| SELECTING A DOMAIN NAME FOR YOUR WEBSITE: |
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Q.
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WHAT SHOULD I CONSIDER IN SELECTING A DOMAIN NAME FOR OUR CAMPAIGN?
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A.
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There are three qualities of a good ballot measure domain:
- SHORT - this really helps on campaign signs and also makes the domain name more memorable.
- MEMORABLE - you want to be as easy to find as possible WITHOUT searching.
- INTEGRATED - your printed and Internet campaigns should be as tightly integrated as possible. If your printed
campaign materials are saying Yes On Measure A then your website's domain name should say that also. It's what voters will expect.
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Q.
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WE ALREADY HAVE A WEBSITE USING ANOTHER DOMAIN NAME AND ALL OF OUR CAMPAIGN LITERATURE IS PRINTED WITH THAT DOMAIN. WHAT CAN A BALLOT MEASURE DOMAIN DO FOR US?
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A.
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If you already have an established website with campaign literature referencing that site then your objective should be to get as many voters to it as you can.
Most Web users will guess at a domain name if they don’t know it. That's why it's important to have a domain name that matches what the public expects to see.
Think about your situation. If you were a voter interested in learning more about your campaign what domain names would you guess? A smart online strategy
would be to have one or two of these most likely domain name guesses ALSO pointing to your existing campaign website.
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Q.
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CAN WE LEASE AVAILABLE DOMAINS OF OUR OPPOSITION TO KEEP THEIR CAMPAIGN FROM LEASING THEM?
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A.
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This practice is frowned upon by many governmental jurisdictions. California has the passed the
California Political Cyberfraud Abatement Act aimed at curbing this practice and other jurisdictiona may have taken similar actions.
Because of the negative implications of this practice it is Ballot Measure Domains' policy not to lease domains on opposite sides
of the same ballot measure to a single individual or campaign.
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| LEASING FROM BMD |
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Q.
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HOW DO I LEASE A DOMAIN FROM BALLOT MEASURE DOMAINS?
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A.
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Just follow these simple steps:
- Go to our Master Domain List and click on the domain name that best fits your campaign
- A domain detail page will appear informing you of the availability of that domain name and offering suggestions to other similar domains as well.
- Click on the shopping cart icon next to the domains that you would like to lease.
- When you're finished adding domains, go to your shopping cart and add the length of time you need your domains. Don't forget to add
about a month AFTER the election to thank (and hopefully congratulate) the voters and staff who supported you!
- Next you'll need to login or register and provide a few details about the campaign.
- Verify your order for accuracy
- Read and approve the lease agreement. A copy will be emailed to you with the confirmation of your order.
- Make a payment for your lease via PayPal.
- We will change the DNS or forwarding on the domains per your instructions within 24 hours.
Please call us if you have an urgent need for access to the domains sooner than that.
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Q.
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CAN I LEASE MORE THAN ONE DOMAIN NAME FOR MY WEBSITE?
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A.
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Yes. It's very common for campaign committees to lease two or more domains and feed the traffic from all of them to their website. The most common
arrangement is to lease both the ".com" AND the ".org" version of the shortest domain name matching the issue designation
(ex. YesOn2.com and YesOn2.org). Some committees will also add a pair of domains matching the type of ballot iniative that their state or community uses
(ex.YesOnProp2.com and YesOnProp2.org).
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IS THERE A MINIMUM LEASE TERM?
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No, there is no minimum lease term. We do, however, charge a per-order setup fee of $ for leases shorter than months to help offset our staff's pre and post-lease coordination time.
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DO YOU GIVE REFUNDS?
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No, we do not give refunds. If you find that you have leased the wrong domain please contact us and we can probably work something out.
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THE OFFICIAL BALLOT MEASURE ASSIGNMENTS HAVE NOT BEEN RELEASED YET BY THE COUNTY CLERK. HOW CAN WE BE ASSURED OF GETTING THE DOMAIN NAME THAT MATCHES OUR ASSIGNMENT ONCE THEY ARE ANNOUNCED?
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A.
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The Domain Name Reservation Program has been created just for this purpose. Please click here for details.
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HOW SECURE IS THE ONLINE ORDERING PROCESS?
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The online order process is secure. We use industry-standard
secure socket layer encryption to protect sensitive information.
All payment information is encrypted before transmitting to
our server to prevent possible interception by a third party.
We also support Google Checkout and PayPal if you prefer to use
a third party checkout service without disclosing your financial
information to us. Both providers guarantee:
- Your account information is stored on their secure servers;
- All sensitive information is sent over on a industry-standard SSL (secure socket
layer) connection thus cannot be viewed by any third parties, not even us;
- Google or PayPal do not share you financial information, such as credit card number,
bank account number with any one, not even with us;
When an order is completed, Google/PayPal forward information that is necessary
for us to process the order to us. This information includes your name,
and general order related information such as item ordered, order time,
etc. We do not share this information with any third parties.
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Q.
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HOW IS ACCESS TO THE DOMAIN DELIVERED? CAN I GET ACCESS IMMEDIATELY?
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A.
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Once we receive payment for a lease, we access the registrar's Domain Management System and redirect incoming traffic
per the instructions you gave us during the online leasing process. If instructions were not provided at that time we will
contact you by email to let you know that we have received your payment and that we are awaiting your instructions on redireting the Web traffic.
Usually this process is completed within 24 hurs of your payment. If you have more urgent needs, however, please feel free to contact us
by email or phone and we'll try to get you up and running ASAP!
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| TECHNICAL ISSUES |
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Q.
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Question?
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A.
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Answer
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Q.
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WILL WE BE ABLE TO USE EMAIL WITH OUR LEASED DOMAIN?
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Yes. We can change the MX records to meet your needs. If you have the information at the time you lease your domain you can include it in the
"Comments" section of your order. You can also send us an email or call us at any time.
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Q.
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WHAT HAPPENS IF THE DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION EXPIRES DURING MY LEASE?
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If a domain name is scheduled to expire during the term of a new lease we generally renew it for 2 years to avoid any possibility
of there being an unexpected expiration that would disrupt service to the campaign's website.
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WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR DOMAIN'S TRAFFIC AFTER OUR LEASE ENDS?
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When a lease terminates we forward each domain's traffic back to its respective domain name detail page on our website. Campaigns
who want to try to capture that post-election traffic without paying the full price of leasing the domain may place an optional link
or a banner ad on the page announcing an active website for the user to visit.
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