The League of Women Voters made a rare acquisition move Tuesday.
The nonpartisan political organization was gifted the technology and assets of longtime partner e.thePeople, a provider of interactive voter guide software.
In an interview, League of Women Voters communications director Sarah Courtney said e.thePeople approached them about the acquisition.
“We use it as one of their clients," Courtney said. "They approached us. We really see it as an important testament to our position as leaders in the voter education space."
The League of Women Voters stemmed out of the early 20th century movement to land women the right to vote, and it has since focused on voter education programs. The organization's education arm, specifically, focuses on creating nonpartisan voter guides for voters trying to make an informed decision before they head to the polls. The guides, distributed through the Vote411.org platform, reached an estimated 4.5 million people in 2016.
With that, e.thePeople has been a longtime partner of theirs. e.thePeople works with a variety of different clients to create and compile such voter guides to help educate readers or voters who are a part of a client's group. Through the acquisition, the League of Women Voters plans to keep supporting all of e.thePeople's existing clients. To date, hundreds of news organizations and civic group have used e.thePeople's software to power voter guides on the national, state and local level.
The League of Women Voters also plans to keep the name e.thePeople as they move the acquisition forward. Because the league is a nonpartisan group, and many of e.thePeople's clients take public sides in political matters, the League of Women Voters wants to make sure they can maintain some distance from those distinctions as they begin to manage the e.thePeople software.
"The two year plan is really just to evaluate, maintain and expand where we can," Courtney said. "We want to make sure that we don’t make any changes or impacts for this year, this 2017 year. We’re thinking ahead to midterms next year."
But for now, the League is really using this opportunity to manage a new election tech platform as a testament to their existing work in the field.
"We're recognizing that this (service) is important for democracy," Courtney said. "In this crucial time, we want to be able to provide the right and clear guidelines for voters."
Image used via CC BY-SA 2.0 — credit Tim Evanson
