FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 3, 1994

CONTACT: Kim Alexander (916) 325-2120

CAMPAIGN INFORMATION FOR 32 CALIFORNIA STATEWIDE CANDIDATES

SACRAMENTO --- The California Voter Foundation announced today that new information from candidates in all of California's nine statewide races is now available in the California Online Voter Guide, an electronic resource of voting information accessible to the public free of charge on the Internet. The guide is also now accessible through America Online and World Wide Web.

The California Voter Foundation (CVF) first unveiled the Online Voter Guide on October 4, 1994. In the first 25 days of availability on Pacific Bell's server, the Online Voter Guide was logged into over five thousand times, and over 20,000 files were opened. "We are extremely pleased that so many people are using our service," said Kim Alexander, Executive Director of the California Voter Foundation. "We expect usage rates will increase dramatically as we approach November 8," she added.

The California Online Voter Guide may be accessed in the following ways:

GOPHER: the address string is gopher.kn.pacbell.com. At a command prompt, type: gopher gopher.kn.pacbell.com. In a menu-driven gopher program, type the letter "o" (for open) to get to a prompt that allows you to type in the address string.

AMERICA ONLINE: Enter the Internet Center (type keyword: Internet), select "gopher" and choose the category "Government and Politics". Then select "California Voters' Guide".

WORLD WIDE WEB: Our site can be accessed through the Political Participation Project: http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/ppp/home.html

The California Online Voter Guide now contains information from ninety percent of the major-party candidates and half of the minor party candidates running statewide this year. In all, 32 candidates in the nine statewide races supplied biographies, press releases, endorsements, speeches and position papers, either electronically or on computer disk. Information currently available in the California Online Voter Guide includes:

Detailed information provided by the following candidates in California's nine statewide races:

• U.S. Senate
• Dianne Feinstein - Democrat
• Barbara Blong - Green
• Richard Boddie - Libertarian
• Linh Dao - Independent (Write-in)

Governor

• Kathleen Brown - Democrat
• Pete Wilson - Republican
• Glora la Riva - Peace and Freedom
• Richard Rider - Libertarian

Lieutenant Governor

• Gray Davis - Democrat
• Cathie Wright - Republican
• Robert Lewis - American Independent
• Bob New - Libertarian
• Daniel Moses - Green

Secretary of State

• Tony Miller - Democrat
• Bill Jones - Republican
• Peggy Christensen - Libertarian
• Dorothy Robbins - American Independent

Treasurer

Phil Angelides, Democrat
• Matt Fong - Republican
• Jon Petersen - Libertarian
• Jan Tucker - Peace and Freedom

Controller

• Tom McClintock - Republican
• Cullene Marie Lang - Libertarian

Attorney General

• Tom Umberg - Democrat
• Dan Lungren - Republican
• Richard Burns - Libertarian

Insurance Commissioner

• Art Torres - Democrat
• Chuck Quackenbush - Republican
• Ted Brown - Libertarian
• A. Jacques - American Independent

Superintendent of Public Instruction

• Delaine Eastin
• Maureen DiMarco

• Endorsements of statewide candidates and ballot measures from major California newspapers.

• Job descriptions for all statewide offices, including duties of office, salary and past and present officeholders

• California Journal magazine reviews of all statewide races, and California propositions 181 - 188

• Platforms of California's six political parties

• The Easy Reader Voter Guide, produced by the Center for Civic Literacy and California library programs

• Access to the Digital Equipment Corp/CA Secretary of State gopher, which contains the state Ballot Pamphlet, and will be posting election night results

• Access to the Project Vote Smart gopher, which provides voting records, campaign issue positions, interest group ratings, and campaign finance data on Congressional candidates

The California Online Voter Guide will remain available on Pacific Bell's server for one month after the election.

The California Online Voter Guide is one of a handful of new voter education services cropping up nationwide on the Internet, all of which can be accessed through the Political Participation Project Web Page. A few of these non-partisan projects include the Digital Equipment Corp/CA Secretary of State Web page and gopher server; the Voter Online Information and Communication Exchange (VOICE); Project Vote Smart; and the Minnesota Electronic Democracy Project.

"We are now in the embryonic stages of developing this technology to promote voter awareness," Alexander said. "From the variety of online voter education projects underway this year, we will learn a lot about how this medium can be even more effective in the future to create an informed and engaged electorate," she added.

The California Online Voter Guide was funded through contributions from Oracle, the Intel Foundation, the California Teachers Association, Pacific Telesis, Pacific Bell, Pacific Gas and Electric, GTE, Apple, AT&T and Macworld. The California Voter Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)3 organization founded in 1989 by former California Secretary of State March Fong Eu. Comments, questions and feedback about the Online Voter Guide can be sent via email to: ovg@kn.pacbell.com.

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