Embedded Activism: PopVox’s Cool New Grassroots Congressional Lobbying Widget

Here’s a fun new tool from the folks at PopVox, whose platform got a great review by Sandi Fox here on Epolitics.com back in April: a widget that lets you embed an advocacy action targeting Congress on just about any website.

The free version (example to the right) first lets you choose a bill to oppose or support. Next, it generates code that you can then use to display a contact-Congress form on a blog or other website — and I suspect on a tab on a Facebook Page as well, since it uses iframes, Facebook’s currently preferred method of customizing Pages. Once a user enters a zip code, PopVox matches him or her to the correct legislator(s) and sends an email via the congressmember’s webform or email address. Plus, it allows people to express their opinion in their own words, the kind of personalization that we’re always told increases the effectiveness of advocacy email.

Once it’s sent, the message is also tallied in PopVox’s record of support/opposition to each piece of legislation, adding to a public record of opinion about the bill. The paid version adds more functionality, including the ability for campaigners to add talking points text and to collect email addresses as people take action. Activism on the go! A cool idea, and related to one that we’ve seen here before, Call2Action’s video/activism embedded widget.

BTW, I got introduced recently to another interesting site that aims to get people to weigh-in publicly on legislation before Congress, Votetocracy.com — check ’em out.

– cpd