6 ms·

Show HN: Who represents me in government?

34 points by 5vforest 14y ago

dclowd9901 14y ago
I really like this. A very simple way to see your reps if you want to contact them. Might I suggest taking the idea a step further: Perhaps finding a way to list key legislation and their voting records? The philosophy section is decent, but most organization names are so vague as to simply be noise. It'd be even more interesting if you could somehow "rate" how inline a rep's views are to your own (in a percentage basis).
- 5vforest 14y ago
  Thanks! Those features are definitely in the pipeline -- the data is all there, especially at the federal & state levels. There are sites and APIs that collect this data, but we think we can aggregate it from different sources and personalize it for the user in a way that hasn't been done already.
Tiktaalik 14y ago
I wonder if the ordering of who represents you should be handled differently. Sorted starting from local is in many ways more relevant. Obama represents everyone in the USA, and everyone knows that, whereas the local city councillor is more likely to be the person the user isn't familiar with.
- 5vforest 14y ago
  Heh, we've had this discussion before, I actually just had it this morning again too. Thanks for chiming in, I think we'll actually make it happen now.
LeafStorm 14y ago
I was expecting state-level officials to appear in the list considering that information on federal officials is already available in many places and having state information would be a good way to distinguish the product, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was data on city and county officials as well. Granted, Charles Meeker isn't actually mayor of Raleigh anymore, the current mayor is Nancy McFarlane. But this is a step in the right direction.
cfinke 14y ago
That's neat. I agree with the other commenters that local officials should be shown first. FWIW, it looks like you haven't yet taken into account Minnesota's recent redistricting. My representative is shown as John Kline instead of Erik Paulsen.
- NGTwice 14y ago
  The redistricting affects which district you will be voting in this November but your representative is still the same as it was before the redistricting until that time.
andys627 14y ago
This is AWESOME. People see government as this incomprehensible thing - and parts of it definitely are - but there are simple ways of looking at some stuff. Seeing who represents you is very important. What I think would be better than this is to have a db of laws re: what stuff costs and what pays for it. So put in an address and you get an image of a dollar of income broken down by % that goes to what government program (nationally would be defense, medicare, blah, white house gardening, etc.) but on a local level you could see where your tax dollar went in terms of street repaving, libraries, airport, etc etc etc. I have no idea where my money goes on a local level (specifically).
- 5vforest 14y ago
  Local-level data is definitely one of our main hurdles. I just had an interesting phone conversation this morning where I learned that in the EU, there is a mandated XML standard in which governments must release contact information for public works departments in. How cool would it be if we had a standard for tax dollar allocation so that this data could be easily aggregated? In the meantime, we're toying with ways to accumulate this data, crowdsourcing, scraping other sources, etc.
jerrya 14y ago
This is awesome, and I needed it just yesterday to determine who my local representative is. You use a nice large font too, but then I'd suggest making the Federal/State/County/Local tabs a bit larger in font, I almost lost them. All that said, I'm curious where the data comes from. How many different sources are required to determine who are the representatives at any given level of government? (But you need a better picture of President Obama, come on, let the guy have his chin back.)
- 5vforest 14y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. The data on officials is coming from Project Vote Smart (votesmart.org), but the challenge is relating it to the different map shapes. We built a tool to convert the U.S. Census shapes to KML format (available on github.com/GovHub), and we then matched Votesmart's governments to these shapefiles.
  - jsabo 14y ago
    Can you go more into the challenges you had? From the few minutes I spent on your site I didn't see too much of a difference from what I can obtain from Project Vote Smart. That said, I do like your interface more. I volunteer at a local nonprofit occasionally (plug: fairness.org) and we have people spending a lot of time addressing postcards to state legislators going by the home addresses people list on the postcards they fill out at our events. Right now we mostly use Vote Smart or a state specific resource to find the person's representatives, but their address lookup can be pretty picky. This is unfortunate when a large portion of people who fill out postcards have horrible handwriting. A tool that can deal with misspelled street names and provide the information you and vote smart do would save us an incredible amount of time and frustration. I'll try your site out next time tackle the boxes of unsent cards.
