Works best on iPads. Note that this app will be maintained through the 2014 legislative session - a new version will be needed after the next full election. WhipCounter MD is tool that allows advocates and government affairs professionals to easily keep track of the progress they are having on legislation in the Maryland General Assembly before critical votes occur, or to track other advocacy actions such as handouts of one-pagers. No more scribbling on scraps of paper. WhipCounter MD makes it possible to share vote counts or advocacy actions quickly so that you can adapt your legislative strategy to better affect legislative outcomes.

Functionality
WhipCounter MD’s add task screen allows you to create legislative tasks to track or edit them as they move through the process. The filters allow you to create legislation specific lists by chamber, committee or subcommittee. You can sort the list of legislators- either alphabetically or by room number. No more running up and down stairs! WhipCounter MD saves you time because it allows you to move efficiently from office to office.
Once a task is added, you will automatically be sent to the main screen, where members’ positions can be recorded and automatically saved by tapping on yes, leaning yes, undecided, leaning no or other. Swiping the picture will move forwards and backwards between members or scroll through the list of members on the drop down menu to go directly to a different member.

The main screen will show you the:

The name of the task you are recording votes for, with a drop down menu that allows you to switch between tasks
The name and picture of the member whose vote is being recorded (democrats are outlined in blue and republicans in red)
A member’s phone number (active to touch for phones,)
The district/counties the member represents
The year the member was first elected
Progress report for how many votes you have in each category overall
Two progress bars that, when full, indicates you have a majority – one for the yes votes (yes and leaning yes) and one for the no votes (no and leaning no)
There is a button for adding comments to that legislator's vote preference which lights up when a comment has been added.

Pressing the tally button will let you see all of the votes that have been recorded and the time they were recorded. Pressing the column headings will sort the list by votes recorded, time stamp or alphabetical by member. The email button will allow the results to be easily shared with others in a format that can be copy and pasted into a spreadsheet (using the convert text to data function, and using a comma as the delimiter).

The “+” button allows you to add a new task, or adjust the filters of an existing task. Here you can specify the committees or subcommittees that your topic is focused on, and you can change it over time as your topic progresses. You can also select certain legislators to be "my tasks" and they will be listed at the top of your list of people for easy access. You can also delete tasks from this view. There is no limit on the number of tasks you can create, but remember you only have limited resources on your device, so delete tasks when you are done with them (email yourself the final tally for a permanent record).

The “P” button lets you report a problem with the information on the selected person. It opens an email with information from the current screen. Just tell us what has changed, and we will supply an update. Elections will lead to the release of a new app, however. You can also use this feature to report any problems or feature requests you would like to tell us.

Finally, the about box includes a button for updating the information on legislators including their committee assignments when those change.
(Note that this is the same app as WhipCounter MD 2012 - we have put a new app with a new name so as to not confuse people.)