Want to reduce the power of money in politics?

The midterm elections are nearing and thereʼs a paid part-time

internship opportunity for you!

Circle Voting is looking for a few fantastic paid student interns to help build the best social ballot
tool of the 2010 midterm elections.

Join an ambitious team developing a nonpartisan voter information website that will bring social
networking to electoral politics in a whole new way. This is an incredibly rare opportunity to work
on a venture with both funding and a social conscience.

Weʼre ahead of the curve but on a very tight deadline geared toward the November 2010 election,
so youʼll be joining us in implementation immediately.

THE INTERNSHIP

Weʼre looking for college students at either the undergraduate or graduate level who can dedicate
approximately 10 hours each week (starting immediately through the elections on Nov. 2) to the
following:

• Field and online organizing: Informing your peers on- and off-campus about the Circle
Voting tool; enthusiastically making the case for it; teaching them how to use it; and
engaging them once theyʼve joined
• Inputting key content, endorsements, and opinions on important ballot initiatives and
candidate races this November
• Working closely with the Circle Voting team to test and refine the application
• Once youʼve joined our team, we will also encourage you to find other ways in which you
can use your skills to grow the community of Circle Voting users that we need to make
this effort a success

WHAT WEʼRE LOOKING FOR

Youʼre familiar with the web and social networking. Youʼre also familiar with the American
electoral process: what happens in an ordinary election, what the stages are, and so forth. You
may have worked on a campaign—or very closely followed one—and youʼre familiar with what it
means to have an election coming up.

Youʼre excited to deliver important information through a new medium and thereby blaze a new
path in contemporary politics. Youʼre passionate about reducing the influence of money in
elections, and are passionate about helping voters leverage their social networks to make more
informed decisions in the upcoming midterms. Most of all, youʼll do whatever it takes to help us
organize a movement that uses our new technology to help ordinary citizens vote wisely with
ease and hold our politicians accountable.

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, send resume and cover letter to interns@circlevoting.com. In your letter, please
address why youʼre passionate about Circle Votingʼs mission, and make sure to detail any
relevant experience, both academic and professional. Move fast! The midterm elections are
nearing! (With all due apologies, we will not be able to respond unless weʼre interested.)
 FAQs about Circle Voting
What is it?
Circle Voting (http://www.circlevoting.com) is an online application that allows users to leverage
their social networks to make more informed voting decisions. Our mission is to help people vote
wisely with ease, by seeing what their friends and favorite sources say about the issues on their
ballot. Users can pick the best arguments and vote accordingly. They also can join the
conversation by adding new sources or sharing views with their social networks (and the Circle
Voting community). We call this the “social ballot.”

Why do we need Circle Voting?

What with the Supreme Courtʼs Citizens United ruling—which lifted limits on campaign donations
by corporations—and the increasing use of moneyed campaigns to obfuscate the electoral
process, we think American voters want and need a tool like Circle Voting.

Private sources have raised over $2.6 billion for Novemberʼs midterms. Campaigns use this
money to pay for simplistic and manipulative big media advertising. We hope to build a movement
to strengthen participatory democracy and shed greater light on our electoral processes.

With Circle Voting, we can create a large interconnected voting force that rises above the noise of
these campaigns and makes smarter voting decisions, powered by the collective intelligence and
opinions of their social networks and communities. The result, we hope, is that politicians will be
more responsive to the needs of the people than their big donors.

Is Circle Voting tied to a certain political agenda?

No. The only agenda, so to speak, is to remove the influence of money in politics by providing a
platform for connecting voters with the information and community they need to make more
educated voting decisions on everything from the most obscure ballot proposition or candidate to
highly-contested and publicized races.

In fact, Circle Voting is committed to being a non-partisan source of information for people across
the political spectrum. After all, money in politics has been used to divide us, so if we pick one
side weʼre beating the same tired electoral drum. We have to get past that and allow the best
decisions to bubble up.

Why is social networking going to change anything?

The social web has allowed for a new level of interconnectedness in all our lives. We can apply
this to engagement in electoral politics, too. By sharing information with one another, voters can
make smart decisions at the polls that are independent of political campaignsʼ moneyed noise. By
developing a social network around voting, Circle Voting users can access their communitiesʼ
most informed opinions and also engage people who might not care enough to inform themselves
about certain ballot items or even vote.

The “social ballot” can be especially powerful in a midterm election such at this one coming up,
because historically, there is low voter turnout and little voter awareness, so money is especially
influential in such election cycles. Through Circle Voting, we have the opportunity to fuel a
different kind of electoral force that does not respond to the manipulations of money and instead
empowers voters to make informed decisions on their own and with each other.