- jerrya 14y ago
  (Okay this is my wishlist feature: I type in the address of some random government agency, and you tell me what elected officials are most responsible for that agency's operation and oversight.)
xbryanx 14y ago
The tabs need more visual weight. I was unimpressed at first until I noticed that I could dig into the meaty information at county and state level.
- 5vforest 14y ago
  Duly noted! We'll make sure the meat is more easily accessible.
5vforest 14y ago
Hey, thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions! We're a small team right now (actually, I'm the lone dev for the site), but we definitely want to integrate a lot of these suggestions -- especially info on campaign contributions and local legislative data. We're looking to add another developer to the team, so please get in touch with us if you or someone you know is interested. Here's a small article about us and our story: http://govfresh.com/2012/04/for-govhub-all-politics-is-personal/ http://govfresh.com/2012/04/for-govhub-all-politics-is-perso...
jcoder 14y ago
I agree with the other commenters that this should work "from me, out", meaning show me the most local, then state, then federal. Also, please include a note on each page indicating where biographical data comes from. I was (1) surprised to see so much detail on Portland Commissioner Randy Leonard http://www.govhub.org/officials/37457/randy-leonard/info http://www.govhub.org/officials/37457/randy-leonard/info and (2) surprised that there is a "religion" field. That's not really part of governance, so who cares?
danso 14y ago
As others have said, starting off with local is better than with federal. Others may disagree with me, but seeing the Supreme Court listed as my representatives made my eyes roll a bit. Those are appointed positions and in particular, positions designed to be unswayed by the electorate. It's useful information, I guess, but to give them equal placement with all the other elected representatives implies a naivete about our political structure. Your app says there are 3 council members who represent me...I don't know if that's a problem in the geocoding or if that really is the case. But I can't find out because the app doesn't show where their offices are located. Instead of making me click through to each councilmember's page to find out who actually represents me, show this information in the table view. And, when clicking through to a specific representative's page: http://www.govhub.org/officials/36678/g-koppell/info http://www.govhub.org/officials/36678/g-koppell/info I'm betting almost all of your users will not think to look at the far bottom right to see the contact info. If anything, this contact info should be the first thing users see.
- 5vforest 14y ago
  There should be a little "info" icon telling you that we don't have district maps for your city council, so we're showing you everyone in it. Agree about the contact info -- it actually converts into a nav tab on tablet & mobile resolutions, but you're definitely right about it being out of focus initially.
  - danso 14y ago
    Quick fix, nice! I'm assuming this would be a quick fix, since the information appears to be structured...but I think in the profile information, this: Lieutenant Governor, State of Connecticut, 2011-present Should be: 2011-present Lieutenant Governor, State of Connecticut Or some other such differentiating between time and position (bold text, underline, etc)...just for easier reading.
mindslight 14y ago
Note: This is predicated on the unfortunate assumption that based on your location, a politician can be said to "represent you".
nollidge 14y ago
Switching to a different tab (Federal/State/Local) just shows a blank page until I manually reload. Chrome 18.0.1025.152 m on Windows 7.
- Dejital 14y ago
  Ditto on Chrome *.162 on Snow Leopard.
  - 5vforest 14y ago
    Weird, crap... it should be Pjax-ing, but I can't reproduce this bug yet. I'll keep trying, thanks for letting us know.
patrickgzill 14y ago
Do you have a lot of money? No? Then no-one does.
aasarava 14y ago
Great site. Aside from the local tab positioning as has already been mentioned several times, my only nitpick is with the use of the "See More" button. Not sure why it's necessary -- it means I have to click several extra times to see the information I want, rather than just once or twice. You should try to reduce clicks, not add to them.
gregpilling 14y ago
I like your app. I have sent an email to your address (I hope it is the right one, please put in your profile) with some ideas that I will never have time to chase myself, in your space. I agree with the others that I am more confused about who represents me locally, rather than federally.

