Principles for local election candidate websites

Saturday, 17 May, 2025 — civics

My wife and I spent some time this morning over breakfast and coffee researching candidates for an upcoming local primary election. Having spent about 90 minutes looking for information, it’s clear that many local candidates do not present themselves well online.

There are several issues candidates present:

• Not having a website at all
  • There are some uncontested races where there’s effectively zero candidate information available
• Expecting that Facebook acts as an effective website
  • One candidate had Facebook as the entirety of their online presence
  • Facebook essentially expects readers to have and use Facebook accounts and I am not enthused with Facebook tracking my activity on a candidate’s Facebook page
  • Facebook pages generally are incomplete and ineffective websites
• Not looking at how the site lays out on a phone or tablet
  • One candidate we were looking at had CSS layout issues where their photo and their introductory text ran together, with the photo covering up the text
• Having a single page site that focuses on endorsements, issue pull quotes, and invitations to donate, and stop there
  • This is a start of what’s essential, but woefully incomplete

Particularly during a primary process, candidates not making an affirmative case for themselves are easily dismissed from consideration, even when they run unopposed. This affects incumbents and challengers alike.

Local candidate websites don’t need to be nearly as detailed or as flashy as a gubernatorial or presidential campaign. They should be present, though, and somewhat evergreen for the entire election cycle. Have the key information available for primary and, after some refreshing, general campaign voters. I prefer more detailed, but static, information about the candidate’s views than I do about seeing social media posts.

Simplicity in the presentation also benefits. I believe there’s more benefit in simpler layouts and more informational detail.

Here are the qualities I find valuable in a candidate website:

• It exists on the open web as a regular website with its own domain
• It’s viewable across phones, tablets, and laptops
• The layout can be basic, but it’s readable, images load quickly, video content is optional, and does not suffer from layout collisions, overlap, or poor contrast
• The website meets basic accessibility standards

The website provides prospective votes with core information:

• Who the candidate is
• What office they are running for
• Why they are running
• Their vision for how they seem themselves in office
• Their core issues and a summary of positions
• When to vote
• Donation and volunteer opportunities

As mentioned above, the candidate website does not stop there. The website also provides deeper background for voters:

• The candidate’s biography and qualifications for office
• Deeper articulation of their core issues
  • What perceived benefits do they want to continue or improve upon?
  • What problems do they want to tackle
  • Not only do I want to see what the issues are for the candidate, I want to understand their perspective and framing of those issues
• Debates and campaign appearances, past and present
  • Particularly for debates, when there are any, links to transcripts and recordings are very helpful
• News articles and other media appearances

Local media is stretched thin. For a lot of this cycle’s races in our area, there’s not much in the way of debates, candidate questionares, or endorsements. Candidates should help fill their prospective voters in and a substantial part of that is a competently designed informational website.

Campaigns have outreach options. Text messaging registered voters is obnoxiously present and persistent. Mailers introduce a candidacy and remind voters about key issues and voting dates. Campaign events can offer volunteers and donors camaraderie, coherence, and community. Debates help establish common ground and contrasts between candidates. But, those are all incomplete and shallow.

Any political candidate should have some manner of website. Good candidacies have good websites, though. Deeper websites force a deeper level of thinking, articulation, and engagement between a candidate and prospective voters. That’s what I want to see and consider when I’m evaluating candidates.

For me, if a candidate doesn’t have a website informing voters of what they stand for and why they should earn a vote, I am skeptical the candidate has thought through and can articulate those points to themself and their campaign.

Wired: 'Kids Are Back in Classrooms and Laptops Are Still Spying on Them'

Sunday, 7 August, 2022 — links privacy civics

Pia Ceres, reporting for Wired:

Now that the majority of American students are finally going back to school in-person, the surveillance software that proliferated during the pandemic will stay on their school-issued devices, where it will continue to watch them. According to a report published today from the Center for Democracy and Technology, 89 percent of teachers have said that their schools will continue using student-monitoring software, up 5 percentage points from last year. At the same time, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has led to new concerns about digital surveillance in states that have made abortion care illegal. Proposals targeting LGBTQ youth, such as the Texas governor’s calls to investigate the families of kids seeking gender-affirming care, raise additional worries about how data collected through school-issued devices might be weaponized in September.

