Capitol Advantage, Top Web Sites Implement 'C-Mail' to Help Users Communicate with Congress

4/10/2002

From: Talia Inbar of Golin/Harris, 703-741-7508 tinbar@golinharris.com

FAIRFAX, Va., April 10 -- Capitol Advantage, a global leader of Internet-based political tools and services, announced today that AOL (AOL), MSN and Yahoo! (YHOO), the Web's most trafficked destinations, have implemented "C-Mail (Constituent e-mail)" to help Internet users communicate successfully with Congress. Capitol Advantage says the vast majority of e-mail sent to Congress is automatically rejected, but that it's a problem that can easily be addressed.

"As much as 90 percent of the email Americans try to send their elected leaders never reaches the official addressed because senders don't identify themselves as constituents or don't include a full postal address," said Kourosh Karimkhany, senior producer, Yahoo! News. "Our mission is to greatly improve those odds for users interested in effecting change. C-Mail offers a direct way to do this."

C-Mail is electronic mail that has been formatted in accordance with the requirements of Congressional offices-every C-Mail includes the full name and postal address of a bona fide constituent for easy recognition and Congressional response. C-Mail also meets the recommendations of the Congress Online Project, a joint research project between the Congressional Management Foundation and the George Washington University, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts to help congressional offices improve online communications with constituents.

"By adopting C-Mail, we can play a role in helping our users and Congress manage what can be a frustrating communication experience," said James Vaughn, director of government and politics for AOL. "With C-Mail, constituents break through the clutter, and work time for Congressional staffers can be reduced."

C-Mail can readily be accessed via AOL's "Government Guide" (http://www.governmentguide.com/main.adp); Slate on MSN (http://capwiz.com/msn/home/) and Yahoo!'s "Issues and Action" section (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index&cid=703&/?u)

Visitors to all three sites can learn about current political issues and research congressional voting records, identify their elected leaders and send their C-Mail messages to Congress.

"With C-Mail available at AOL, MSN and Yahoo!, every American can use familiar means of accessing the Web to ensure a greater chance getting their voices heard in Congress," said Bob Hansan, president of Capitol Advantage.

According to the Congress Online Project, Congress faces difficult challenges to adopting the Internet as a primary vehicle for constituent communication. Some of those challenges deal with internal attitudes and capabilities while others deal directly with the way the public uses the Internet to communicate with Congress. C-Mail supports the recommendations of the Congress Online Project, ensuring constituent communication reaches congress and enabling Congress to effectively process, streamline and respond to electronic communication.

-- C-Mail is easily recognizable-only bona fide constituents send C-Mail

-- C-Mail saves Congressional staff time. Because each C-Mail includes the sender's full postal address, staffers spend less time on data entry and database creation.

-- C-Mail is a highly effective constituent outreach tool for Congress. Staffers can easily create mailing lists just by using the features of software programs already in use, and reciprocate constituents' interest with proactive electronic updates or newsletters.

About Capitol Advantage (http://www.capitoladvantage.com)

Capitol Advantage has successfully been connecting people to their elected officials since 1986. Capitol Advantage and its award-winning online grassroots legislative action tool, CapWiz(tm), increase civic participation by connecting citizens to their elected officials, allowing them to educate themselves on the issues; identify their elected representatives at the state and federal level; communicate their views to their lawmakers via targeted e-mail, letter, fax, and much more. CapWiz powers the Web sites of the Internet's three most trafficked sites, eight of the ten most influential and powerful organizations as named by Fortune Magazine, and nearly 1,000 associations, corporations, media outlets and web portals.