Glassbooth stays up late
I do a Technorati search of Glassbooth every so often to see what the blogosphere is saying about the site. I’m stunned as I flip through the largely positive comments when I see people saying glassbooth.org is a tool for the “lazy voter.”
There are over 3,000 pieces of information about candidate stances spread across 90 questions in the Glassbooth back end. To create any one question, every single candidate needs to have made a statement or vote on it in the public record. Thus, while it might be easy to find out what Barack Obama thinks about universal health care, it is much more difficult to find what Duncan Hunter thinks about the Alternative Minimum Tax. Basically, assembling the back end was no small task.
Working with On The Issues and a research team of a dozen volunteers, I figure the breakdown is as follows:
-Each question takes about three hours to research
-90 questions multiplied by three hours is 270 hours.
So ask yourself: Do you have 270 hours to find out where every single candidate stands on today’s important issues?
To illustrate the point, consider the average American worker taking on this task.
The “average American” is based on the following:
Wake-up: 7:00 AM
Go to work: 8:00 AM
Start Work: 9:00 AM
Finish Work: 5:00 PM
Arrive Home: 6:00 PM
Eat Dinner: 7:00 PM
Sleep: 12:00 PM
Free time: 25 Hours (during week)
Free time: 26 Hours (weekend)
Total free time: 51 Hours (per week)
Thus, if the average working American attempted to do the Glassbooth research to educate him or herself on every candidate they would need to devote the following amount of time:
All free time: 5 weeks and 2 days
1/2 free time: 10 weeks and 5 days
1/4 free time: 21 weeks and 4 days
1/8 free time: 42 weeks and 1 day
A real world example of the power of Glassbooth’s work in regard to saving time came from a conversation I had this summer with a rep from the United Steel Workers Union before we had launched the site.
I explained the concept. “Where is this site? Our workers could really use this,” she told me. “Steel workers work 40 to 60 hours a week. They worry about putting food on their tables. The New York Times politics section—sadly—is not always their number one priority.”
So when someone tells you the Glassbooth User is politically lazy, it is important to remember that while Glassbooth is here to provide you with candidate information, the Glassbooth User is everywhere providing you with everything else.
I think its a badge of honor to be able to say “I am informed because I read this and I study that.” People all want to stay informed, and frankly, it seems that most are insecure about their knowledge of politics, and they are full of it when they claim to be up on everything. Truth is, I am one of these people who in casual conversation references the only 2 political articles I have read in the last month to look like I know whats really going on. I dont even know where to begin. How do I go and who do I trust on these issues? There is so much out there its frightening. I have always felt a little ashamed at my lack of knowledge around election time and find myself faking it… This helps, but at the same time I wish you made your information available without the quiz in the beginning so I could just browse the information and go straight to what I want. Is there a way to “see all” and navigate all the questions?
-J
Yes, but don’t you think most voters, if they did the research, would stop analyzing a candidate when they found the first position of that candidate that was anathema?
I agree with “J” that it would be nice to see all of the information you dug up.
All the information is coming. Look at for Glassbooth 1.1 in which all the information will be available in a diversity of cool searches.
I love this tool.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the media itself shapes the issues. One thing that would be nice to see in the next iteration of this kind of tool would be a way for the user to “request” more specific issues. Glassbooth could then take the most popular among the requests and then retrieve the candidates’ feedback on those specific issues, to be incorporated into a more detailed quiz.
I am sure each of us has more specific issues that are individually important to us that are not listed among the fourteen key issues in a campaign. Some of my own examples would be: where do the candidates stand on labor laws? Family (maternity/paternity) leave? Early childhood education? Scientific research funding? The goals of a space program? The teaching of evolution?
I think the Glassbooth user is an _efficient_
voter. Thanks for your site!