The election info I received from MapLight & the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund's Voter's Edge California I found to be clear, useful and easy to navigate. It has given me hope that there are still trustworthy good government organizations that want to help voters! The campaign finance data is helpful to voters and the media! KUDOS!
I highly recommend this organization!
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I am so grateful for the transparency that MapLight and Voter's Edge California provides so I can make informed decisions at election time. It easily allows me to "follow the money" so I can vote confidently. I am also excited that the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund's Smart Voter is joining forces for the upcoming elections to make sure everyone has the info they need to vote at their fingertips - and in Spanish! KUDOS to these organizations for being the only ones to provide nonpartisan voter information you can trust.
Maplight provides a great service to all of us: it provides us with important information about the people and issues on our ballots. It makes the information clear, and helps me make my choices with more confidence.
MapLight does a great job of shedding light on the influence of money on political outcomes. As a former intern, I appreciated the non-partisan nature of their dedicated work; they are focused on making clear the costs to our political system from money in politics. Working side by side with investigative journalists, they believe in providing the public with accurate information about where donations may be influencing political outcomes. Most of all, MapLight believes the American democratic process thrives on more transparency and access to information, and their work to achieve that for the American public shows.
MapLight is a fantastic organization. They do the hard work — digging through data and connecting the dots — in order for us to really know what's really happening in our political system. Behind the scenes, this is an incredibly complicated process, but MapLight goes to great lengths to make the data easy to interpret so everyone — regardless of political affiliation — can benefit from their findings. Staff members are incredibly smart, dedicated to what they do, and very approachable.
Keep fighting the good fight!
MapLight is an amazing resource for advocacy groups and is crucial in making politics transparent and shedding light on an aspect of our political system that many Americans are largely in the dark about. It is invaluable to me as a member of the public and as an advocate for better policies.
The most difficult thing about advocating for campaign finance reform is making the seemingly abstract and overwhelming issue of money in politics tangible and easy to understand. Maplight's work makes the influence of money on specific legislation and races clearly accessible, making a gem for organizers, journalists, and anyone seeking to create change on this tremendously important issue.
MapLight is doing great work to help make elections and politics more transparent. They are helping voters get more information about the candidates with non-biased non-partisan facts. Hopefully this organization will help contribute to a more enlightened electorate and a higher level of quality for American democracy.
Providing greater transparency to the electoral process, the SmartVoter / MapLight partnership is invaluable not only to researchers, but also to the general public. Keep up the great work!
The partnership of SmartVoter with MapLight has been fantastic. We now have a stronger more informative tool to educate the public and inform citizens. I refer to this site all the time when I carry out my speaking engagements on ballot measures.
MapLight's work is so important because there is no public issue that money in politics does not affect. I applaud MapLight for fighting to increase government transparency and holding it accountable to the people -- and ultimately ensuring that we all have an equal say in our democracy.
We're so grateful for the information and tools that MapLight provides. Their work makes others' work possible and helps citizens be more informed.
We were especially grateful to share their important VotersEdge tool with POPVOX users:
http://www.popvox.com/blog/2014/custom-ballot-maplight/
As a "millennial" state worker with the goal to work with government to be more transparent, effective, and innovative, I cannot emphasize enough the importance in having organizations like MapLight show the value of transparency. It takes a team to make this happen.
The Voters Edge website by MapLight is AWESOME! It shows who's behind the Propositions and what money is behind the Candidates.
Greed is killing America! We must all VOTE to save our Democracy! Thank you Maplight for exposing the real threat to our country! Keep-up the great work and Thank you!
I give incredible credit to MapLight. We as Americans must know where the money is going. It does not matter if you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent receiving this influx of cash. Becoming eerily dangerous when big money in the millions and now billions is entering into the hands of politicians. We must as citizens hold all elected officials accountable. United States of America is treading into waters of the unknown. This article http://theweek.com/article/index/261821/stop-calling-the-us-an-oligarchy shed light onto how bad things can really become for our Republic with Democracy values. I have also provided the link to the Princeton study which that article is refering to. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592714001595a.pdf&code=cb2dacfb8115c3b53e3ad43a422129d3 As a Councilman in a small town in NJ I believe it is fundamental that we root out money in politics. Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
MapLight connects the money given to candidates with the votes that they take as elected officials. It is an invaluable service to American citizens who want to know what is influencing politics and who is influencing specific votes. As wealthy special interests play a larger role in our politics, it is crucial that we have institutions that are connecting the dots for Americans to be able to see the larger picture. Thanks to MapLight, we do.
As a member of the public, I've really appreciated when journalists, nonprofits, and educators cite Maplight's campaign finance data because I trust their resources and love that I can then dive in to explore issues in more detail.
As an advocate, I know how much my organization has relied upon Maplight to help us identify and expose campaign finance issues, so that we can work to limit the corrupting influence of dark money in politics.
Great nonprofit, for sure!
MapLight provides an important public service by tracking the money sources pouring into politics. It provides easily accessible information to assess politicians' motivations in several dimensions - by contributions, bills, companies, etc.
Money speaks with a big stick in politics and drowns out more measured dialogue. While knowing who is holding that beating stick doesn't stop the political ad onslaught of the airwaves during an election cycle, it does help in identifying the stick owner. Thanks MapLight for assembling this very useful information.
I am so pleased to have discovered Maplight. The information that is available on this site would require hours of searching to find, if I could find it at all. The public needs to have information quickly available that lets them know what their government is doing and what the influencing factors might be, especially the financial influences. Since I found Maplight I link to them often when trying to inform others about the who, what , and how much that really decides how the government makes the decisions that control our lives. I only wish there was information about state governments also. Of course, I am from Texas so that information could very possibly cause my head to explode. I really appreciate the work done by Maplight!
Can't make it to the party celebration since I'm snowbound here in NJ, but a very hearty "Happy Birthday!"
I first heard of MapLight at a Special Libraries Association conference more than 5 years ago. I thought it was pure genius linking political money to zip codes!
Congrats on 9 years! I hope MapLight continues to grow and thrive!
As corruption mounts, diminishing freedom and weakening our republic, it's incredibly important to keep people informed of how money influences legislation and politics in general. It's even more important, in these polarized times, to do it objectively, without political affiliation or agenda. I've passed MapLight's emails on to dozens of people, all of whom are shocked by what they read. Figuratively slapped out of their apathetic stupor, they now keep a critical eye on their elected representatives and how their actions affect society at large. MapLight does great work and I am so pleased to have found them.