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Advocacy Blog
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Email System Blocks Civic Participation
Roll Call ($$) reports that the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is working on a project to attempt to solve a problem facing Members and their staff, excessive amounts of e-mail that often causes their systems to crash. The article explains the many frustrations citizens and nonprofits are feeling in trying to carry out their advocacy work in encouraging people to contact Congress on important issues, and the frustration of those receiving the unmanageable number of messages.
After offices began receiving more email than they could handle, many offices switched to Web forms, requiring the public to send messages directly from Member Web sites. Then offices began putting logic puzzles on their Web sites, forcing e-mailers to decode a simple puzzle before sending their message. Last year OMB Watch was active in the fight against the use of such logic puzzles.
Grace Markarian, with The Humane Society of the United States was quoted in the Roll Call article; "many groups and constituents who have legitimate issues to bring to Members are frustrated because it is becoming exceedingly difficult to address such matters with their Representatives. She pointed out that while most Members have information on their Web sites about the big issues, it is sometimes difficult to find enough stuff on other matters — requiring correspondence."
And unfortunately many staffers who are frustrated with the amount of e-mail incorrectly stop considering the messages to be from actual constituents.
Some European bodies have tackled similar problems with e-mail overload by creating Internet forums for specific issues. One such Web site, mysociety.org, serves as an intermediary to help British subjects contact their member of Parliament. People can address a range of specific questions through the site or simply send an e-mail asking what their MP has done recently.
In a 2005 report CMF recommended a number of measures to deal with the problem of e-mail overload, including using the Internet as a response tool. CMF also advised advocacy groups to reduce the e-mail logjam. However, cutting down on these communications would only further disconnect the voices of constituents and the legislators who are supposed to represent them.
Posted by Amanda Adams
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