34 points by 5vforest 14y ago

I really like this. A very simple way to see your reps if you want to contact them. Might I suggest taking the idea a step further: Perhaps finding a way to list key legislation and their voting records? The philosophy section is decent, but most organization names are so vague as to simply be noise. It'd be even more interesting if you could somehow "rate" how inline a rep's views are to your own (in a percentage basis).

5vforest 14y ago
Thanks! Those features are definitely in the pipeline -- the data is all there, especially at the federal & state levels. There are sites and APIs that collect this data, but we think we can aggregate it from different sources and personalize it for the user in a way that hasn't been done already.

Tiktaalik 14y ago

I wonder if the ordering of who represents you should be handled differently. Sorted starting from local is in many ways more relevant. Obama represents everyone in the USA, and everyone knows that, whereas the local city councillor is more likely to be the person the user isn't familiar with.

5vforest 14y ago
Heh, we've had this discussion before, I actually just had it this morning again too. Thanks for chiming in, I think we'll actually make it happen now.

LeafStorm 14y ago

I was expecting state-level officials to appear in the list considering that information on federal officials is already available in many places and having state information would be a good way to distinguish the product, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was data on city and county officials as well. Granted, Charles Meeker isn't actually mayor of Raleigh anymore, the current mayor is Nancy McFarlane. But this is a step in the right direction.

cfinke 14y ago

That's neat. I agree with the other commenters that local officials should be shown first. FWIW, it looks like you haven't yet taken into account Minnesota's recent redistricting. My representative is shown as John Kline instead of Erik Paulsen.

NGTwice 14y ago
The redistricting affects which district you will be voting in this November but your representative is still the same as it was before the redistricting until that time.

andys627 14y ago

This is AWESOME. People see government as this incomprehensible thing - and parts of it definitely are - but there are simple ways of looking at some stuff. Seeing who represents you is very important. What I think would be better than this is to have a db of laws re: what stuff costs and what pays for it. So put in an address and you get an image of a dollar of income broken down by % that goes to what government program (nationally would be defense, medicare, blah, white house gardening, etc.) but on a local level you could see where your tax dollar went in terms of street repaving, libraries, airport, etc etc etc. I have no idea where my money goes on a local level (specifically).

5vforest 14y ago
Local-level data is definitely one of our main hurdles. I just had an interesting phone conversation this morning where I learned that in the EU, there is a mandated XML standard in which governments must release contact information for public works departments in. How cool would it be if we had a standard for tax dollar allocation so that this data could be easily aggregated? In the meantime, we're toying with ways to accumulate this data, crowdsourcing, scraping other sources, etc.

jerrya 14y ago

This is awesome, and I needed it just yesterday to determine who my local representative is. You use a nice large font too, but then I'd suggest making the Federal/State/County/Local tabs a bit larger in font, I almost lost them. All that said, I'm curious where the data comes from. How many different sources are required to determine who are the representatives at any given level of government? (But you need a better picture of President Obama, come on, let the guy have his chin back.)

5vforest 14y ago
Thanks for the kind words. The data on officials is coming from Project Vote Smart (votesmart.org), but the challenge is relating it to the different map shapes. We built a tool to convert the U.S. Census shapes to KML format (available on github.com/GovHub), and we then matched Votesmart's governments to these shapefiles.
- jsabo 14y ago
  Can you go more into the challenges you had? From the few minutes I spent on your site I didn't see too much of a difference from what I can obtain from Project Vote Smart. That said, I do like your interface more. I volunteer at a local nonprofit occasionally (plug: fairness.org) and we have people spending a lot of time addressing postcards to state legislators going by the home addresses people list on the postcards they fill out at our events. Right now we mostly use Vote Smart or a state specific resource to find the person's representatives, but their address lookup can be pretty picky. This is unfortunate when a large portion of people who fill out postcards have horrible handwriting. A tool that can deal with misspelled street names and provide the information you and vote smart do would save us an incredible amount of time and frustration. I'll try your site out next time tackle the boxes of unsent cards.
jerrya 14y ago
(Okay this is my wishlist feature: I type in the address of some random government agency, and you tell me what elected officials are most responsible for that agency's operation and oversight.)

xbryanx 14y ago

The tabs need more visual weight. I was unimpressed at first until I noticed that I could dig into the meaty information at county and state level.

