Signs for candidates who want your votes to get elected to public office - or who want to get re-elected - are all over Mesa. It's that time again! Have you paid attention at all to issues that can directly you in your district or city-at-large? Registered to vote already? Early voting is underway here in Mesa - are you informed about issues and where candidates stand go serve the public?
Do you even know who your six Mesa City Council members are? Half of the seats on the City Council are up for grabs this year in Districts 1, 2 and 3 where there is competition. Vice Mayor Dennis Kavanagh is retiring in good grace after many years of dedication of public service. He, like current Councilmember David Luna, has endorsed Ryan Winkle, a community activist and newcomer to the wonderful world of Mesa politics, for succession to District 3 in a heated competition with Jerry Lewis, influential LDS leader and executive in Edkey a charter school corporation, endorsed by both current Mayor Giles and ex-mayor Smith.
Outgoing Alex Finter has selected and endorsed fellow LDS member Shelly Allen, who got called up after retiring from city employment.
Dave Richins whose term limits in District 1have expired remains neutral at this time.
Mesa Mayor John Giles goes unchallenged in the no-contest for four more years inside City Hall after the job was handed to him by ex-mayor Scott Smith who left office to run in a failed bid for Arizona governor in 2014. Giles, a graduate of BYU and ASU practiced law for 25 years specializing in personal accident injury cases and evictions [ according to his profile on LinkedIn ] - hardly the qualifications for public office - and previously held a seat on the City Council from 1996-2000, was vice-mayor, named at one point like many men "Mesa Man-of-the-Year" and appeared to be on the trajectory for higher office at that time.
What threw him off that track is a mystery, only saying in public statements that he left office with "anxiety and a lot of pent-up energy". 12 years later he gets hand-selected, not elected, and nominated/approved by a LDS-dominated City Council to hold onto the position as mayor for the few months before the next election in 2014 with a low voter turn-out but where he did muster 72.7% of people who did take the time to vote for him. Giles admits he has failed to involve or engage in government during his first two-year stint in office
E.thePeople is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is the nation’s leading provider of interactive voter guide software. Hundreds of news organizations and civic groups have their software to provide in-depth online voter guides for local, state, and national elections.
More than 13 million people have visited e.thePeople voter guides since 2004.
13,000,000 visitors have used our Voter Guides through more than 150 affiliates
http://ethepeople.org/
E.THEPEOPLE AWARDED $200,000 TO CREATE NEW COMPREHENSIVE VOTER EXPERIENCE AS PART OF THE KNIGHT NEWS CHALLENGE ON ELECTIONS
(New York, N.Y.) – E.thePeople was awarded $200,000 as a winner of the Knight News Challenge on Elections for a project that will spur informed voter participation. The winning project, “Informed Voting from Start to Finish,” is collaboration between e.thePeople, Democracy Works, and the Center for Civic Design. An initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Knight News Challenge on Elections sought ideas to better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during and after elections.
The initiative will link TurboVote, an online service developed by Democracy Works that provides registration help and reminders of when and where to vote, to hundreds of local online voter guides provided by e.thePeople in partnership with news and civic groups across the country. The Center for Civic Design will help the team refine information provided to voters and lead research to better understand how voters get and use election information. . .
Combining the knowledge and efforts of these three groups will provide unprecedented support to engage voters.
- 80% of those who re-registered using the Democracy Works tool TurboVote successfully cast ballots in 2012, while nationwide turnout dropped to 57%. 75% of voters that TurboVote helped to register for the first time also cast ballots.
- e.thePeople works with hundreds of news media and civic groups across the county to develop personalized online voter guides which have been used by over 13 million visitors.
- The Center for Civic Design has developed design guidelines for voter information (including the Field Guides to Ensuring Voter Intent and Best Practices for Official Voter Information Guides in California), and has a strong methodology for evaluating effective voter information design.
The Knight News Challenge accelerates media innovation by funding breakthrough ideas in news and information. More at www.newschallenge.org.
https://www.facebook.com/Ethepeople-194364544064749/
https://twitter.com/etppl
Signs for candidates who want your votes to get elected to public office - or who want to get re-elected - are all over Mesa. It's that time again! Have you paid attention at all to issues that can directly you in your district or city-at-large? Registered to vote already? Early voting is underway here in Mesa - are you informed about issues and where candidates stand go serve the public?
Do you even know who your six Mesa City Council members are? Half of the seats on the City Council are up for grabs this year in Districts 1, 2 and 3 where there is competition. Vice Mayor Dennis Kavanagh is retiring in good grace after many years of dedication of public service. He, like current Councilmember David Luna, has endorsed Ryan Winkle, a community activist and newcomer to the wonderful world of Mesa politics, for succession to District 3 in a heated competition with Jerry Lewis, influential LDS leader and executive in Edkey a charter school corporation, endorsed by both current Mayor Giles and ex-mayor Smith.
Mesa Mayor John Giles goes unchallenged in the no-contest for four more years inside City Hall after the job was handed to him by ex-mayor Scott Smith who left office to run in a failed bid for Arizona governor in 2014. Giles, a graduate of BYU and ASU practiced law for 25 years specializing in personal accident injury cases and evictions [ according to his profile on LinkedIn ] - hardly the qualifications for public office - and previously held a seat on the City Council from 1996-2000, was vice-mayor, named at one point like many men "Mesa Man-of-the-Year" and appeared to be on the trajectory for higher office at that time.
