Are You An “Issue Voter?” Maria Yuan Wants You!

When you talk with entrepreneurs, you often find that they are drawn to solve a problem that has impacted them directly. Maria Yuan is the perfect example of this sort of solution-oriented entrepreneur. Yuan says she remembers being in second grade and going to participate in mock voting. She grew up being told by her parents that voting was an important civic responsibility. In college at the University of Texas she was part of a small group of students who lobbied the Texas legislature to introduce and pass a bill creating the first student seat on the University of Texas System’s Board of Regents. It was working for a state representative in Texas where she says she “saw first-hand that that Representatives really do track every constituent contact, yet such a small percentage of us actually reach out.” She was on the campaign trail, working in Iowa on an open seat race in a swing district that she got the idea for a software solution to a real world problem. “I distinctly remember sitting in the office on my laptop and thinking, “There’s so much focus on elections, but there should be an easy way to track what our reps are doing throughout the year when the work that impacts our lives gets done.” So, her vision came true with a website she’s just launched called Issue Voter. “When I first envisioned IssueVoter, I thought, ‘Someday technology will get there. Someone will create this, and I will be able to use it!’ Fast forward, and years later it was still hard to research and understand legislation and contact elected officials.” Says Yuan: “There has to be a tech solution for civic engagement to be accessible and efficient. A legislative correspondent cannot possibly speak to every concerned constituent – there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. We are learning more and more that petitions don’t work, and that ‘How to contact Congress’ is what’s wrong with Congress.” So Yuan created IssueVoter. IssueVoter is a non-partisan platform that aims to give voters a voice by making civic engagement accessible and efficient. IssueVoter helps users make their voice heard in Washington and then tracks how elected officials vote. The idea is to hold politicians accountable in a more granular way. The mechanics of IssueVoter are deceptively simple. 1. Users sign up and receive targeted alerts before Congress votes on issues you care about – IssueVoter summarizes bills and offers pros, cons, and related news for context. 2. Then voters can make their voice count by sending their opinion directly to their rep – with the click of a mouse. 3. The idea is that politicians are kept accountable: Track your rep’s votes and bill outcomes – helping you make an informed decision at election time. IssueVoter was slated to launch on November 9th, 2016, the day after the presidential election. Yuan says before the election, people would say to her, “You must be so busy preparing for the election.” But in reality, […]

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