The conservative grassroots, a powerful but largely decentralized force in Republican politics, may soon be able to accrue their financial clout using VoteRight, an online fundraising platform for conservative candidates and office holders.
VoteRight, which bills itself as a “one-stop shop” for grassroots donors, was described by spokesman Russell Romond in a phone interview with Newsmax as “very different from anything [else] in the campaign finance arena.”
The group’s website, www.voteright.com, offers conservative donors the opportunity to find candidates with whom they agree on specific issues, and donate to them with the click of a button. The website’s streamlined payment processing system even allows users to donate to several candidates simultaneously with a single mouse-click.
Romond identified the gap his group aims to fill, explaining, “What we’ve seen since 2010 with the tea party and other citizen movements is that these organizations are springing up, they’re sort of decentralized, they know what they want, and they’re just trying to figure out the best way to help their candidates. And I think that we serve the need to do that.”
VoteRight’s innovations include a “Voter GPS” feature that allows donors to provide feedback on why they give money to candidates, identifying which policy positions earned their donation.
The group sees itself as a democratizing agent, amplifying and focusing the power of small-dollar donations in the electoral process. “We’re facilitating the smaller donors and trying to give them an equal platform,” Romond explained. “Big donors […] get the meetings with the incumbents, [as opposed to] someone donating $25 because they saw an appearance on [Hannity] and really likes what a candidate said […] We think it’s important for the party to understand what they’re saying and what prompted them to donate.”
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