About Us Page
This project officially began on February 2017 as just an Excel file and has since expanded to a Google Sheet and finally here in wiki format.
After the Women's March, participating in flash actions and various rallies, making phone calls and sending emails to MOCs, many of us started turning our thoughts and attentions towards the ultimate civil action--VOTING.
Musings naturally gravitate back towards the 2016 election; trying desperately to dissect it. Trying to assign blame, or otherwise trying to all together circumvent conflict. Yet none of those directly address what CAN NOW be done. November 2018 is close. November 2017 is practically tomorrow.
Many people believed they did everything "right". Being a registered voter, voting even in odd years, caucusing, donating to campaigns and causes, volunteering, etc. Despite tens of millions of us doing what we all individually believed was "the right thing", whatever that may have been, Donald J. Trump still became our 45th President.
The conversation (and blame) turned to gerrymandering, which is true, but not in itself constructive. What can we DO? First of all, what IS
gerrymandering and HOW does it happen? Through this exploration of thought, many of us quickly realized we have to defend the
governorship, bolster our majority in the state house, reclaim the state senate, and start caring about who our councilmembers, mayors,
and county commissioners are (as city wards are redistricted and counties perform annexations and redraw precinct lines) so this may safeguard us against further gerrymandering and set the stage to reverse trends. This requires engagement in every election. Engagement requires information.
Simply as a citizen looking to become more civic-minded, one would have to go to multiple sites to get basic data and to answer simple questions . This proved time-consuming, being unable to find a single site that had all this information ready and together. Others must be running into this issue themselves. Many people also specialize in specific interests, so a centralized location may potentially serve as a hub of information. This wiki could serve as a means to help other citizens be not only informed, but also to save time--a resource that has become all too precious now.
The hallmarks of this project since its conception and through its multiple evolutions has always been: Accessibility, Interactivity, and Adaptability. Holding the integrity of the project accountable to those ideals rests absolutely on continual feedback from project editors and users alike.
This wiki isn't necessarily to keep elected officials accountable. This is to keep ourselves accountable to the standard of being both informed and a community.
Potential for expansion / Where we would love your help to make these happen:
- Campaign finance tracking at the local and state levels
- Endorsements tracking
- Candidates Portal (declared candidates, campaign finance, endorsements, stances on issues, etc)
- Gerrymandering / Redistricting / Census 2020
- Tracking State Legislative sessions and State Executive (Governor) actions
- Can provide a warehouse for research on a variety of other organizations' projects such as Powermappings (ex: Trump-Russia ties)
- And more, as needs arise.
Thank you for your interest.
2017. 2018. 2019. 2020. And beyond...
~Colorado Elections Project Volunteer Team
- Jessica Chauvin (Jessica Sandi), Co-Founder / Lead Researcher / Lead Wiki Content Editor
- Jan Magid, Researcher / Editor / Contributor
- Nick Holst, Judiciary Contributor
