Kainaliu man’s website streamlines writing to elected officials

KAILUA-KONA — A Kainaliu man is hoping to reduce apathy among young voters by giving them a new tool to reach their local representatives in government.

The platform, MyLetter.to, enables users to craft a letter to any government official on a wide range of issues with just a few clicks of the mouse.

“You can do it in under a minute,” said Bobby Rivera, 25, one of the platform’s developers.

Rivera, a 2009 graduate of Konawaena High School, said the idea came about about a year and a half ago with some friends from California after realizing a need to fight political apathy among youth.

“That’s what got us to notice it, but we realize this is really a tool for anybody, not just in our age group,” Rivera said.

He said that while he himself isn’t “in politics,” he knew that inaction wasn’t a solution to the issue.

“Lack of action doesn’t solve anything because of the way the system is set up,” he said.

Once the team identified the problem, the obvious next step was to find a solution.

They researched the issue, Rivera said, and found that writing letters to those in power can have a huge impact.

Unfortunately, he said, taking the time to write out a letter is a luxury unavailable to many.

“A lot of people are working two, three jobs. To take the time to write a 200-word letter, I imagine, would take at least maybe an hour to the regular person,” he said.

Given their background in digital marketing, they figured, providing an avenue to make letter writing easier could be a key to the problem.

When users log on to www.MyLetter.to, they first have the opportunity to select who they want to receive their letter.

Those recipients could include anyone from the president to local public leaders. Users then select the issue they want to address.

Rivera said the list of issues will be constantly evolving depending on leading issues at the time.

“We wanna make sure we’re always relevant,” he said. “If we’re not relevant, our tool is almost useless.”

Current issues include the death penalty, racial profiling and climate change among others.

The next step in the process is to indicate whether the user is “in favor” or “in opposition” to the issue.

Rivera said the site isn’t partisan on issues and provides research backed up by facts for both sides of every issue included on the site.

“We wanna make sure that this is a tool for everybody and that we’re not limiting any one group, but empowering everybody,” he said.

The final step in crafting the letter gives users the chance to specifically indicate the arguments they’d like to incorporate into their letters.

For example, users who indicate their support of gun control can select arguments like “remove high-capacity magazines” or “higher chance of violence.”

Those who indicate their opposition to the issue though can select arguments like “criminals won’t care” and “doesn’t deter crime.”

After choosing three arguments to support their case, users then put in their personal information that will be used to address the letter.

Users then confirm their information, the letter appears, written out and backed up by sources.

Finally, users sign the letter and MyLetter.to will print, stamp, envelope and mail the letter all at the cost of $2 per letter.

Rivera said they’ve even included measures to ensure the uniqueness of each letter sent.

“Our system has the capability at this moment to produce over 200 million different variable letters,” he said.

Rivera said their goal is to be able to get hyper-local with the platform so citizens “have a voice regardless of what it is you’re trying to voice out.”

He said their research has demonstrated that platforms like MyLetter.to are going to be most effective at the very local level, “simply because they’re more likely to be moved by their local constituents.”

He added that a future possibility could even include letting local officials know about potholes and dropping a pin on a map to provide its exact location.