5vforest 14y ago
Duly noted! We'll make sure the meat is more easily accessible.

5vforest 14y ago

Hey, thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions! We're a small team right now (actually, I'm the lone dev for the site), but we definitely want to integrate a lot of these suggestions -- especially info on campaign contributions and local legislative data. We're looking to add another developer to the team, so please get in touch with us if you or someone you know is interested. Here's a small article about us and our story: http://govfresh.com/2012/04/for-govhub-all-politics-is-personal/ http://govfresh.com/2012/04/for-govhub-all-politics-is-perso...

jcoder 14y ago

I agree with the other commenters that this should work "from me, out", meaning show me the most local, then state, then federal. Also, please include a note on each page indicating where biographical data comes from. I was (1) surprised to see so much detail on Portland Commissioner Randy Leonard http://www.govhub.org/officials/37457/randy-leonard/info http://www.govhub.org/officials/37457/randy-leonard/info and (2) surprised that there is a "religion" field. That's not really part of governance, so who cares?

danso 14y ago

As others have said, starting off with local is better than with federal. Others may disagree with me, but seeing the Supreme Court listed as my representatives made my eyes roll a bit. Those are appointed positions and in particular, positions designed to be unswayed by the electorate. It's useful information, I guess, but to give them equal placement with all the other elected representatives implies a naivete about our political structure. Your app says there are 3 council members who represent me...I don't know if that's a problem in the geocoding or if that really is the case. But I can't find out because the app doesn't show where their offices are located. Instead of making me click through to each councilmember's page to find out who actually represents me, show this information in the table view. And, when clicking through to a specific representative's page: http://www.govhub.org/officials/36678/g-koppell/info http://www.govhub.org/officials/36678/g-koppell/info I'm betting almost all of your users will not think to look at the far bottom right to see the contact info. If anything, this contact info should be the first thing users see.

5vforest 14y ago
There should be a little "info" icon telling you that we don't have district maps for your city council, so we're showing you everyone in it. Agree about the contact info -- it actually converts into a nav tab on tablet & mobile resolutions, but you're definitely right about it being out of focus initially.
- danso 14y ago
  Quick fix, nice! I'm assuming this would be a quick fix, since the information appears to be structured...but I think in the profile information, this: Lieutenant Governor, State of Connecticut, 2011-present Should be: 2011-present Lieutenant Governor, State of Connecticut Or some other such differentiating between time and position (bold text, underline, etc)...just for easier reading.

mindslight 14y ago

Note: This is predicated on the unfortunate assumption that based on your location, a politician can be said to "represent you".

nollidge 14y ago

Switching to a different tab (Federal/State/Local) just shows a blank page until I manually reload. Chrome 18.0.1025.152 m on Windows 7.

Dejital 14y ago
Ditto on Chrome *.162 on Snow Leopard.
- 5vforest 14y ago
  Weird, crap... it should be Pjax-ing, but I can't reproduce this bug yet. I'll keep trying, thanks for letting us know.

patrickgzill 14y ago

Do you have a lot of money? No? Then no-one does.

aasarava 14y ago

Great site. Aside from the local tab positioning as has already been mentioned several times, my only nitpick is with the use of the "See More" button. Not sure why it's necessary -- it means I have to click several extra times to see the information I want, rather than just once or twice. You should try to reduce clicks, not add to them.

gregpilling 14y ago

I like your app. I have sent an email to your address (I hope it is the right one, please put in your profile) with some ideas that I will never have time to chase myself, in your space. I agree with the others that I am more confused about who represents me locally, rather than federally.