The CDT report also reveals how monitoring software can shrink the distance between classrooms and carceral systems. Forty-four percent of teachers reported that at least one student at their school has been contacted by law enforcement as a result of behaviors flagged by the monitoring software. And 37 percent of teachers who say their school uses activity monitoring outside of regular hours report that such alerts are directed to “a third party focused on public safety” (e.g., local police department, immigration enforcement). “Schools have institutionalized and routinized law enforcement’s access to students’ information,” says Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity in civic technology at the CDT.

Schools concerned about keeping students productive and safe from school shootings and other potential harms have installed highly invasive monitoring software on school-owned devices issued to students that makes extraordinary and unproven claims about efficacy.

I get that screens can have tons of distractions and teachers probably need some assistance in keeping students focused, but all of this just seems over-the-top invasive against student privacy, particularly for students who don’t otherwise have their own devices.

The ease and comfort with which kids can get automatically referred to law enforcement is flat out shitty.

A hoped-for 2019 Raleigh city council platform

Tuesday, 18 June, 2019 — civics Raleigh

Updated: June 24, 2019

Oct. of 2019 is going to bring around another biannual election for city council and mayor in Raleigh. There’s quite a bit of hot button issues:

• Concern that Raleigh is quashing “innovative business models” by regulating electric scooters and restricting what manner of AirBnB rentals will be allowed
• Zoning
• Gentrification
• Traffic

So, at the forefront of thinking for a few minutes, but really the result of lots of background thinking, here’s some of what I’d like 2019 city council candidates to get behind:

• Affirm that scooters pay their way for using public infrastructure
  • Private businesses cannot appropriate public infrastructure
  • Sidewalk use for scooters, bikes, etc. are subject to permitting and usage fees
• AirBnB pays hotel tax for short term whole house rentals
  • My complex proposal here is “if it quacks like a duck, treat it like a duck”
  • “But why do you love hotels over homeowners, Nathan?” Because when you treat your personal assets like a business, you get the responsibilities of acting like a business and hotels charge and pay through occupancy tax
• Vacancy tax
  • Encourage folks sitting on vacant property and vacant lots to develop them
  • If property owners want to keep houses or office buildings or lots bare for years on end, put a surcharge on their property taxes
  • Offer property owners who have vacant property the opportunity to sell to the city at a fair-market rate. The fair market rate doesn’t budge, however, after the property tax surcharge kicks in.
• Traffic prioritization: Pedestrians then bicycles then mass transit then cars
  • Raleigh is lousy for sidewalks outside of the downtown core. A whole lot more of the city could be walkable
  • Instead of expanding the number of traffic lanes on a given road, the city should first opt to add or expand multi-use paths for cycling, walking. Increase bus coverage and service frequency as well. Give buses protected stops and traffic priority.
• Allow multi-family structures in residential zoning
  • The proverbial mother-in-law suite, yes, but also, allow two address/two front-door buildings anywhere they currently aren’t
• City acquires and leases-back housing in East and Southeast Raleigh to local residents
  • Instead of watching what a lot of folks think is inevitable, that the predominantly black neighborhoods east and south of downtown are bought up by developers, residents evicted and redeveloped into suddenly much higher “market rate” housing, the city ought to acquire housing at-risk of gentrification, rent the houses back to their current occupants and help those occupants make improvements to the properties. Grant occupants equity
• No public tax money for exclusive private benefit
  • The city should forswear using public money to be offered as tax incentive for private businesses. E.g. the city was part of a pitch team trying to land Amazon HQ2 and part of that was likely to have been significant breaks on property taxes and providing other incentives for Amazon to locate here. Meanwhile, every regular business and homeowner pays property taxes.
  • The city should focus on answering problems around affordable housing and transit ahead of contributing money, land or other in-kind consideration for new sports facilities
  • The city should definitely not publicly finance a new professional sports arena and let a private ownership group reap the rewards of operating the arena

I want Raleigh to grow inclusively. That a resident who needs the bus to get to work, child care and other errands and fun has robust access to the city. That not only do we not gentrify historically disadvantaged neighborhood residents, but we robustly protect them and help them. That we think about getting around the city more creatively than how fast we can get sport utility crossovers down Six Forks and Falls of Neuse.

Are these the best ideas? Probably not. I fully expect there are better expressions of them, and I’ll add them and source them as I find out about them.

