Calling all political junkies

Whether you are a political junkie or someone who hasn’t even registered to vote, The Augusta Chronicle has a new website for you. It’s called ActiVote.  

Electing our leaders is always important, but in a presidential election year it’s even more important that you pay attention.

ActiVote can help you with whatever contests are important to you.  From local races to presidential politics, ActiVote will have all the information you need to make good decisions. We’ve designed it to handle the latest news as well as background information on candidates and issues.  

Can’t remember how many Senators there are? You can find out on ActiVote. Wonder which candidate best lines up with you on the issues? By answering a few questions about the issues, you can get a computer match with the candidate of your dreams. We call it vHarmony. Get it? 

And if you need a laugh, we can even help with that. ActiVote has a section that looks at the lighter side of politics.  The first thing you need to do is go to http://augustachronicle.com/election. You don’t have to register to use the site, but you’ll get more out of it if you do register.  

Once you get there, look around. Play with the navigational prompts and you’ll find all kinds of useful tools. The home page has the latest news, some videos, a poll question, a list of blogs, a primary calendar and a look at issues. From there you can go to:

• Civics 101. This gives you all the information about government that you probably learned in school, but forgot. We tell you about political parties, the Electoral College and even how to register and why you should.
• Issues. Right now these are the issues in the presidential primaries, with the positions taken by the candidates. Later, we will have local issues and the positions taken by candidates for local and state office.
• Candidates. Profiles, photos and videos of the presidential candidates. As candidates qualify for local and state offices we will include them.
• Blogs. Want to know what other people are saying? This is the place to find out. If you want to start your own political blog you can do that, too. Speak up. Be heard.
• Events. This is a calendar of political events, including all the presidential primaries and national conventions scheduled so far. Local information will be added later.
• Forums. This is where you can chat about political topics with other people interested in a particular topic.
• Video. All the latest campaign videos.
• Unzipped. This is where you find all the weird, funny stuff. John Winters puts this together for your reading pleasure. Some of you may remember John, because he used to be a Chronicle reporter. He covered the Savannah River Site and later became our Washington, D.C. correspondent. Before taking on the ActiVote project he ran our Morris News Service in Atlanta.

 Here’s what Mr. Winters had to say about ActiVote: “Our goal with ActiVote is not only educational – to help readers learn the issues and where candidates stand – but to provide a forum for citizens to participate in the electoral process. It’s an opportunity to get involved, not only in a candidate’s race, but any grassroots effort vital to each community.” 

You can’t tell it from that quote, but John also has a wicked sense of humor. You’ll have to check him out at Unzipped. 

The ActiVote site will be fun and useful during this political season, and it’s designed to be useful in the years ahead. Check it out. Take it for a test drive and let me know what you think. We will be looking for ways to improve it.  

Of course, our political coverage will continue in the printed newspaper. But if you really want to dig into politics, or have some fun, you’ll want to go to ActiVote and keep coming back to it all year long.