The non-profit New Data Project has developed an app in an effort to have users remind their friends to vote in the midterm elections.
Mikey Dickerson, executive director of the New Data Project, who also worked on the two Obama presidential campaigns, said the goal of VoteWithMe is to encourage voting, especially for those under 35.
“There’s no habit, there’s no expectation. Your friends are not going – not typically going – to ask whether you remembered to vote last week. They're not going to feel any peer pressure to do it. And we desperately need to change that if we want the group that has grown up online, and that doesn’t have this norm and doesn’t have this tradition that you find in some older generations, to ever be represented in the government.”
VoteWithMe allows users to have immediate and easy access to public voting records for not just themselves, but for their friends. With permission, it syncs with your contact list. On the app, a user can see which House, Senate and governor’s races she and her friends are eligible to vote in, whether or not the races are tight, and party affiliations.
The user can then click on a friend’s name and text that person. The app will give you templates for what to text and transfer you to your regular iMessage or SMS system. But you don’t have to use a template and it’s up to you to hit the send button.
Dickerson says all the information given is publically accessible but not usually as streamlined.
The app claims not to sell your information or reach out to your contact list; however, the privacy policy says the New Data project will collect your information for their own analysis and let third parties, such as Google Analytics, have access to it.