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Matching voters with their ideal candidate

November 8, 2011

By Peter Crimmins
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Keya Dannenbaum presented the launch of ElectNext.com at the Philadelphia TEDx speaker series. (Photo by Kevin Monko, courtesy of TEDxPhilly.com)

On Election Day in Philadelphia, many voters faced obscure names among the candidates for the register of wills, for instance, and dozens of local judges.

"You look down that ballot and there are a slew of offices and candidates you've never heard of," said Keya Dannenbaum. "Nobody knows what to do; it's a very confusing process."

Dannenbaum presented the launch of ElectNext.com at the Philadelphia TEDx speaker series. Described as a dating site for voters, users fill out a political preference profile and ElectNext.com suggests candidates who are most aligned with those opinions and values.

The difference between this and other voter websites is ElectNext.com goes from top to bottom--from the federal to the neighborhood level.

After working for both national campaigns (Hillary Clinton, 2008) and municipal campaigns (New Haven, Conn., City Council, 2009), Dannenbaum learned local politics is just as critical as national but can be much more confusing. And the Internet doesn't always clarify that confusion.

"It's Election Day and you think, OK, who would I vote for?" said Dannenbaum. "What do you do? Go to Wikipedia? Go to Google? The candidates' own election pages?

"You have to know who they are first. It's not a good tool to help you hone, parse, and extract what you need to know," Dannenbaum said.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia will contribute to ElectNext.com. Its roster of political researchers will outline relevant points around issues, but not weigh in on candidates.

"What we're providing is nonpartisan issue content that doesn't have a right or left bent-- just factual," said Allison Young, vice president of public engagement at the Constitution Center. "We're not the side putting in what the candidates feel on certain issues. We're the side putting in what the arguments on either side of the issue are."

The site is live, but not yet complete. Ultimately, Dannenbaum wants to roll out ElectNext in other cities, highlighting local issues relevant to those residents.

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