How “green” will this election season be? Medill journalism graduate students Brian Boyer and Ryan Mark today launched Envirovote, a project which aims to show the potential environmental impact of the 2008 elections. They’re examining Congressional elections in all 50 states in the context of candidate endorsements made by environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Republicans for Environmental Protection.
The site’s home page features a meter bar currently set to zero. That will change as election results come in tonight. You can also view races by state, with links to specific eco-group endorsements given to specific candidates. The Envirovote team will Twitter races results as they come in. (Follow Envirovote)
According to the site, “The candidate in a race with the most endorsements is considered friendliest to the environment. When the race is decided, if the environmentally friendly candidate won the race, then the meter registers a win for the environment.”
But the analysis goes deeper than that. Below the meter bar is a percentage figure. That’s where Envirovote gauges the level of enviromintiness of the 2008 elections. Boyer defines enviromintiness as “The freshness of the breath of the nation. Technically, this is the percent change in the eco-friendliness of this year’s elections compared to the last applicable elections for the same seats.”
Here’s how it works: “For example, in a race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, we look back to the election two years ago. If two years ago the friendly candidate lost, and this year…
- The friendly candidate won, then the win counts towards environmintiness.
- The friendly candidate lost again, then the race is neutral.
“On the other hand, if two years ago the friendly candidate won, and this year…
- The friendly candidate won again, then the race is neutral.
- The friendly candidate lost, then the loss counts against environmintiness.
“We give each environmentally-friendly win one point, and add up the points for the current and previous races. We then subtract the previous points from the current points and divide by the number of races that we’re comparing. This figure, multiplied by 100, represents the overall environmintiness of the elections.”
Before the economic crisis cranked up to full blast, the environment (especially climate change) had been one of the top issues on voters’ minds. Tools like Envirovote can help news orgs and voters keep track of important issues that get blown out of the headlines.
