A new app called 'Vote With Me' lets you see the voting record and political party of every contact in your phone
When you download Vote With Me — which is available for both Android and iOS devices — you'll be asked for some basic information about yourself. This allows the app to pull your voting information.
The app will also help you get ready to Election Day. It lets you know the last day you can mail your absentee ballot, when the polls open, and even provides a link to find your polling place.
Because the app has your info, it can tell you your voting record in case you've forgotten.
Not to brag, but the best part of using this app was finding out that I have a pristine voting record. It was reassuring though, too, since I've voted absentee for the last several elections — it's good to know my votes were received and counted.
Vote With Me has found a way to gamify voting: when you vote in specific elections or remind friends to vote, you get a badge. It's not clear yet what happens when you collect all the badges.
Vote With Me provides a bit of background about why voting in the upcoming election is important. The company says it isn't partisan, but does believe in "progressive ideals and equal rights and liberty for all," as well as "increasing citizens' access to democracy."
Here's where Vote With Me gets interesting. When you toggle over to the "My Contacts" tab, the app will ask for permission to access your contacts. Once you hit "Allow," you'll start seeing the icons above populate.
- The circles denote political party — blue circles for Democratic, red circles for Republican, yellow circles for Libertarian, and so on.
- The flame emoji denotes whether that person is registered in a state or district with a close race
- The years with the slashes through them means that person did not vote in the last presidential or midterm election
You can filter out the results by hitting the "Filters" button at the top. If you want to see friends who are registered for a third party, or haven't voted recently, you can easily check that.
When you click on an individual contact's name, you'll see a whole lot of information, including what state and district they're registered in, their party affiliation if any, and their voting history.
Vote With Me will also show you that friend's voting deadlines so you can send them a timely reminder if you so choose.
You can also view your friend's entire voting history, including municipal elections. It's important to note that you can't see who someone voted for, only if they voted.
If you want to reach out to someone to remind them to vote, Vote With Me has come up with a few pre-written messages for various relationships. You can use it as a jumping off point, or post it right into your messaging app.
Vote With Me is free to download and use. It's available on the App Store and the Google Play Store.
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