One year ago today the first line of programming code was written to create Visible Vote! By coincidence it also happens to be my birthday.  Last year I skipped the standard celebration to start programming while my coworkers went out for drinks at our company meeting. Today I continue that proud tradition of skipping my birthday and believe it is only fitting to write this inaugural blog entry.

In the coming months ahead we are going to blog about a variety of different aspects of Visible Vote. We are going to talk about how we are building the company, the progress we are making in creating a more transparent and accountable government, and most importantly the voice we are hoping to create for every US citizen.

The idea of Visible Vote came to me a few weeks after Sept 19th, 2008 while speaking with my brother about the $700 billion dollar bailout and finding out first hand how difficult (if not impossible) it was to get involved in the political process AND be effective. After a couple months of design ideas I began trying to find friends to help me.

A family friend, Steven Trac, had just graduated with his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Miami. Steve struggled to find work in a terrible economy when employers were shedding thousands of jobs. I told Steve my idea and he agreed to help me create Visible Vote. I also called my brother Matthew Everton to help with the graphics, he of course had to agree. We finally found our footing and started programming on January 20th, 2009.

Steve and I programmed every night and weekend for 3 months and created the first version of Visible Vote that ran on Facebook! At first we thought Visible Vote was a great tool for keeping track of our representatives, but we quickly realized it could be used proactively as a tool to advise Congress on what people wanted before Congress voted!

We have made huge leaps in the technology in the past year! We have introduced Visible Vote on the iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android and Windows. We have created a dynamic website which contains some wonderful interactive components. We have gone to great lengths to make sure out data is accurate. And so much more…

We have now built quite an amazing group of people around Visible Vote, and I look forward to telling you about them and the future of our company. Our ultimate hope is to make Visible Vote the most empowering tool the voter has ever seen and we have tons of great ideas for the coming year!