[E-Democracy] US Election 2004, Moving Web Servers, Donate Now, Updating E-Democracy's Mission

[Steven Clift]

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           E-Democracy - http://www.e-democracy.org
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July 21, 2003                       E-Democracy Update

1. E-Democracy.US - Presidential election links
2. Moving our web server - Donate now - Join our Technical Co.
3. E-Democracy's next ten years - Updating our mission


Special Note: We cleaned up our home page.  Take a look: 
http://www.e-democracy.org  - Join our Technical Committee if you'd 
like to help us fundamentally revamp our site in the coming years.

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1. E-Democracy.US
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Google loves E-Democracy. When we add new features to our site, we 
quickly rank high in search results. As more people than ever turn to 
search engines to find election information, we are going leverage 
our power to help citizens find the good stuff.  

Our continuously updated White House 2004 section features the best
non-profit, media, and candidate election information resources:

     http://www.e-democracy.us  <-- Have a site? Link here today.

What would you like to do online this election to help make a
difference for citizens? What cool ideas or new approaches would you
like to develop?  Volunteer today (from anywhere, not just 
Minnesota):
http://www.e-democracy.org/comments.html OR info@e-democracy.org


2. Help us move our web server - Donate now, Join our Technical
Committee
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E-Democracy's has been lucky. We've had free web space for nine 
years. First with the Twin Cities Free-Net, and for the last seven 
years, with Onvoy (formerly MR.Net). We want to thank Onvoy for their 
service over all these years.  We now need to change our webhost to 
take advantage of more advanced web services and to keep our costs 
low. We will now need to purchase web hosting in the near term and if 
possible accept a server hosting donation in the future.

We are excited about this opportunity. We will be able to do much 
more technologically.  Please donate securely online to help 
E-Democracy maintain and improve our web services.  This link will 
forward you directly to our online donation form:

     http://tinyurl.com/hc8w   

As a 501c.3 non-profit, your donation to E-Democracy, be it $25, 
$100, or $250 is fully tax-deductible.  Thank you for your support.

Technical Committee

Interested in building technologies that serve e-citizens? Join our
Technical Committee and get in the middle of something exciting:
http://www.e-democracy.org/comments.html OR info@e-democracy.org

We met earlier this spring and have lots of innovative ideas on the 
table.  This is your opportunity to build your technical or web 
design experience with a project people will notice. 


3. E-Democracy's next ten years - Work on our mission
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E-Democracy's volunteers met three times in May to update our mission
statement, articulate our core beliefs, and draft our goals and
objectives for the next few years.

We host citizen-to-citizen online public issue discussions that
matter. We promote access to information to improve elections and
governance. We seek to establish the capacity to support active
citizens ready to make a difference online in their own community -
anywhere.  We love Minnesota and will build from that base as we 
enter our tenth year of volunteer-based activity in 2004.

We are still in drafting phase, so your early input will be very
useful.  What do you think our mission should be?  What goals and
objectives should top our priority list?  Let us know:
http://www.e-democracy.org/comments.html  OR info@e-democracy.org

Rules Task Force work continues

Also, our important work on uniform Terms of Participation for our
forums continues s-l-o-w-l-y.  Our discussion model works, but we 
need to update our "legal" infrastructure to support and extend our 
efforts to more citizens. You can explore our draft work and add your 
comments from the "web drafting/comment system": 
http://www.e-democracy.org/center/


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Steven L. Clift    -    W: http://www.publicus.net
Minneapolis    -   -   -     E: clift@publicus.net
Minnesota  -   -   -   -   -    T: +1.612.822.8667
USA    -   -   -   -   -   -   -     ICQ: 13789183