In a country of, by and for the people, I want to know what others think, and I want to express my opinions and be able to change them at times.  I want my opinions to matter.  I have some problems with our current system.

My opinions don’t seem to matter. I can write a letter or an email or phone my representative- does it make a difference? It helps me feel that I’m doing my civic duty and that I’m not giving in to resignation. My representative counts my input and rolls it into a weekly tally. It’s part of their effort to improve their guess about what their constituents think, but they know the ones that contact them are a tiny fraction of the total.

There’s no good way to express my positions. Writing emails takes time. And there are a lot of issues to write about. In some ways, signing a petition is better, so I sign some. Sometimes the petition doesn’t tell me the details of the bill it’s for or against, and it takes time to do the research. Often the bill has some good stuff and some bad, but I don’t get to say that. So my representative doesn’t know what I really want.

Petitions are usually a reaction. I wish I could sign earlier, when they’re developing a bill. And petitions are usually done just before a vote, and then are discarded. I want to say what I want in a way that will keep my position around and count it with others. And I want to be able to change it and add to it as time goes on. I want it to be available always, to help legislators who are doing research, as well as when it’s in the news.

I don’t know where we stand on issues. On a number of issues, I’d be willing to go with the majority- some problems can be solved in multiple ways. But where does America stand? Sometimes I search for polling data. Usually I find nothing for a question. Sometimes I find something too general- these give me a sense of the country, but they rarely address actionable issues. And the way polls are done, I have little confidence in the answers.

Polls tell me little. Rarely do they ask where people stand on the details of issues, and they rarely tell me how people really feel- whether they’d accept either solution but prefer one, or whether they love one and hate another. Without this information, we really can’t find an agreeable way forward. I hurry through telephone polls. Often I’m ambivalent, but the questioner needs an answer. How do I express myself? Sometimes I’ve answered a poll, hung up, and then realized I’d like to change an answer. I doubt they figure that into the “plus or minus 5%” error. Often I wish I could do a little research before answering. Or a few days later, a new aspect of the topic comes to light which changes things. If my answers to a poll matter, I should be able to change them.

So I started PeopleCount.org. In about a month we’ll be able to vote on what we want about energy policy and the environment. My vote will be kept in my Political Profile where I can change it whenever I want. And soon I’ll be able to use it to help me navigate politics and to compare it to the overall vote in my district, state and the country.