Decatur Vote launched in July 2022 after 9 months of development. I conducted 10 interviews and researched an additional 3 candidates online for 2022. I got off-track from elections a couple times & did not work as efficiently as I hoped. Roughly 17 local candidates were not reported on. I under-performed with pre-election and post-election efforts. I'm excited for the next season of elections, coming updates to the website, and additional reporting I plan to do. Financially, it was a flop & I'm not sure how to fix that.
I got the idea for Decatur Vote in 2019 or 2020 (I don't remember which) on election day when I tried to look up local candidates last minute, but could not find any useful information. I found a couple articles that listed SOME names, but no useful platform information. I developed the idea a little bit in months that followed, but didn't hard commit until November 2021. Then, I started programming nearly full time until launch.
I'm embarassed it took me 8 full months of development to publish the site, which I'm still unhappy with in many ways. I could have used no-code tools or an existing platform like Wordpress, but instead coded everything from scratch, using tools I had created in the past as well as new tools I programmed along the way. I'm a programmer at heart; what can I say? I plan to use these tools for future endeavors as well.
Interviews & Writeups
I'm not a natural journalist, though I've done some biased activist writing over the last few years. I still harbor much of my introversion from younger years, so nagging candidates for interviews can be very draining. Just doing the outreach has required a lot of emotional work on my part. However, I really enjoy the political aspects of it - figuring out what questions to ask & filling my head with information.
Interviews usually took 30+ minutes. I conducted 10 in total, and each one took between 2 and 4 full work days to write up. I interviewed 5 county board candidates, 1 clerk, 2 treasurer, and 2 judicial candidates. Two judicial candidates and 17 county board candidates were unfortunately not interviewed. I did not try to interview the sheriff or superintendent, because they were unopposed. I reached out to nearly every local candidate.
Some agreed to an interview, but they dropped the ball. Many did not respond to my requests. In two cases, I dropped the ball after a candidate asked to re-schedule their interview. After the time-related issues & low candidate participation, I decided to set up a questionnaire. I spent a few days programming it, then once again reached out to most remaining candidates.
Five County Board candidates and one Lieutenant Governor candidate agreed to do the questionnaire, but did not follow through after I sent them the link. I wrote up 2 additional County Board candidates. I researched a third, nearly finished his writeup (probably my best), then got sidetracked by the Jamontey Neal story I wrote, & I never published the candidate writeup.
I'm not sure how to address these issues. I need to make more time for writeups. I need to be more persistent. Perhaps I need to ask readers to help out & encourage candidates to do these interviews. Perhaps I need easier questionnaires that are less poignant and policy-focused, a change I likely won't make. This is something I think about a lot & hope I will have more success this season.
I wish I had funding to hire journalists, but with two sponsors so far, this is quite a ways off. I am INCREDIBLY grateful for my two sponsors, as well as a few folks who have sponsored past efforts of mine. It means the world to me and keeps me going.
Pre-Election & Post-Election efforts
I really dropped the ball on pre-election efforts. I was writing up a County Board candidate when DPD released the body cam footage of the Jamontey Neal incident. I put my other efforts on hold to cover that, due to somewhat dishonest and completely uncritical reporting from mainstream local outlets. That story was important, but it's not what I set out to do.
I would have liked to finish the last candidate's writeup, then work on a 2022 Election Guide. The Guide would have listed all offices & candidates, with summaries of any that I had previously written up. This would have been immensely useful to anyone not voting on party lines. Even if I had done that, it was a bit too late to circulate.
Last week, after the election, I wrote up results in two different articles. They were both long reads and were not digestible. Yesterday, I published an infographic as a MUCH better overview of results. I'm relatively happy with these efforts, but I could have been more timely with the infographic & let the articles follow after.
2023 Elections are coming. Petition signatures for some offices are due November 28th. I published that today, November 17th. That's a little late for anyone wanting to run. I would have liked to prepare a nice Candidates' Guide and published in August, after the State put out their lengthy PDF document that covers everything.
2023 Election Season
I'm excited for the 2023 elections. I now have almost four months of experience running Decatur Vote publicly. I'm better at interviews. I'm better at writing. I have a good idea of where I've failed & where I've succeeded.
I think I'll be more efficient with candidate writeups. I hope to do more non-partisan informational canvassing. I'm not as scared about reaching out for interviews. I've been doing this for a few months, and I'm largely past the imposter syndrome I had when I launched.
And I have some time.
Additional Reporting
For a long time, I've wanted to run a weekly news recap. There is so much local news, and it is near impossible to keep up with unless you make it your job to do so or just really enjoy reading the paper every day... and even then, you'll miss things, as there are several outlets, including Facebook feeds from public offices.
This is still just a hopeful, and I don't truly know if I'll be able to make time for it. I'd also like to consolidate links & summarize important stories relevant to our community.
For example, a dedicated page about the new Dennis Lab School that DPS wanted to build. I don't want to do original reporting on that, but it would be great to summarize the issue, provide a timeline, and link to others' reporting about it.
Coming Website Updates
There's a lot about the website I'm happy with. Every candidate has their own page. Every office up for election has their own page. I can publish articles. I mostly like the design, though that is subjective. Share & Follow buttons are on every page, but they're not obstructive.
There's nice 'breadcrumbs' at the top of most pages. Meaning: If you're on a candidate's page, there's a link at the top left to the office they're running for, and a link to the election page, and a link to the home page.
