Any elected official, at any level of government, can become a verified responder on AskThem. It’s free, open to everyone, non-profit and non-partisan.
Brad Lander announces new legislation based on constituent question.
Over 70 elected officials nationwide have signed-up to respond, including the mayor of Austin, Texas and eight New York elected officials. There’s no cost and no contract, and it takes just a minute.
Two simple steps:
1. Register a free account on AskThem – simply use the email address where you want to receive question updates.
2. Email our community manager, maryam at askthem.io, from the email address with which you registered at AskThem, letting her know you’re signing up as an elected official (or verified Twitter account).
That’s it. Then we verify you in our system, you’ll get a green check-mark, and we’ll deliver questions that reach your signature threshold to your office.
- If you would like to discuss a custom signature threshold of your own, email Maryam to start the conversation, we’re open to the tweak.
- Your communications or social media staff may post on your behalf, or you can email a short answer to us to post for you. It’s really easy either way.
- The expectation is to answer about one popular question per month, but you may respond to as many as you like – we’ll help you choose, no worries.
NYC Council member Brad Lander, verified AskThem responder & early adopter.
Benefits for elected officials include being a leader in open-government and having your official response emailed to everyone who signed the question in support. Benefits for constituents include having a free & open-source platform for finding their local elected officials, surfacing their community issues, and pushing for a substantive public response.
For examples of how AskThem can work for your city council, see this recent answered question by NYC Council Member Brad Lander.
Help us push things forward in responsive government and close the feedback loop of local constituent communication. We already have access to official government data for more than 142,000 elected officials nationwide, and now we’re looking for more #opengov leaders to answer public questions. Questions welcome, maryam at askthem.io. Help us spread the word and encourage your city council members and mayor to signup with our non-profit platform.