Channeling founding father James Madison and his desire for the "people to arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives," Project Vote Smart aims to arm American voters with "quick and easy access to accurate information," according to the organization's president, Richard Kimball.
The goal of the nonprofit, non-partisan group is simple: to bypass political "caricatures" and reconnect citizens with the actual campaign issues.
Kimball, a former Democratic Arizona state senator, spoke yesterday at the Fels Institute of Government about the goals of the project.
PVS -- which prides itself on accurate and non-biased political coverage -- operates mainly through the organization's Web site, which allows people to access such information as interest group ratings, campaign contributions and "key issue" stances on as many as 40,000 of America's politicians.
This impartiality was stressed by Kimball, who ensured that the project is non-partisan.
Speaking of media "manipulation" and its ability to "effectively strip citizens ... of their right to abundant, accurate and relevant information," Kimball advocated use of PVS's services.
Kimball likened the project to, in essence, forcing "candidates to fill out an application for employment -- education, history, background."
Such measures, he claimed, give American voters the "tools to defend themselves from the self-serving hype of the candidates."
Chuck Brutsche, the associate director of the Fox Leadership Program, said that the goal in bringing Kimball to Penn's campus was "to continue exposing students to effective non-partisan organizations."
Ricky Berrin, a College senior and member of Fox Leadership, said that the Fox Speakers Forum, which included Kimball's presentation, "serve[d] two purposes: ... for people who are leaders in the community to speak about leadership ... [and] getting out the vote."
Kimball's presentation included not only the standard informational talk, but also the viewing of several political commercials and a video outlining the experience of those people who chose to, "in Peace Corps" fashion, according to Kimball, volunteer for the project.
A speaker in this video, who seemed quite enthusiastic about her involvement, spoke of PVS's volunteers "using computers to give back to democracy what television [had] taken away."
The approximately 20 audience members also received copies of The Voter's Self-Defense Manual, a publication put out by PVS to equip voters with relevant campaign information.
