Wiki – Democracy in Action

As the election season becomes more and more polarized (not just in the national elections, but state and local ones as well), there’s no excuse for not being informed on issues and making sure you get out and vote. Because wikis are community-based resources on what matters to their participants, they can be valuable places to start gathering or sharing information on voting.

This Sunday The New York Times had an interesting piece discussing various websites that allow people to share election day experiences, including information on two wikis that allow voters to collaborate and share problems with voting:

• The Voter Suppression Wiki – A non-partisan effort to help voters learn the variety of ways various campaigns and groups attempt to suppress and limit people’s vote. The wiki provides lists of tactics, a place to report incidents, and an action center as well up to date announcements and a Twitter feed.

• SourceWatch’s Election Protection Wiki – Another non-partisan, non-profit collaboration of “citizens activists and researchers” building a resource for reports of voter suppression and election fraud activities. Includes links to relevant newspaper articles and a variety of topics, from absentee voting to ACORN to student voting rights, voter roll purges and more.

Beyond these resources, there are several wiki projects that can help you decide who and what to vote for come election day:

• Ballotpedia.org – Offers a thorough focus on the various ballot measures and initiatives broken down state-by-state, including a list of newspaper endorsements. Clicking on measures gives you basic information about each one. Additionally, Ballotpedia.org makes good use of Wiki-categories so you can view measures and initiatives by topics such as “legislatures,” “law enforcement,” “judicial reform,” “education,” “state budget,” “tax reform” and much more.

• Congresspedia.org – Another SourceWatch venture (a joint project with the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation and Center for Media and Democracy), Congresspedia focuses on the congressional races, again with non-partisan emphasis featuring candidate profiles, election coverage, and local blogs for each state.

These are just a handful of wiki resources that we found to help gather and share information this election season. We’re sure there are a lot of other wiki resources out there, many which focus on a more local level. We invite you to post a comment with other resources you know of to help get out the vote.

Tagged as: Resources, Voting, Voting Resources, wiki, Wiki Voting Resources