When Sean Oh '04 tried to investigate the platforms of different presidential candidates in the 1996 and 2000 elections, he was surprised to discover that he couldn't find a website that provided unbiased, fundamental information about each nominee.
"I found several sites targeted to youth voters, but none of them provided impartial background information on the candidates," Oh said.
In response, in the spring of 2003 he began developing Collegevoter.org -- a website devoted to introducing each of the candidates and their stance on issues of particular interest to college students.
The site offers an overview of each candidate's positions and, for Democratic nominees, current probability of winning the primary. It also provides a history of important issues such as abortion, terrorism and affirmative action as they affect the lives of college students.
Collegevoter.org includes a section devoted to personal perspectives on politics, too. One current article, penned by Dartmouth College Republicans Vice President Torivio Fodder '05, describes Fodder's primarily Democratic roots and his reasons for choosing to be a Republican.
In the future, Oh said he hopes the site will dissect issues by providing mock debates in the form of point and counter-point discussions.
The site also simplifies the voter registration process, offering answers to frequently-asked questions about absentee voting and each state's requirements to vote. It provides a link to MTV's popular Rock the Vote program, which allows students from most states to register to vote online.
"While the site isn't yet fully functional, we are hoping to finish information about the candidates within the next few days and information about the issues within the next month," Oh said.
When more of the site is completed, website public relations manager Priscilla Zee '04 plans to begin publicizing the site's existence at Dartmouth and across the nation. She and Oh are currently in contact with Rock the Vote in hopes of getting nationwide TV promotion for their website.
To fund the site, Oh applied for and received grants from the Rockefeller Center and the Korean-American Community Foundation for $2,500 and $1,000, respectively. He used the money to buy the domain name as well as pay programmers to design the site's layout. In addition, Oh recruited the help of Zee and Andy Edwards '04.
Although Oh is a Democrat himself, the site's content goes through a panel of people with diverse views.
"While none of the people on the panel are entirely unbiased, together they ensure that the site's content doesn't lean either left or right," Oh said.
After graduation this year, Oh, a government major, said he plans to move to Washington, D.C., and become involved in the national political spectrum..
