Feel Good Friday - Democracy Works

As we count down to election day, we’re keeping the voting theme going. Last week, we shared the story of TurboVote. In today’s Feel Good Friday we’ll talk about their parent organization, Democracy Works.

The vision of Democracy works is to “make voting a simple, seamless experience for all Americans so that no one misses an election.” It’s the brainchild of Seth Flaxman and Kathryn Peters who, after missing several elections when they were graduate students, were inspired to build a reminder system. In 2010, they launched this system under the name TurboVote. 

As explained last week, TurboVote is a tool that provides voters with information they need to register, details on where and how to vote and reminders about important deadlines. Democracy Works also collects and standardizes election data that is used to produce polling place and ballot data. That data is then used in Google searches and by election officials, universities, organizations and companies who want to embed an interactive tool on their own sites.

 

Finally, Democracy Works helps election officials “build new tools and share technology, as well as best practices, so they can best serve their voters.” That includes adding intelligent bar codes to mail ballots so they can be tracked and providing a reporting tool that feeds directly into the USPS to help escalate concerns related to election mail.

 

All of these programs help Democracy Works achieve their mission of serving voters, powering elections and building a better democracy. If you want to be a part of it you can support Democracy Works with a donation and by amplifying their message on social media. Like their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter @demworksinc. And for goodness sakes, #vote!