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California Proposition Web Sites Easy to Find Online

OAKLAND, CALIF. (Feb. 10, 2000) -- With the March 7 California election fast approaching, voters are turning to the Internet to educate themselves about the propositions. But finding the right Web sites can be hard, especially when campaigns use Web addresses such as www.FairVote2000.com (which proposition is that?) or www.nota-cal.com (what the heck is that?)

Now 20 campaign Web sites either supporting or opposing the 20 propositions on the March ballot are easy to find because an Oakland-based Internet company has given every site the shortest, most easy-to-remember Web address for free. Click on www.YesOn25.com, and you'll find proponents of Prop 25. Click on www.NoOn22.com to find opponents of Prop 22. If a Web site exists for a particular side of a campaign, you'll find it by using the number and its corresponding dot-com address. (After March 2000, these URL's will no longer click through to the subscribing campaigns.)

"Not even the most well-educated voter has an easy time keeping all these propositions straight," said Christine Lavin, CEO and Diva of Democracy at e-Elections.com. "This simply makes it easier to find California's numerous ballot initiatives.

"I heard Gov. Gray Davis say that we had former Gov. Hiram Johnson to thank for our initiative process because it was Hiram who invented it back in 1911," Lavin added. "I like to think that we have e-Elections to thank for making it easier to find them with today's technology."

e-Elections offers more than 250 free Web addresses for use by any issue-oriented campaign identified by any letter or number 1 to 100, with the hope that it will encourage voter participation and inspire political campaigns to use the Internet. e-Elections is a for-profit dot-com company without the huge venture capital necessary to afford those expensive Super Bowl advertisements last month.

"Instead, we're banking on simplicity, just like Hiram did," Lavin said.

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For a photo and mini biography of the Progressive Hiram Johnson (pretty interesting fellow), visit http://www.infospect.com/govs.html#JohnsonH

To read about the California Progressive movement, visit http://www.sfsu.edu/~hsa/ex-post-facto/primary.html