Letter Writing via the Internet

Communicating with your elected officials is an effective way of influencing the political process in this country, especially if the effort can be coordinated with many others in a letter writing campaign.

With the advent of the Internet, this process has been made super easy. Not only that, but because so few people are using it presently, the influence of those who do is much greater.

This is how it can be done in the State of Massachusetts, for whatever progressive cause. Note: each step takes you to a new page.
 

1. Go to the web site of the Elections Division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.
2. Click on Who are my Elected Officials? This takes you to the page titled Ward, Precinct & Polling Place Search for your Massachusets Citizens.
3. You will see boxes for street number, street name and zip code. Enter that information for yourself. After doing so, click on the box that reads: Find Polling Location.
4. There will be a line that reads: To display your polling place, click on your address or click here. Click on your address.
5. This page will indicate the location of your polling (voting) place. Scroll down. Here you will see a list of all the elected officials who represent you. There are eleven, ranging from governor to senators to House representatives, both state and federal. You can click on any one of their names and be linked to their home page.
6. Each politician's home page lists their email address, postal address, party affiliation, committees, biography, et cetera. If you wish, you can add their email address to your address book. Then you will not have to repeat the above steps (at least until the next election!).

When you want to write your elected officials, you can write a letter and send it off to whichever ones you want at the touch of a button. In addition, if you want, you can produce a hard copy of the letter and send it too.

If all of us did this—and it's easy to do—we could become a formidable political lobbying group in the state. Our influence in the political process would be multiplied. If we could get our friends to join us, all the better.

So, take a deep breath. Stop reading all your email that complains about the way things are. Follow the above directions, and write a letter. If we all did this, we could make a difference.

Webmaster's note: if you send a copy of your letter to me, I will post it here. Then others can use it as a starting point in writing their own letters.