Politics is Complicated. Match is now Simple

“Well, it could have been worse,” I thought as I scrolled through my matches with which the website had paired me. “Jon, Barack, and Mitt, eh?” ElectNext’s slogan, “like a dating site for voters,” was true to its word. Although as a start-up that only functions for national elections, www.electnext.com hopes to expand to state and local contests as well. The premise is simple: answer a few questions about the issues you care most about and the policy solutions you want to see implemented, and ElectNext will use its algorithm to match you with your perfect candidate.

Up to this point, technology has been expanding the political echo chamber; partisan opinions have grown stronger by having this space to reinforce and intensify themselves. Technology now has a chance to increase its impact by opening the space available for bias-free decision-making. The uninformed, biased, partisan clutter has been removed. As a side effect, however, it has “consumerized” the political process, making it available for simple mass consumption. While this would have political theorists shaking with fury, it might just be the right match for American voters.

The process of making politics available for mass consumption through the internet started as early as 1994. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) became the first political candidate to have a web site. Keep in mind, this was the same year as the now-famous “What is the Internet, Anyway?” clip with Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric on NBC Today. Even before the general public knew what the @ sign stood for, some politicians were trying to leverage the Internet for political gain.

While the internet was a clear potential resource, even after people had started to learn to use it, it still remained largely misused and untapped. Though it rivaled newspapers as a main source for campaign information in the 2002 election, the Internet was a principal source of campaign news for only about one- in-ten online users. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, television still remained the leading source of election information for the other 9/10ths of internet users.

However, the internet was used with great success during the 2008 presidential race. It was this presidential race that really has solidified the benefit the Internet can provide for politically-specific ends. A candidate’s savvy in orchestrating Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, websites, and texting services became a factor in determining the Head of State. These social media technologies were more conducive to dialogue-style communication instead of the one-way form of communication that traditional media functions under. By using these technologies, voters felt more connected (literally) to a candidate and were therefore more likely to vote for him. These different communication channels served to highlight the understanding among those on Capitol Hill that the Internet was uniquely positioned as a medium for two-way communication between the political elite and potential voters. At the height of the race, one in three Americans was forwarding political content through the Internet.

In 2011, almost 78% percent of American adults—or 240 million people—use the Internet (the other 21% are either too old or neo-Luddites). Unfortunately, only about 47% of all Americans use the Internet to look online for news or information about politics. Americans spend more time on the Internet buying products, consuming entertainment media, or just surfing to pass the time. Online excitement for politics is synchronized with the election cycle, and the periods between elections show vastly lower rates of political information sharing, discussion, debating, etc.

While technology has been used to break barriers to political involvement, the involvement has also created a hyper-polarized space. Available political information provided by the political parties separates itself from this space by providing generalized platforms, but this is not indicative of the actual opinions of the individuals in Congress. As such, voters don’t gain much additional knowledge about the political actors unless they make the active effort to seek out records online. The majority of voters do not want to spend that much time searching for specific candidate platforms unless it a crucial election period.

This uncertainty between the platform and the individual politician allows parties to develop ideologies as weapons in the struggle for office (and votes). If a fiscally conservative voter who is pro-choice doesn’t know that a Democratic candidate is pro-life, the voter would vote for the candidate assuming he runs on the “typical” Democratic platform. This would be against the voter’s interests, especially if she cares heavily about abortion issues. Much of the success for a voter in choosing a candidate in line with her interests lies in the voter’s motivation to actively search out this information online.

With simultaneous issues of too much information and not enough motivation, it is up to the public to rectify this conflict. Make engaging in politics and understanding opinions as easy and fun as buying products, consuming video, or surfing the web. Decrease the time investment needed to make an informed decision. Remove party heuristics and political labels in the process. In short, “consumerize.”

Consumer culture has taken over America in nearly every other aspect of our daily lives, so it is only natural for it to extend into the field of politics. In fact, there are now over 1000 applications on the Apple iStore relating to politics. They appeal to staunch conservatives, main street Republicans, Disaffecteds, Libertarians, Post-Moderns, new coalition Democrats, loony liberals—you name it. If there is a way to capitalize (pun intended) on the different political factions that technology has created, it is by using technology to target these “consumers” each by their own needs and wants.

And that is precisely the trend that ElectNext.com is spearheading. Even more, ElectNext does a better job than all of the apps and websites currently out there in making politics easier to consume by asking the user what his or her needs are and then adjusting results accordingly. Unlike the other online alternatives for finding relevant information, it first removes the reliance on party or allegiances or the individual’s perceived preferences and then returns what fits her objective data.

I was surprised to find Jon Huntsman match me at 60% (and then President Obama close behind at 59%) considering that I generally self-identify as a liberal. If anything, it made me more invested in the process. I couldn’t help wondering why Jon Huntsman was a match for me, as I did not expect my preferences to be as in line with his. I ended up spending more time to research him as an individual and a candidate, and I was surprised to find myself changing my perceptions.

Many will argue that the consumerization of politics is sacrilege to the institution. But with a system that has remained stagnant in a country with changing rules, customs, and technologies, the institution is no longer sacred. The largest issue is the structure of the system itself. And it is not for lack of desire to change that the system has remained archaic. It is because there are certain incentives embedded in the political system that cause individuals in the system to act a certain way. The tradition of “home style” campaigning towards specific constituencies has not died out despite the Internet. The internet has, at least, made it easier to point out when a Jon Huntsman’s plaid button-down clearly appeals to “average Joe” constituencies (and similarly when Mitt Romney’s jokes make him look awkward and insensitive towards middle class voters).

Until now, technology has only addressed the symptoms of the system and not the issue itself. Parties used to be able to take advantage of the broken system to use ideology as a strategy. We’re reaching a point, however, where one size will not fit all, and the stronghold that parties have kept on voter knowledge will be released. This is not to say that the entire system will be uprooted and changed. But it does mean that when voting on an entire ballot, voters won’t necessarily check all the boxes down a party line. We can be less dependent on political parties, explore different candidates, and mix and match which candidates we like the best. We will hopefully be able to enter the booth knowing (based on our preferences and the positions of those running for office) which candidates are the best fit for each of us.