Election Day has to be one of my favorite days of the year. There is no other day where you get to stand in line with your neighbors to express your commitment to your country and the freedom of democracy. It’s more electric than any other day (aside from the 2004 Red Sox World Series win), creating a sense of connectivity with the people we call Americans. But after the voting is done and a winner is declared there is still more that can be done by ordinary citizens.

The role of citizenship, especially in the age of the Internet, is constantly expanding to allow ordinary people - regular Joe Six-Packs - to have a voice in the political process. To be able to have that voice, people need access to the political activities that occur in between election days.

I’ve always viewed the Sunlight Foundation as providing a means for more Americans to have a voice when Congress is in session or while the next President plans their transition. The projects that we put out, the data we digitize, and the sites we support are meant to provide more information for every citizen so that they can hold their elected officials’ feet to fire well after election day. And the more information we make available, the more transparency we have in government, the more fire we have to hold under their feet.

So, vote, but don’t just vote. Election Day is the beginning of the political process, its continuation carries until the next election. There are so many resources online that can help you follow whether politicians keep their promises or how legislation that you cared about during the election is faring in Congress afterwords. Our Insanely Useful Web Sites is a great starting point for places to track what’s going on in government and who is trying to influence your elected officials.

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Who are we? What are we doing here? If you ever wanted a great answer to these questions from the Sunlight Foundation, here it is.

During the Personal Democracy Forum Conference in New York earlier this year, Tim O’Brien of O’Reilly Media talked with a number of our staff (Gabriela Schneider, John Wonderlich, Greg Elin, and Josh Ruihley) about what we do and how we do it. It’s a really great interview. You can listen below (run time approx. 27 min.):

O’Reilly Interview with Sunlight Foundation

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I don’t know about you but I never have enough time in the morning to catch up on all the government transparency Web sites that I follow. But our staff has become really big on services like Netvibes which offer a great way to custom-build a Web page around the news and information you like to stay on top of using RSS feeds and widgets.

So the Sunlight communications team (thanks, Lizzie!)  has created just such a customized bird’s eye view of what’s happening with our projects and grantees. Sunlight’s Netvibes Universe is now available as a public collection of the RSS feeds and widgets created by Sunlight and our partners. Head over to Sunlight’s Universe (how epic, right?), to become Sunlight’s friend, to keep up with the latest news from the major players in the sphere of online government information or to cherry pick the feeds you want to follow. You can also find Sunlight’s presence on social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, and grab widgets from the Sunlight government transparency “ecosystem.”

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Sunlight’s Bill Allison was on Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN last night discussing the Bridge to Nowhere and the votes cast for the Bridge by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Watch the video:

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Today, we are launching a new Web site, Party Time, a project to track parties thrown at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions as well as fund raising activities by all lawmakers running for Congress that happen all year round in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

The count of parties and events we’ve heard about scheduled for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions is now above 400-and counting. As we noted the other week, here, these convention parties are often sponsored by corporate interests such as Citi, Eli Lilly and Qwest, as well as powerhouse lobbying firms such as Patton Boggs. They continue despite new ethics reforms intended to rein in excesses of special interest bashes for members of Congress. Many of these party hosts are also sponsors of the conventions’ host committees, major donors to federal candidates and party committees and are also big spenders on federal lobbying.

So, for example:

AT&T is hosting more than a dozen parties at both conventions, most of them parties for different state delegations. The company is also underwriting both the Democratic and GOP Convention committees, and happens to be the #2 top donor to federal and candidates and parties since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. AT&T has spent more than $3 million on federal campaign contributions and lobbying combined in 2008 alone, 60% of which is directed to the GOP. It has also spent another $3.2 million on federal lobbying.

Qwest’s CEO, Ed Mueller, is hosting an event at the Denver Art Museum on Monday, August 25. The company is also giving the Democratic and GOP Convention host committees a total of some $12 million in direct and in-kind contributions. Qwest has given $682,000 to federal candidates and parties so far this election cycle, and spent $1.7 million on lobbying.

A long list of financial service powerhouses are sponsoring a “financial literacy brunch” at the Democratic National Convention, including Allstate, AEGON, Bank of America, Capitol One, Charles Schwab, Edward Jones, Fidelity, Genworth, MasterCard, Mutual of Omaha, Nationwide, Principal Financial Group, State Farm, NASDAQ, US Bank, Visa, Wachovia and Wells Fargo. These companies are major campaign contributors and lobbying forces in Washington.

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Bush. Energy. Oil. Caribbean? These were the most frequently uttered words in Congress last week, brought to you courtesy of Sunlight’s latest Web site, Capitol Words. Now, you can have an at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available — a single word.

For every day that Congress is in session, Capitol Words displays the most frequently used word in the Congressional Record, dating back to the second session of the 106th Congress (January 20, 2000). (The Congressional Record, published daily, is a complete account of the floor proceedings of the House and Senate.)

We created Capitol Words to make it easy to know what issues Congress is addressing on a daily basis. Whether the congressional word of the day matches up to an issue, an action or the name of a member of Congress, Capitol Words provides a snapshot of the main topic addressed by Congress for any given day. By looking at the site’s calendar view, it’s obvious that ‘energy’ has been a hot topic in Congress this month.

Capitol Words is powered by LOUIS which scraped the Congressional Record on GPO Access. Our Labs also created an API so you can incorporate the word of the day in your applications.

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Earlier today, Lawrence Lessig spoke about Change Congress at the Free Press’ fourth annual National Conference for Media Reform, being held this year in Minneapolis. As always, Larry gave a killer speech. You can watch an earlier speech he gave at the National Press Club in March when he launched Change Congress here. Which reminds me…

Not to be missed: In the current edition of The Nation, Christopher Hayes, the magazine’s Washington editor, profiles Larry and Change Congress. It’s an extensive profile and a good read. (And I say this not only because he quotes me!) You don’t have to take my word for it, Cory Doctorow called the profile "fantastic." Hayes writes "playing David to various Goliaths (armed with a laptop as slingshot) is the defining narrative of Lessig’s career." If you’re a Lessig fan, it’s a must read.  If you’re unfamiliar with this bona fide and burgeoning cult hero, check it out…And join the revolution!

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I’m at my second of the mega conferences that are put on by the folks at Free Press - the National Conference on Media Reform. It’s an amazing gathering (this year in tornado beset Minneapolis) of experts, average citizens and advocates. It’s actually hard to pick which panel to attend — I’ve never seen so few people hanging out in the halls, which is certainly a tribute to the program itself. This year there are for more panels and experts on what’s happening online - sessions on social networking, citizen journalism, legislation 2.0. You can watch many of the sessions live.

Micah Sifry, our senior strategic consultant, is using his new Nokia phone/video tool to upload conversations we are having with some of the people here directly to Qik.com

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So what will this really mean? OpenSecret.org has the answer.

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Earlier this week, Daniel De Groot, writing at Open Left, linked to a fascinating 23-minute TED lecture given by technology futurist Ray Kurzweil. In the lecture, Kurzweil gives a mind-blowing display of how technological progress is happening exponentially and not linearly. De Groot says he hopes people will think about the impact this revolution will have on politics. This is worth watching

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