronic government and improving citizens' experience of e-government either minimally or not at all. Consumers aren't getting the sense that e-government is a priority, or even a secondary interest, among any of the presidential candidates. Continue reading
What the candidates are saying about FOI
The Sunshine Week website created a page entitled: "What the Candidates Are Saying About Open Government and FOI" based on the the Sunshine Week survey responses and analysis of articles, speeches, and debate transcripts that give insight into the candidates' thoughts on government access to information. They state: "Only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards responded, and only Richardson answered all the questions. The remaining four leading major party candidates were re-surveyed following Super Tuesday in February. To date, none has replied". They mention Obama's Senate co-sponsorship of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which went into effect on New Years Day '08 with the launch of USAspending.gov, a site that "gives people access to information on government contracts, grants and other awards". Speaking of which, USAspending.gov is based on the software that runs Fedspending.org. I'm going to examine both these sites and see how the differ, but so far, the only difference I'm seeing is that USAspending.gov has a lengthy privacy policy which dotgovwatch.com claims is different from their previous warning! Continue reading
The Other Federal Elections
The February 2008 issue of Searcher magazine has an article by Laura Gordon-Murnane entitled "The 51st State: Congressional Elections" (pdf) in which she talks about the other (non-Presidential) federal elections. In November the nation will also elect 435 Representatives and 33 Senators, and we don't hear much about all those elections. So to help educate us before we vote she has thoughtfully provided an online tutorial called Tech Tools for the American Voter and the 2008 Congressional Elections. It steps you through how to get educated for the upcoming Congressional elections. You can use it to find out if you are registered to vote, find biographical information on your Congressman or Senator as well as his or her voting records, and follow the money donations and campaign fundraising for the upcoming election. The tutorial shows different websites and how you can learn more about the voting process and the candidates. It's informative and it provides a painless way to get informed before casting your vote. Hat tip to Sabrina Pacifici's blog, beSpacific.
Continue readingComparing the presidential candidates
The ONE Campaign has put together a nice little tool to compare the statements of all the presidential candidates:
Tens of thousands of ONE members asked the candidates to go "On The Record" with their plans to combat extreme poverty and global disease. “On the Record” is a project of ONE Action and provides information to help evaluate the candidates on ONE’s issues.
Learn more about the campaign.
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