Yeas and Nays transforms any webpage into a way to contact Congressional representatives. Using Yeas and Nays, you can call your representative from any webpage, record your call and embed that recording on the page you were just reading. Other people who visit that webpage can then listen to your phone call.

Yeas and Nays works by adding a new function to a user’s web browser. Technically, it’s a plug-in that gets installed as an extension to the Firefox web browser. Once the plug-in is installed, a user can launch an application that works a lot like the Obama campaign’s online phone bank. You enter your zip code and phone number, and you choose whom to call among your two senators and one representative. The app then calls your phone and connects you to the office you specified. Right after finishing your conversation, an mp3 recording of your call appears on the webpage from which you launched the Yeas and Nays app. (If you’re shy, don’t worry. Yeas and Nays also provides the option to make a call without recording it.)

Yeas and Nays focuses on the moment where the power of information can manifest into action: that fertile moment when citizens discover information online about issues that affect them. By being accessible from any webpage, the app provides a tool that will bridge citizens to their representatives when they are most likely to deliver informed arguments.

Yeas and Nays is built using ShiftSpace, a plug-in that allows you to annotate webpages in a number of innovative ways. Installing Yeas and Nays may take several minutes, but once you succeed in doing so, you will be able to make free calls to Congress and to share your calls among your network. Instructions for installing and using Yeas and Nays can be found at the ShiftSpace website.