We Have Robots, Where's the Voting Tech?
Why, in 2024, is it hard to find trusted info on the candidates?
This is a note about tech, and in a way, public interest. I promise this won’t be about political candidates, or about political issues….
I will not be watching any media tonight (Thursday, the night of the debate). I’ll be out for a walk by some water, or looking at the stars, or gazing into the bottom of a mug of beer. Maybe i’ll be reading about the Roman spectacles, doomed gladiators and lions, the circuses provided to the masses to keep them entertained (and stave off uprisings). I’ll be wishing for Teddy Roosevelt.
I can opt out of the media, but now is not the time to opt out of the political process. It’s bad for business.
As shitty as the political process is, we still need it to work so that we can all go to work and make money and pay our bills, take care of our kids, etc. A good healthy, vigorous economy that supports growth and enables all of us to flourish requires all of us to be part of the political process, at least once in a while.
Informed Citizenry > Jetpacks
Society has never been more advanced, but the tech that’s out there isn’t helping us be better citizens. Despite all the gajillions of dollars going to AI, those tools are NOT going to help us understand our political candidates any better. We’re stuck with tech from the 1600s (newspapers), the 1900s (radio) and the 1930s (TV). Oh, and the internet. I suppose, we could use our faces to actually talk to each other like in the olden days, but that doesn’t make anyone money.
But, imagine a concerned citizen who wants to actually learn about the candidates. Where do they go to try to figure it out? Public media? Legacy media? TikTok?
Commercial media is not really helping anybody. So much for their public interest commitment. Public media is getting gutted, despite some great efforts. Advocacy journalism might be making things worse?
AI will probably make all these legacy media worse before it makes it better, and we already know what it’s going to do to the social media platforms. These days, I’m not sure I can a 1/4 of what I see, because it might be created by a LLM. I don’t trust the ads. I think most of the “editorial” decisions are driven by algorithms, too.
Meanwhile, $12 Billion will be spent on political ads in 2024. Oceans of money are available to political campaigns (maybe an upside of the Citizens United decision?) That’s a pretty interesting commercial opportunity but is anyone actually seeing it for what it is?
Tech Should Make it Easier to be an Informed Citizen
It’s hard to pay attention and be a good citizen in a society where commercialized tech and the smartest brains in America are focused on making it easy to opt out and dwell on stuff that is more interesting (e.g. instagram, the Kardashians, Taylor Swift, our kids, work, life, etc). Meanwhile, the attention economy is rewarding media-based commentators willing to sell out and say whatever for the clicks, while the political world is eating it’s own tail in a death spiral of cynicism, bad-faith comms strategies, questionable media ethics, and straight up idiocracy.
Somewhere, out there, a good-faith human is stepping up, grinding their way through an ancient party system, putting up with god-knows-what sorts of moral and ethical compromises, to step into the hard job of actual political leadership. But, despite all of us bathing in media imagery, inundated with messages, ads, and commentator blather, it’s still tragically hard to find out - in a way that is clear, understandable, and stripped of spin (to the extent that’s possible) - what the actual candidates believe and what their plans are. It all turns into a discussion about the “horse race” vs issues.
It’s 2024. Why isn’t technology helping to inform voters? Where are the non-affiliated government orgs1? Where are the VC’s who want to create actual/literal American Dynamism? There’s gotta be a way to fund tools and technology that make it easier for us to get a clear picture of candidates, their positions, their track records, etc. Why isn’t technology making it easier for voters to clearly communicate their wants/needs and interests? Whitney Houston is still making money as a hologram, fer f’s sake. We can figure this out.
Here are a couple things I wish existed (Maybe they do; just send me a note):
Rate-my-Professor for Candidates - Ratings and reviews by approved, verified constituents (Yes, I can see how this could turn into a hellscape, but there are ways around that)
Q&A from the candidates themselves - Here’s my Senator on Youtube. All “campaign” stuff, nothing meaty. Here’s her website. Nothing there other than a request for donations. (I get it, she’s an incumbent and a leading candidate. more content probably will hurt her more than help her; thus the problem)
Voice of the Constituent - Where are the tools where I can share with my legislators my opinions on key issues? We all know polling is sketchy, so why not just make it easy for me to tell the candidates what I want/think/will vote on. Naive? Maybe, but it’s better than waiting for a phone call or text.
Public Interest Technology
I’m a tech optimist. I believe tech pulls us forward, so I have to believe.
But, I know (I know!) this screed makes me sound like an old man standing on a porch, yelling at the neighborhood kids. A white guy whining is a bad look.
The political process in America has never been pretty, but VC’s were there to invest in political innovation at the start of the European experiment in North America. Going all the way back to the Mayflower Compact, before that small ship of vc-backed religious radicals even landed, there were misgivings about power and representation. But, even though it’s hard and frustrating and overwhelming, we really should do our part, at least the voting part. It’s one of our jobs as Americans. (It’s obviously everyone’s right NOT to vote, but that’s an ineffective [i.e. dumb and lazy] way to protest; Yes, that’s judgmental, but c’mon).
But, instead of Jetpacks, Mars missions, the faster autonomous cars, we (tech, us, venture folks) should be investing in tools and resources that will keep this whole political project innovating and growing because people can actually be involved, can make reasoned decisions, and contribute without selling their souls.
The Federal Election Committee grant for presidential candidates in 2024 is $124MM. What if we added another checkbox on our tax forms to fund voter information?