Boosting politcal efficacy, one zip code at a time.
Currently, we feel that American citizens don't have easy access to the people who represent them in government. We made represent.us to forge a direct communication channel from representee to representative; from citizen to senator. Contacting a legislative official has never been easier, and we hope this tool will allow for more communication between elected officials and their constituents.
Step 1: Search your zip code.
Step 2: Choose a representative or senator.
Step 3: Learn about a person who represents you!
Step 4: (optional) Find something you want to talk about with your legislator? Fill out our contact form to send them a note.
Note: With the current setup, it will not _ actually _ send emails to congresspeople. The functionality is there, but one inadvertent test email to a Representative nipped that in the bud prematurely. :P
- Clone our repository, and run
npm installin the main directory. - To enable email sending, create an email account, put its password in a file named email.env
- Additionally, in the
transporterobject in the/contacthandler, edit theuserfield to be your email address. - Finally, change the
to:field within themailobject to result.oc_email
- Additionally, in the
By integrating publicly available APIs from Sunlight, Wikipedia, and Govtrack with Node.js and Express.js functionality, we have created a simple tool that makes communicating with elected officials easier than ever before. Additionally, we present constituents with information about their representatives to help them make informed decisions in upcoming elections, as well as provide feedback regarding recent congressional votes.
Wikipedia's API occasionally has hiccups with ambiguous search terms, so legislators with common names may not have the proper bio section displayed. Additionally, since half our team had never done web programming before, teaching new skills took a good chunk of our time.
Also, we accidentally sent a representative an email while testing with less than intelligible contents.
Our two first-time hackers have a new understanding of a cutting edge technology. Additionally, we were able to fully integrate everything we had in mind at the start of our project! We ended up brainstorming a few more ambitious goals (Wikipedia bios, campaign finance info, etc.) that we were able to successfully implement.
Creating a useful tool is easy with dedication, friends, and an eagerness to learn.
We're looking into also gathering information of state and local level legislators. Having easier access to all levels of government will further enable constituents to make knowledgeable decisions about the people they elect into power.
represent.us was made during Bitcamp 2017 by four University of Maryland students: Alex Lees, Kevin Jordan, Sidhanth Tuli, and Steven Bower.