The bottom menu is nice & functional. The 'recent pages' feature is my favorite. The 'main menu' gets the job done. The 'user' button and 'notifications' buttons are nearly useless, though.
I don't run ads. I don't have paywalls, except a few supplementary things I only publish on Patreon.
There's also a lot I'd like to improve or change. I intend to spend the rest of 2022 mainly working on updates to the website before focusing on more journalism, come 2023. It's likely not enough time for all the changes I want. But hopefully there will be big improvements.
A long list of features to add
Much of the site is cumbersome. There's not a good 'overview' of candidates, so you have to click a link to each candidate page, then return to the office, then go to the next candidate. There's no filtering by district. There's no SEARCH, for heck's sake.
I could go on and on with my complaints, but let me just focus on what I want. Everybody should be able to sign in. I want to enable comments. I want you to be able to select your districts & see an overview of just YOUR candidates. I want to add a feature suggestions... feature. My contact pages are functional, but I just don't like them.
I'd like to add accessibility settings - to change colors at the very least. A special accessibility menu would be great, for keyboard-only users, but I doubt that'll make the cut.
On candidate pages, opponents should be listed. Public offices should have their own pages, independent from elections. People should have their own pages, independent from their candidacy. The contact information, donation information, & meeting information footers on candidate & office pages should be ... better.
I want to list ballot measures. I want to add a 'Stories' feature that allows me to show a summary, timeline, and links to others' articles about a particular topic. 'People' pages could function similarly.
I need proper file uploads for myself. News Tips (from the public). I built a really nice Question & Answer feature that went unused. I want the public to be able to submit questions for candidates. Candidates should be able to sign in and answer them.
Search is an obvious feature to add. On-site notifications could use some work. I'd like to start an email list & send announcements.
I would really like 'issue summaries' to list candidate positions on popular issues like cannabis dispensaries, police funding, property taxes, and more.
There's probably other features I'm forgetting to enumerate here. As you can see, the list of improvements I want is long. I wish I could program these full time, but with no funding for journalists, I'm stuck doing it all myself.
Financial flop, low readership
I don't run ads and I don't want to. I don't run paywalls and I'm not going to. I do have a Patreon where I post a few pieces of supplementary information that might be useful to deep-divers but will not be helpful to the general public.
At the time of writing, Decatur Vote has 50 followers on Facebook, 1 Patreon subscriber at about $10 per month, and has had one sponsor on PayPal for a one-time $20 contribution. These contributions mean the world to me. However, I work nearly full time on this and would like to make a living wage so I can continue working on DV for years to come.
This means I need more sponsors, or other forms of revenue. First, readers. I had plans to do non-partisan informational canvassing prior to the 2022 election, but that eats into journalism time, so I only went out once.
I don't make daily fluff posts and I don't want to. I'm not trying to be a social media busy-body. I'm trying to provide good information about candidates and not spam people with things they don't need.
Marketing wise, there's a lot I could do though. Canvassing could be huge. If I had funding, I could buy ad space on radio, online, or in print. Without funding, I could speak at community meetings. I could stick flyers on phone polls.
Money wise ... I considered selling merchandise, but that's not of interest to me. Decatur Vote is not a T-Shirt company or an office supplies store. I'm environmentally conscious and don't want to sell products that don't add the core value of Decatur Vote. Decatur Vote is a political news company, and I want to stay in that lane.
However, T-Shirt sales, at the very least could further DV's goals. The income & marketing would be good. But also, I could put election dates on shirts to encourage people to go vote in Municipal elections.
I initially have set out to run DV as a for-profit company, largely because it is a simple legal structure. I have never had interest in making large profits with DV or selling to a bigger company. I've been strongly considering incorporating as a 501(c)3 Not For Profit, which would open me up to tax-deductible donations & grant-related funding.
Being a 501(c)3 adds additional challenges though. First of all, I would have to have a 3 person board at minimum. Second, 501(c)3's are legally barred from being partisan. I try to run DV as a non-partisan outlet, but I fear that could be legally complex as my writing may show somewhat of a bias. I'm not a lawyer & I can't afford one, so this is hard to assess.
Third, paying myself is more complex as a 501(c)3. Right now, I'm a sole proprietor, so any money that comes in can just go in my pocket - and I have to file my personal tax return accordingly. As a 501(c)3, I'd have to function as an employee, volunteer, or contractor. It's illegal to pay less than minimum wage, so I'd have to serve as a contractor. I'm not a lawyer or accountant, so I'm afraid that could get me into a bind, especially if I'm also serving on the board.
Anyway. I don't have the financial aspect figured out. I live with family rent-free and I work odd jobs to afford basic needs and some things I enjoy. This leaves me incredibly poor though, which is hard. So I need to figure out the financial aspect. And I think DV is incredibly valuable, so I'm not ready to walk away from it for regular employment.
I would appreciate your sponsorship, but I don't write this to guilt anybody or encourage contributions. I'm genuinely just trying to report on the how Decatur Vote has gone and what the future might look like.
Conclusion
There's a lot more I could add, but I think I've covered most of it. I plan to update the website over the next month and a half, then get back to work on journalism in January. I plan to see DV through April 2023. I really need to get some revenue so I can afford to live my life and sustain this work.
If you made it this far, thank you so much. If you have any suggestions or feedback, I'd love to hear it. You can contact me here, or leave anonymous feedback.