About The Straight Choice
Electioneering is a high-stakes game. We, at The Straight Choice, believe that it’s time for that game to become a spectator sport.
The Straight Choice is an real-time election leaflet project. Our ambition is to create a live visualization of the flood of party political leaflets as they are delivered across the country during an election campaign. If you have recently received any election leaflets through your door you can help by photographing or scanning them and uploading the images to our server.
The idea was conjured up in December 2008 at a weekend in Derbyshire, and finally acted upon in Francis's front living room in Cambridge at the end of April 2009. You can read about where the name for this website came from here.
The team
This website has been put together by three of the usual suspects who don't have time or contacts to sell ideas or apply for grants. The code has been deposited at code.google/theelectionleafletproject.
Julian Todd had the job of pestering people about an election leaflet monitoring website
after discovering just how crucially important these pieces of paper really are.
In 2003 he wrote Public Whip with Francis Irving,
which became the input for mySociety's TheyWorkForYou.com.
In 2007 he made undemocracy.com which applied the same
idea to the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. Julian and has volunteered his phone number (0791 6090736), should you be interested in talking to someone about this project
Richard Pope spent a couple of days writing the code for this site and making it look pretty.
He is the brains behind the Planning Alerts project, Groups Near You and StreetWire.
In 2005 he made the Election Memory project to record and publicise
manifestos of the different parties in the Lambeth local elections.
Francis Irving is the other half of Public Whip .
He has done substantial work on mySociety's WhatDoTheyKnow.com
-- among other projects -- and would specifically like you to sign up for Serious Change.
Volunteers
We have also had the support of a great bunch volunteers who have helped promote The Straight Choice by delivering leaflets during by-elections. If you'd like to help out, please get in touch we'd love to hear from you.
FAQs
- How do I upload an election leaflet
- You need to upload a photograph of the leaflet in JPG format, then enter a few details about the leaflet. Click here to get started.
- I'm a party activist, can I upload a leaflet?
- Yes. Just upload a photos of your leaflet and enter one of the post codes it is aimed at when prompted. Click here to add a leaflet now.
- Is this project affiliated to or supported by any political party
- No.
- Can I reuse the images on my website or blog?
- Yes, but please make a copy of the image on your site and link back to us.
- What do you mean by a leaflet? Does a letter count?
- Any kind of written communication - letters, leaflets, flyers - contain useful information. If in doubt, upload it anyway or get in touch with us.
- Can I send you leaflets by post?
- Yes. Please send them to: PO BOX 4312, Wolverhampton, WV11 3WZ and mark each leaflet with the postcode (or postcode district) it was delivered to.
Contact
You can get in touch with us via team [at] thestraightchoice.org or phone Julian on 0791 6090736.
Thanks and acknowledgements
Linking leaflets to constituencies is made possible thanks to the TheyWorkForYou.com API