Those who have been reading my site know that I have been active in advocating for the Clean Money, Clean Elections system of public campaign financing for a long time. The reason is simple: much though we like to believe we live in a democracy, when candidates without enough money get eliminated before we get to vote on them, the sad truth is that we live in a plutocracy.

Naturally I believe that a publicly funded campaign is the preferrable method of democracy. However, regardless of whether or not that does indeed come to pass, there can be no question that lowering the cost of elections is also a major goal for those who value democracy. One area where innovative new solutions may provide cost savings for grassroots candidates is in what is being called People-Powered Polling.

My new-found compatriot site, RochesterTurning.com, has the scoop from Daily Kos:

Developing open-source, Amish barn-raising polling is a huge part of that as well. It lowers barriers to local candidates, gets more people involved in the process, and ultimately helps everyone.

I?ve signed up for the project, and will post updates on how it?s going and how it?s worked for our local candidates who?ve tried it. If you have any interest in helping, you can sign up with them too.

Looking at the site, the Daily Kos has kind of stumbled onto an idea that will hopefully catch on. I’ve joined up myself, and posted a thread about making sure that poll numbers are available for public consumption as a way of assuring that the program works correctly. In this way, I’m hoping to influence the project in the way that I best understand collaberative, Open Source projects.

UPDATE: I decided to go ahead and submit my first entry into the handbook, as well.

The thing about thier plan that is really quite interesting is this idea of Open Source campaign proceedures. Since many of the functions of a working campaign have in large part been to this point the responsibility of third-party companies that charge heafty sums, the truly effective campaign functions have been all but completely out of reach for those candidates on shoestring budgets. Also, for more local races, such things aren’t even considered. As one commenter on RT points out, such polling data might not always be the best investment of time or resources in the first place. However, such decisions should best be left to the campaign and not predetermined by money if they don’t need to be.

By creating an open standard, the People Powered Polling (Px3, as I like to call it) group is opening the door to a wide swath of new innovation. Who knows what other functions of the electoral process could be put back in the hands of candidates and taken away from the profiteers.? Clean Money, sure, but Less Money also!