One of the great, shiny ideals that organizations like IPDI espouse is the belief that the Internet is a tremendous tool for political and civic engagement. And my-oh-my has there emerged a delightful abundance of sites that attempt to inform and enable voters.

Here’s a shortlist of sites I am cruising this week:

The National Presidential Caucus (NPC) is an organization trying to engage voters in a day of discussion and deliberation preceding the 2008 presidential primaries. As Myles Weisleder put it when I spoke with him yesterday, “If there’s a national primary, then should be a national caucus to discuss issues before the vote. People deserve more.” IPDI pledges to hold its own caucus in December.

Connect2Elect asks each user questions about his or her political beliefs, and then matches the users up with the presidential candidates who most closely match. What matches Connect2Elect different (and a bit more fun) than other sites is its lack on multiple choice questions. Instead, users drag and drop values into different columns, a practice that is rather addicting.

RangeVoting.org uses an algorithm to eliminate some of the ills of redistricting: “huge amount of gerrymandering, artificially manipulated spoiled ballots, and ludicrous ballot access restrictions.”

Ever wanted to manipulate congressional districts to suit your political agenda?

Admit it: if you’re a political junkie, then you’ve probably wished for it on more than one occasion. And then you sighed and said to yourself “if only I were that lucky.”

Today just might be your lucky day . . . virtually speaking.

Check out The Redistricting Game, produced by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, and School of Cinematic Arts.

The Game

The Redistricting Game allows you to pick a political party and complete missions in the fictional states of Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton. Early missions test your skills at creating population equality (it’s actually trickier than it sounds. I’m no wiz with numbers, so I’m still having a little difficulty making it past the first mission) before moving on to tasks like partisan gerrymandering. The final map is submitted to the virtual legislature, governor, courts, and even the press.

Why gaming? For Chris Swain, one of the project leaders at USC, it’s a no-brainer. “Gaming is the most powerful medium for a message like this,” Swain told IPDI this morning. “We can use games to affect social change and it puts the issue into a fun online setting.”

The Mission

Swain and the rest of The Redistricting Game team are on a mission. According to their promotional material,

Redistricting for political advantage seriously undercuts the democratic process by diminishing the power of an individual’s vote. Gerrymandering is stealth issue; its impact on the election process is significant, while citizen awareness of the issue remains low . . . most citizens do not understand the complex inter-workings, details and vocabulary of a system that enables partisan and incumbent self-interest to trump a practice designed to preserve democracy.

The Redistricting Game team also felt responsibility to make the game as fair as possible. In other words, they don’t want to use gaming to market any one ideology to you. They just want you to try it for yourself and come to you own conclusions.

The Post-Game Action

With The Redistricting Game, however, just playing the game is only one piece in the puzzle. The game also allows users to learn how their states manage redistricting. I searched for Pennsylvania, and the site directed me to FairVote.org.

It also allows you to look up your Representative, write him or her and send an email to your friends.

Why We Like It

Even though I can’t make it through the first mission (numbers are tricky), the game makes the complexities of redistricting more interesting than a story or two in the paper or a post or two online.

It’s also addicting. The actual process of redistricting (pulling on the sides of a district with your mouse to increase them) feels pretty good.