In order for local governments to best serve their communities and make informed decisions, they need to understand the values and priorities of their residents—all of their residents, not just those that attend public meetings or participate in online discussions. Getting a clear understanding of the whole community is challenging when only a small percentage of residents participate. To address this challenge, the City of Norco has partnered with FlashVote, a patent-pending, multi-channel scientific survey system that was created with two goals:

1. Get everyone involved – Eliminate the many reasons residents don’t participate in their local governments by making it quick, easy, convenient, and accessible.
2. Produce useful data – Generate statistically valid, representative input that governments can trust when making data-driven decisions.

You decide how to interact with FlashVote by choosing email, text and voice options. You provide anonymous inputs and decide what information about yourself and your activities that other users can see. You decide how much (or how little) to participate, but the more input you give, the more you make your voice heard and help make your community better. FlashVote ensures that your personal data stays within the FlashVote system and is not used or shared for any other purposes. Your input is always anonymous. FlashVote also ensures that surveys can be completed in one minute with maximum value for your effort. Once a survey closes, the City of Norco and all FlashVote participants will receive statistically valid community input in 48 hours. The City will see the same anonymous results dashboard that you see. FlashVote’s exceptional participation rates ensure valid sampling on issues. Governments get the most useful input that residents can provide because FlashVote does professional quality control on every survey question.

No. The City of Norco and other users will know you by your screen name. By default, your screen name will be set to your real name (first name + last name), but you can change it to anything you want (up to 24 characters). City officials and other users cannot see any other personal information besides your screen name. One exception is when you send emails through FlashVote (for example, if you invite a friend, share a survey, or share survey results). Emails sent by FlashVote on your behalf will disclose your name and email unless sent anonymously.

Yes. To enable participation by phone, you simply need to add a phone number for FlashVote to call. Once signed-in, from the user menu (find your name at the top-right of the page), click or tap on Account Settings. On the Account Settings page, click on the Contact Info tab. In the “Phone number” field (next to the phone icon), enter your phone number and click “Save”. Be sure the off/on switch is toggled to “On”. You can optionally also change the hours during which you would like to receive phone calls.

Yes. To enable text message (SMS) notifications, just add a mobile phone number. Once signed-in, from the user menu (find your name at the top-right of the page), click or tap on Account Settings. On the Account Settings page, click on the Contact Info tab. In the “Mobile phone number” field (next to the text message icon), enter a SMS-enabled phone number and click “Save”. You can optionally also change the hours during which you would like to receive text messages.