eVoter.com Announces the Launch of the Illinois Republican Party Online Presidential Straw Poll

HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Oct. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- eVoter.com today announced the launch of the Illinois Republican Party's online Straw Poll website: www.illinoisstrawpoll.com.  The online portion of the Illinois Straw Poll will be powered by eVoter.  The site will allow all Illinois Republicans to vote online during the week before the paper balloting, which will take place at GOP county headquarters throughout the state on November 5, 2011.

The online straw poll, which is based on eVoter's regular sample ballot, will have unique features.  All of the qualified Presidential candidates are invited to sign up for interactive profiles on the site, where they will be able to not only fill out candidate statements, but can link to their websites, but also link directly to their Facebook pages, videos and press articles, as well as to their contribution pages.  In addition, organizations in Illinois can sign up to show which candidate they've endorsed and voters will be able to search this on the ballot.

"We are honored that we were asked by the Illinois Republican Party to power their Online Presidential Straw Poll," said Adam Kravitz, CEO of eVoter, Inc.  "Even though we are a non-partisan voter information site, part of our mission is to provide online tools to any party or organization.  In the 2010 Illinois primary and general elections over 10% of the voters used eVoter to find their polling places and sample ballots and we've become a trusted political resource in the state.  This is an opportunity for Illinois Republicans to try out a new and improved version of our website in anticipation of the 2012 elections."

"The Illinois Republican Party chose eVoter because we offered them the platform for a truly interactive straw poll.  Republican Voters and Presidential candidates will have a unique opportunity to connect with each other online, including making contributions, through the candidates' eVoter profiles," said Kravitz.  "There are at least 2 million potential Republican voters in Illinois and the online straw poll offers them a chance to reach a broad base of supporters in a state which shares media markets with Iowa."

Online voting will be open from 9:00 am CT on October 29th until 7:00 pm CT on November 5th.  Voters will be able to view the online Straw Poll ballot in order to review the candidate profiles and endorsements beginning today.  The in person paper voting, run by the Illinois GOP, will take place from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm on November 5th.  The results will from both online and paper will be combined and announced during the evening of November 5th.

Republican voters who want to participate in the Straw Poll, either online or in person, must be Illinois Residents (for online voting, they must have a credit card with an Illinois zip code) and contribute $5 to the Illinois Republican Party.  The Illinois GOP have kept this low enough to encourage individuals to participate.  Presidential candidate profiles are free, but they have to sign up and put up their own content.  Organization charges are $100 for local organizations and $1,000 for statewide organizations and they will be able to keep their profiles live on eVoter for the entire 2012 cycle.

The Republican Presidential candidates appearing on the straw poll ballot are (in alphabetical order): Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum.

For more information, including the full rules of the Illinois Straw Poll, go to:  www.illinoisstrawpoll.com.

About eVoter, Inc.:

eVoter is the unbiased, non-partisan election information site where voters can generate a personalized sample ballot instantly, view candidate profiles, make contributions, view organizational endorsements, find polling places, download absentee ballot applications, and more. eVoter is designed with the goal of providing voters with concise unbiased information on every candidate and measure on their ballot.  For more information visit www.eVoter.com or call (866) 976-0555

SOURCE eVoter.com