On July 4th, 1776, the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence--which established the United States of America--kicking off one of the biggest experiments in democracy the world has ever seen.
241 years later, there's still a lot more work to be done, especially when it comes to US citizens exercising the right to vote: Just 57 percent of eligible voters cast a vote in the 2016 presidential election and only 36.4 percent of eligible voters voted in the 2014 midterm elections (a 72 year low).
Now a new Chicago-based political organization, cofounded by Sittercity founder Genevieve Thiers, aims to use tech to get more voters to the polls.
NewFounders just launched the app EveryElection, which alerts citizens when a local election is coming up, and provides information about how and where to vote. It's the first product created by NewFounders, previously Rise Movement, the tech-infused, progressive-leaning political organization launched by Thiers and local politico Ellie Bahrmasel.
Once a user puts in their address in EveryElection, the app will send alerts about upcoming elections, information on the incumbent and challenger, and a map with walking or driving directions to the polling place. The app refreshes each month with additional information about new races, and users can upload their address book to easily encourage their friends and family to vote. The app is currently available on iOS, but Android and web versions are under development.
“We talked to non-voters after the last election to learn why they weren’t voting and kept hearing the same reason over and over,” said Thiers in a statement. “They didn’t know when and where to vote for elections other than the Presidential ones every four years. The rest of the races where their voices also mattered—such as state legislature, Congressional, and local races—those were flying under their radar. It was not easy to find or act on them.”
In total, EveryElection covers 300,000 elections nationwide--about 66 percent of total elections--collaborated with 11 political organizations (including voter education startup BallotReady) to gather the information and develop the app. NewFounders has six team members and 91 donors so far, Thiers said.
Thiers and Bahrmasel first teamed up back in December to launch a movement that addressed the economic concerns of the disenfranchised, as a means of moving the conversation from partisan politics to meaningful solutions.
NewFounders has a slightly more focused mission on galvanizing non-voters. Their goal is to refocus the political conversation on the people who feel disconnected from civic participation and focus on how to bridge divides in order to solve problems--essentially, to "get people thinking like founding fathers again," Thiers told us over email.
Thiers also noted that voter turnout is just the first problem they're aiming to solve.
"We need to make it easier for people to fix things and engage in politics," she noted. "If we can build the bridges, they charge over them and do amazing things—but they need the bridge first. This was our first bridge. Many more to come."