Constituent letter to Senator Tillis after the Sept. 27, 2018 Judiciary Committee Hearing

Thursday, 27 September, 2018 — civics

Senator Tillis,

I watched significant portions of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing involving Dr. Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh today. Between listening and catching up on recaps of the questions and testimony, I’m angry.

I’m angry and I have questions that I would greatly appreciate hearing from you on:

• Did you find Dr. Blasey Ford’s hearing truthful? If not, what specifically in her testimony was not truthful?
• Why did you abdicate your time to a hired special prosecutor for Dr. Blasey Ford?
• Were the questions asked during your time allotment the questions you submitted to be asked?
• If you did not submit those questions, who did? Why did you not use that time?
• Do you feel that Dr. Blasey Ford’s expressed wish to keep her letter confidential to Sen. Feinstein should have been respected?
• Do you feel it was inappropriate for Dr. Blasey Ford to be represented by counsel in front of the committee?
• Do you feel that Judge Kavanaugh’s opening statement reflected what a nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States would be expected to say? If this statement was from a Democrat, would you feel the same way?
• Are you concerned about Judge Kavanaugh’s non-answers to whether or not he would request an FBI investigation?
• Are you concerned about Judge Kavanaugh’s repeated disrespect of the Democratic members of the committee? If the nominee was a Democrat, would you find this behavior acceptable for any position?
• Why, after July 1, 1982 came up as a possible date for a party or gathering described by Dr. Blasey Ford, did the Republican members of the committee adjurn and then cease the use of the outside special prosecutor?
• Why did you chose to use your time with Judge Kavanaugh directly after yielding your time for Dr. Blasey Ford?
• Do you feel that other recent Supreme Court nominees have been treated unfairly during the nomination process? If so, who and why?
• Are you comfortable with the lack of public information about how Judge Kavanaugh paid off hundreds of thousands of debt suddenly in 2017?
• Are you comfortable with pressing ahead with the nomination without a full public understanding of the role Judge Kavanaugh had as a political operative in the George W. Bush administration?
• Are you comfortable voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh without requiring Mike Judge to appear before the committee?
• Are you comfortable voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh without hearing from Julie Swetnick or Deborah Ramirez and the allegations they have about Judge Kavanaugh’s behavior?
• If you will not be hearing from Mr. Judge, Ms. Swetnick or Ms. Ramirez, why not?
• If you believe the Senate has a deadline to confirm Judge Kavanaugh, what is that deadline and who imposed it?
• If “timeliness” is the issue in hearing from Ms. Swetnick or Ms. Ramirez specifically, under what circumstances would you have entertained hearing from them?
• Before you vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, will you be returning to North Carolina and meeting with constituents in person and without condition to discuss and explain your views?

Finally, while I expect your answers to my questions, I will plainly state that Judge Kavanaugh repeatedly demonstrated throughout his public confirmation hearings that he lacks forthrightness, transparency and the temperament to be on the Supreme Court. In fact, his displays today ought to call into question his fitness to sit on the Federal bench at any level.

I appreciate your prompt consideration and reply.

Your voting constituent,

Nathan L. Walls
Raleigh, NC

🔗 MRI costs: Why this surgeon is challenging NC’s certificate of need law

Tuesday, 7 August, 2018 — civics links

Dylan Scott Writing for Vox:

Dr. Gajendra Singh walked out of his local hospital’s outpatient department last year, having been told an ultrasound for some vague abdominal pain he was feeling would cost $1,200 or so, and decided enough was enough. If he was balking at the price of a routine medical scan, what must people who weren’t well-paid medical professionals be thinking?

The India-born surgeon decided he would open his own imaging center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and charge a lot less. Singh launched his business in August and decided to post his prices, as low as $500 for an MRI, on a banner outside the office building and on his website.

There was just one barrier to fully realizing his vision: a North Carolina law that he and his lawyers argue essentially gives hospitals a monopoly over MRI scans and other services.

I hope Dr. Singh’s lawsuit succeeds. American healthcare in 2018 is supposed to be driven by consumerism. Call around to different providers and determine how much you’ll pay for quality care. Choose a provider based on wherever you want to land on the quality/price matrix that accepts your insurance and you’re golden, right?

No.

Healthcare is not a market. First, not all qualified players can join the market, as is the case here. That effectively prevents Dr. Singh (and others) from putting downward pressure on prices. Second, medical pricing isn’t necessarily discoverable, transparent or negotiable.