VoterVOICE to strengthen MRA grassroot campaignscontinued from page 1 Retailers can now communicate more easily and effectively
with state legislators because of a newly acquired grassroots lobbying
application available on the Governmental Affairs Get
Involved page at www.retailers.com.
When a member enters the MRA homepage, they will see an
action alert notice in the governmental affairs section. Clicking on the
action alert notice will link directly to the current issue at VoterVOICE.
After the issue is explained, the member is asked for his or her name
and address so the system can automatically match them to their proper
elected officials. The user then chooses which legislator they wish to
write to and whether they want to draft their own letter, or forward a
sample letter that will be available to them. “MRA has stressed over the years the importance of
members making their voices heard in regard to political issues that affect
retail such as item pricing and sales tax reform,” said Eric Rule,
director of government affairs for MRA. “Through use of the Internet,
we are creating an efficient pipeline from retailers across the state
directly to lawmakers.” Retailers will have the benefit of being informed on political
issues that matter to their business. In addition, the site provides a
forum to join other MRA members as a grassroots advocate. More than 20 other associations and chambers across the
country use VoterVOICE to leverage the web as an easy-to-use, effective
and informative political issues communication tool. “This application is so efficient and member-friendly,
time that would have been focused on researching issues, finding legislators
and drafting letters can now be spent doing business,” said Rule.
“Members now have political issues, and a forum to communicate feelings
on them, right at their fingertips. Along with this comes the satisfaction
of knowing they have taken action to make their voice heard.” MRA members should watch governmental affairs on www.retailers.com for action alerts, and their opportunity to use VoterVOICE. |
VoterVOICE®,
a leading online grassroots campaign application, will allow MRA to target
every legislator, or individual legislators based on options such as committee
assignments or geographical district. The system has the potential to
generate hundreds of email messages to legislators on a given topic which
may help shape the outcome of a legislative item targeted by MRA.