CVF History

Founded in 1994

The California Voter Foundation (CVF) was started in 1994 by Kim Alexander, after she realized the Internet presented a unique opportunity to make improvements to our system of democracy. The organization was established as an independent 501(c)(3) whose mission was to "shape a more informed and engaged electorate by emphasizing the use of new technologies."

Awards & Honors

• 2004 Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award recipient (Kim Alexander)

• 2002 Webby Award Nominee

• Campaigns & Elections, Best Sites of 2000

• 1999 Webby Award Winner

• 1999 Computerworld Smithsonian Award Nominee

• 1997 Webby Award Nominee

• 1996 James Madison Freedom of Information Award Winner

• 1996 National Information Infrastructure Award Semifinalist

Growing in the 1990s and early 2000s

The California Voter Foundation has worked to improve democracy through the responsible use of new technologies since its founding in 1994, providing Californians with nonpartisan election and government information on the Web, and raising awareness of emerging democracy and technology issues in California and beyond.

The scope of CVF's work has expanded over the years to include advocating for better campaign finance disclosure and modeling new disclosure resources; developing innovative voter education materials for voters across the country; and studying cutting-edge digital democracy issues such as Internet voting and online political communication.

CVF in 2005

Today, eleven years after its founding, the California Voter Foundation is comprised of three full-time staff and an eight-member board of directors. We are guided by a mission statement and program goals. Our supporters include a variety of charitable foundations and a number of individual donors.

We continue to provide the nonpartisan voter information Californians have come to rely on from CVF each election year, and we also work on a range of digital democracy issues, from campaign finance disclosure and voter engagement, to voter privacy and voting technology.

Timeline

• 2004 -- CVF debuts its newly redesigned Web site at calvoter.org on the occasion of the organization's ten-year anniversary; the site has hundreds of thousands off visitors and several millions page views during the election year.

• 2003 -- CVF publishes Grading State Disclosure, a comprehensive evaluation of campaign disclosure in the 50 states; CVF provides voters with information about California's historic Recall election; CVF President Kim Alexander serves on the state's Ad Hoc Touch Screen Voting Task Force.

• 2002 -- CVF produces two more California Online Voter Guides, a Directory of California Voting Systems, and a new set of political district maps; together with the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of Law, CVF launches the Campaign Disclosure Project.

• 2001 -- CVF debuts the Archive of Campaign Promises, giving voters a tool to better track the performance of their elected officials; the organization moves to new offices in Davis, California.

• 2000 -- The California Online Voter Guide logs over 1.5 million page views over the year; CVF's "Proposition Song" gets national airtime; CVF provides election information online for all 50 states through the Web, White & Blue project.

• 1999 -- CVF produces the Digital Sunlight Awards, evaluating campaign finance disclosure efforts in the 50 U.S. states; the organization's Web site at calvoter.org wins the prestigious Webby Award; CVF President Kim Alexander serves on the California Internet Voting Task Force.

• 1998 -- CVF builds an Internet database of statewide contributions and identifies the top ten contributors to California campaigns; calvoter.org logs a total of one million page views in 1998.

• 1997 -- CVF steers "digital sunlight" to success when the California legislature passes the Online Disclosure Act, a landmark bill requiring state campaigns to disclose contributions and expenditures on the Internet.

• 1996 -- CVF breaks new ground with "Late Contribution Watch", data-entering last-minute California campaign contributions and posting daily tallies on the Internet; CVF's voter guide logs 200,000 page views.

• 1995 -- CVF produces the world's first real-time, Internet campaign finance database for San Francisco's municipal election, demonstrating how mandatory electronic filing can improve campaign disclosure.

• 1994 -- Kim Alexander founds the California Voter Foundation; CVF publishes the first edition of its California Online Voter Guide, which logs 36,000 page views over a five-week period.

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This page was first published on February 12, 2004 | Last updated on January 27, 2006
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