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Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides

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Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides

#1

Post by daisystanton »

A group of us (democracy-passionate friends) just launched OpenBallot, a platform of 40+ voter guides. The goal is to save you research time by showing you all the endorsements and explanations you care about in one place. You can use this to fill out your ballot, which is private by default. You can then share with friends or publish your views on our platform.

The site is our first prototype; if you're in SF, please try it and share your feedback! We're hoping to use this to eventually scale to all over the country.

Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides
openballot.app

Re: Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides

#5

Post by culi »

How can people contribute new guides?

I've thought about doing basically this exact project a number of times. The biggest thing I'd wanna change is to not focus on the guides so much. Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones. A much more useful view, imo, would be to allow users to select a number of voter guides, and then view a full ballot. With badges by the choices endorsed by whatever guides they have activated

Re: Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides

#7

Post by daisystanton »

culi wrote: post #5

How can people contribute new guides? I've thought about doing basically this exact project a number of times. The biggest thing I'd wanna change is to not focus on the guides so much. Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones. A much more useful view, imo, would be to allow users to select a number of voter guides, and then view a full ballot. With badges by th…

Yeah, that's what we do! Try logging in and following your favorite guides; from there you'll see your "ballot view" that (I think) describes exactly what you're after? More whitespace than I'd like (compact view or die!), but I was outnumbered ;-)

Two options to contribute new guides: 1) Tweet https://x.com/OpenBallotApp with the guide URL, or 2) join our Discord and post in #guides-wishlist: https://discord.gg/mzubN2v4

We'd love to hear from you!

Re: Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides

#8

Post by slg »

culi wrote: post #5

How can people contribute new guides? I've thought about doing basically this exact project a number of times. The biggest thing I'd wanna change is to not focus on the guides so much. Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones. A much more useful view, imo, would be to allow users to select a number of voter guides, and then view a full ballot. With badges by th…

>Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones.

Then that's a bad voter guide. A voter guide should be about offering context and not just a binary cheat sheet of endorse/not endorse, yes/no, red/blue, etc.

A good guide should explain the issues (from the specific perspective of the group preparing the guide) regardless of the ultimate suggestion. The primary guide I used (for LA not SF) was over 60 pages to explain their perspective and reasoning on everything. It also used language like "enthusiastically endorse", "endorse", "strongly recommend", "recommend", and "no recommendation" to give degrees to their suggestions.

I would personally ignore any of the guides on OpenBallot which provide no explanation for their votes. It might even be a good idea for OpenBallot to require explanations. What value is someone's recommendation if they can't tell you why that is their recommendation?

Re: Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides

#9

Post by daisystanton »

slg wrote: post #8
culi wrote: post #5

How can people contribute new guides? I've thought about doing basically this exact project a number of times. The biggest thing I'd wanna change is to not focus on the guides so much. Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones. A much more useful view, imo, would be to allow users to select a number of voter guides, and then view a full ballot. With badges by th…

>Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones. Then that's a bad voter guide. A voter guide should be about offering context and not just a binary cheat sheet of endorse/not endorse, yes/no, red/blue, etc. A good guide should explain the issues (from the specific perspective of the group preparing the guide) regardless of the ultimate suggestion. The primary guide…

These are great suggestions; thank you!

Re: Show HN: OpenBallot, Aggregated SF/California Voter Guides

#10

Post by orionsbelt »

slg wrote: post #8
culi wrote: post #5

How can people contribute new guides? I've thought about doing basically this exact project a number of times. The biggest thing I'd wanna change is to not focus on the guides so much. Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones. A much more useful view, imo, would be to allow users to select a number of voter guides, and then view a full ballot. With badges by th…

>Lots of organizations are shy about making an endorsement so guides can often be pretty barebones. Then that's a bad voter guide. A voter guide should be about offering context and not just a binary cheat sheet of endorse/not endorse, yes/no, red/blue, etc. A good guide should explain the issues (from the specific perspective of the group preparing the guide) regardless of the ultimate suggestion. The primary guide…

Care to share the LA guide?
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