New Email Technology Showcases the Politics of Bush and John Kerry

Users can visit www.SwingTheVote.net to easily add quick facts about the politics of Bush and John Kerry to their personal emails.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) September 28, 2004 --- Swing the Vote now brings the politics of Bush and John Kerry (http://www.swingthevote.net) to your personal email account. A diverse group of friends have contributed their talents to create this new email application that lets users choose a relevant fact about the Bush Administrations record or John Kerrys positions and add it to emails they send to friends. Called FactLink , the free application is designed to be passed on to others who will send facts to their friends, thus creating a grass roots political campaign that has the potential to educate millions of voters before November 2.

We founded Swing The Vote to educate people about the record of the Bush administration (http://www.swingthevote.net) and the promise of the Kerry campaign (http://www.swingthevote.net), neither of which is adequately being reported in the political news media," said Stefano Bini, a founder of Swing The Vote and a physician by day. If the facts about Bush and Kerry were known, we believe Democrats would be energized to help 'swing the votes of the undecided electorate."

Swing the Vote utilizes FactLink software, an email signature software program (http://www.swingthevote.net) which allows users to share facts chosen from a database by dragging and dropping" them into the body of any email. At the end of each fact is a Link back to www.SwingTheVote.net. On the website are more facts, links to their sources, and the free FactLink software. Unlike spam, chain mail, or news mail, these messages are embedded into a regular email message and are virtually guaranteed to be read.

Internet technologies and applications -- such as weblogs and local meeting software like MeetUp -- are profoundly shaping public opinion in the 2004 presidential campaign," said Brett Levine, a founder of Swing The Vote (http://www.swingthevote.net) and creator of the FactLink software and a respected software developer. Swing The Vote could contribute to these phenomena. If 4000 Swing The Vote users send out just 3 facts a day, and 2% of the recipients download the software and start sending facts themselves, we will have sent one million facts by election day."

Facts on the FactLink database are taken only from reliable sources which are cited with each fact. Users can choose a fact from areas of interest to them, including education, the economy, the war in Iraq, womens issues and others, or choose not to send a fact at all. Among the facts users can choose from:

•    FactLink: Bush claimed on 7/20/04, that "since last summer, the economy has been growing at the fastest rate in 20 years." In reality, economic growth slowed to 3%, well below the 4.1% average that has characterized non-recession quarters since 1970.

U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.

---Learn more and get FactLink software at www.swingthevote.net

•    FactLink: Despite claims that "teacher training money is up," President Bush proposed to freeze Teacher Quality State Grants -- leaving 92,000 fewer teachers trained than called for in his own No Child Left Behind bill.

House Appropriations Committee

--- Learn more and get FactLink software at www.swingthevote.net

Swing The Vote was started by a group of friends -- who are also swing dancers -- who are both concerned about the direction the Bush administration is taking the country and energized by the John Kerry campaign. Wanting to have an impact on politics and the election (http://www.swingthevote.net), the group turned to technology to find a way to spread facts about the candidates to voters in the swing states in the nation. They combined their diverse expertise in the areas of software development, web design, business, medicine, engineering, mental health and education to create Swing The Vote.

Contact:

Brett Levine, 415-550-6720, Brett@swingthevote.net (technical information, software)

Kathleen Connolly, 415-751-7933, Kathleen@swingthevote.net (content)

Stefano Bini, 415-336-9137, Stefano@swingthevote.net (public relations)

Barbara Krause

Krause Taylor Associates

408.918.9081

Barbara@krause-taylor.com

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