Question 1

What is Boreal?

Accepted Answer

Boreal Technology, Inc is a for-profit company whose main goal is to digitally transform the signature-gathering process of ballot initiatives and to make this democratic system more accessible across the country.

We have just begun, so California came up as the best-positioned state to begin our path in terms of political activity. Either way, our mission is to be nationwide and to establish Boreal in all the states where this democracy system is practiced. See our full statement on this topic on the Mission page.

Question 2

Is Boreal a non-profit organization?

Accepted Answer

No, Boreal is a for-profit organization whose business model acts like the conventional signature-gathering companies: units of signatures are sold to the organizations behind them. Our main core difference is the digital service we are offering to collect those signatures. Our operating income and profits allow us to hire more petitioners, improve the web and potentially launch a future app, scale the operations, and ultimately spread our values in other jurisdictions.

Question 3

Is Boreal funded by politicians or public institutions?

Accepted Answer

No. Boreal is defined as a non-partisan company. We do endorse any political, economic, or religious beliefs. We truly believe that a radical social change should be successfully done from the social roots, without outside political influence. The financial funding comes straight from the founders of the company, so far. In the future, we’re looking into being backed by venture capital firms, whose sole purpose to invest in startups is their long-term profitability. In this way, we will be ensuring the main meaning of this organization: objectiveness. See our full statement on this topic on the Mission page.

Question 4

Who founded Boreal?

Accepted Answer

Boreal has been founded with the collaboration of a few US and European experts in multiple areas: petition drive companies employees, developers, designers, digital growth experts, managers from delivery-integrations apps, and lawyers specializing in the law governing the initiative process in California. We combine tech, legal, and design expertise all together to bring the innovation of the 21st century to this centuries-old democratic tool. See the benefits we bring on the Mission page.

Question 5

How can I ensure the integrity of the information?

Accepted Answer

All the ballot initiatives content has been extracted directly from the California Secretary of State's online site, specifically from the Initiatives and Referenda Cleared for Circulation page. Also, the initiatives paper is taken from the template that the Secretary of State in California offers to any citizen who wants to help organizations to enact a proposition.

One of our main purposes is to ease the tough task of clearly understanding the main purpose of the initiatives by writing friendly, readable summaries or providing facts and current regulations of the topic. Impartiality is a non-negotiable for us, so we carefully review all the content uploaded to the platform, to strictly follow this mission. Also, we let the people leave arguments and questions to be replied to by someone else in order to have the possibility to share impressions about the measure.

Finally, Boreal guarantees total neutrality of the content by classifying all active ballot measures (those whose circulation deadline or signatures requirements are not reached yet) by general topics, following an alphabetical order only. We do not receive money from the organizations to position their initiative in more visible places, nor manipulate the information with biased interpretation for a higher selling price. Influencing the decision of the people is far from our statements. See our full statement on this topic on the Information and Awareness page.

Question 6

Does Boreal’s activity abide by existing regulations?

Accepted Answer

Yes, definitely. After reviewing the existing California Elections Code, Sec. 100-106; Sec 9021, 9030 we realized the opportunity to bring these ideas into the 21st century. We are not actually paying people to collect their signatures. In turn, we are paying a wage to the people who are collecting the signatures, which is permitted under California state laws.

On top of that, we make indirect donations to nonprofits registered as 501(c) organizations. There's no evidence in the legislation about making an implicit economic donation after a signature is collected. For good measure, we leave this feature optional to the people.

Question 7

How does the signature gathering process work?

Accepted Answer

Our online services allow signing ballot initiatives in three easy steps:

1) see a full summary of the initiative and click on the "Sign" button.
2) optionally, choose a non-profit org. and Boreal will make a $2 donation to it.
3) provide an address or location and a Boreal person will meet you at your convenience to bring the selected ballot initiatives and collect your signatures

We are giving the people the opportunity to have a completely upgraded and more satisfactory experience with the direct democracy system. Additionally, we are intrinsically solving many of the problems of this archaic system. See the benefits we bring on this topic on the Solution page.

Question 8

Is my personal information safe?

Accepted Answer

Yes, your information is totally safe with us. We would never sell, donate or rent your information gathered in usboreal.com to third parties. Other illegal actions such as identity theft, cheating about official documents, are also reflected in the contract we co-sign with all the employees of the company, including contractors. For further information, check out our Terms of Use and Data Protection Agreement. Finally, all the completed paperwork initiatives are stored under 24/7 surveillance.

Question 9

How do you hire the petitioners?

Accepted Answer

We do not hire petitioners, like the way they are publicly known. In Boreal, persuading people to sign is not really within the job's description, so we can not consider them petitioners. The people who come over to people's houses are hired under an independent contractor agreement. They are paid by hourly rates ($15/h), and by travel. Even though, in Boreal, all the workers follow the regular petitioning activity laws in California.

Furthermore, our particular contract contains behavioral clauses like user harassment, misuse of the paperwork, acting on behalf of Boreal, and more legal points regarding delivery style activity.

For the hiring process, we rigorously select capable people to do this job but do not necessarily demand special awareness about the initiatives' main statement. We consider this requirement to be unnecessary, as they are collecting signatures for any measure that people may be fully aware of through Boreal only.

Question 10

How does the donation process work in Boreal and who pays?

Accepted Answer

Once we receive the signature collected by the petitioner, Boreal will make a donation of $2 to any of the organizations attached to the social purpose we try to mitigate, in the event that the user has selected this option within the "Sign" process. Each ballot measure you sign is worth $2 i.e. the more initiatives you sign, the higher the amount donated.

The donation is made on behalf of Boreal Technology, Inc, but actually, this money is aggregated to the final selling pricing we set up for the initiative. In other words, the money donated technically is generated by the people who are carrying out the ballot measure.

Question 11

Why donations?

Accepted Answer

Donating will always be an optional step for the users when they sign a ballot initiative. Boreal respects all types of decisions, in favor or against arguments about this feature, and the ideological viewpoints of all citizens.

For us, contributing to social causes within a democratic process is a must in these times of inequality and injustice. Boreal’s principles firmly underline the importance of giving back to society as a secondary mission in any direct democratic process, no matter the success of the proposition. See our full statement on the Solutions page.

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