What is POPVOX?
ALPA is providing Popvox as a tool for our members and their friends and
families to contact Congress about pilot partisan issues. Unlike our “Call to
Action” system, you do not need an ALPA member log in to use POPVOX.
What makes POPVOX different?
What POPVOX does—delivering messages to Congress electronically through
Congressional offices’ webforms—is not unique. What makes POPVOX unique is that
they:
1. Verify constituent addresses (so that
Congressional offices are assured that it’s coming from a constituent);
2. Focus comments on specific bills pending before Congress (rather than
accepting comments on broad subject like “the environment” or “guns”;
3. Discourage form letters from constituents, but instead give our users an
opportunity to simply “support” or “oppose” a bill if they don’t want to write a
personal comment.
These features certainly add value and are appreciated by Congressional
offices.
POPVOX asks for a lot of personal information. How can I be sure that I
trust you?
POPVOX asks for detailed contact information, including your home address and
in some cases your phone number, because they need this in order to ensure that
your message to Congress reaches the appropriate Congressional office.
Popvox has recently introduced a new, cutting-edge privacy policy that shows
you exactly what POPVOX can see about you. View the policy at https://www.popvox.com/legal.
How can I opt-out or unsubscribe from POPVOX emails?
You can opt-out of future email from POPVOX on your account settings page.
How is my message sent to Congress?
Comments left on POPVOX are delivered to your Representative and/or Senators
in Congress. Your POPVOX home page displays the status of the delivery of your
message.
POPVOX delivers messages to Congress electronically* because that’s how the
offices prefer to receive them. Your message goes into the office’s database
that lets them track their constituents’ sentiment on bills and group similar
letters together for their replies. (Printed letters and faxes are so much
harder for offices to process. Your name and address would be keyed into their
database by the nearest intern, and what you wrote will probably never be seen
by a policy staff member.)
*A small number of Congressional offices do not accept electronic delivery
from third party services. In those cases POPVOX will actually print out your
message walk down to Capitol Hill and deliver your message in person.
Either way, you’ll see a note on your POPVOX Home page that POPVOX has
delivered your comment once they hand it off to the Congressional office.
What if I don’t leave a comment?
As you weigh in on bills, you have the option to skip the personal message.
When you skip the personal message, POPVOX sends a simple notification to
legislators (if they accept electronic delivery), which says: “(your name)
supported/opposed this bill on POPVOX and chose not to leave a comment. He/she
is not expecting a response.”
At this time if your Member of Congress is one of the few that does not
accept electronic delivery, your position will be counted toward the totals on
POPVOX but will not be delivered to your Member of Congress.
When the House passes a bill, it then goes to the Senate. Does the
position I took (or the letter I wrote) about the bill go to my Senators as
well?
Yes! When the House passes a bill you weighed in on, your position on the
bill is automatically sent to your Senators. In some cases, you might receive a
note from your Senator responding to your comment.
Read more FAQ’s from POPVOX.com here:
https://www.popvox.com/faq.