So… we’ve got some elections going on this week.
If you’re like me, the combination of “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” and “Last Week Tonight” just won’t cut it for all these local and state issues (minus the coverage of “Fangate”). Couldn’t there just be an app where all the political knowledge on issues that mattered to me, including aggregated news stories from credible sources, was conveniently packaged into one little spot on my phone?
Via: Huffington Post
Well, luckily for me and anybody else who doesn’t feel like doing the grunt work necessary to research voting records, statistics, etc., that app exists, and it’s called iCitizen.
The app focuses on three central ideas to being an effective citizen in political action: Know your issues. Know your reps. Make your voice count. At least, those are the three ideas on the home page of their website.
Fortunately, iCitizen allows you to do all of these with relative ease. After putting in some personal information, such as your address, and selecting from a variety of political and social issues to stay updated on, iCitizen becomes the perfect tool to navigate the insanity we know as the political world.
The coolest part of the app? Once you put in your address, iCitizen not only shows you who your representatives are on a federal and state level, it includes your reps’ past voting records, what legislation they’ve got their names on and their campaign contributors, including the specific amounts of each contribution.
Via: Facebook
This feature is how I know our local congressman Ted Yoho’s largest campaign contributors are American Veterinary Medical Association, Every Republican Is Crucial Pac and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. It is also how I know that the primary industry that supports his campaigns is retired people (which could only be considered an industry in our fair state).
Cooler than that? The most beautiful part of iCitizen is that it allows you to contact your representatives directly through the app, by telephone, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or their personal websites. So if you want to tell Rick Scott he looks kind of scary, or you want to give him a message that’s more productive but maybe not as silly, you can do that through all those forms of social media in succession directly through the app.
In an age where most apps on a college kid’s phone are used to send selfies or hook up with somebody within a 5 mile radius, why not put something on your phone that not only helps you stay informed, but betters the country in which we live. A democracy can’t function properly without an educated electorate, so treat yourself to some knowledge before election day.
Feature photo courtesy of: Huffington Post
