Students attend a TurboVote event at the University of Florida. Photo courtesy of TurboVote.
WASHINGTON— Registering to vote is only a few clicks away, thanks to up-and-coming startup TurboVote. Seth Flaxman, the website’s creator, calls it “the Netflix of voting.”
“When we want to do anything, we start online,” Flaxman said. “Except for voting. And that’s the problem we’re trying to solve.”
It’s a fairly simple concept, and it’s open to everyone. Users log in to the website and fill out the registration or vote by mail form they need. TurboVote then prints an official copy of the form, and mails it to the user along with a pre-printed envelope addressed to the user’s local voter election board.
When the user receives the form in the mail, they sign it, put it in the prepaid envelope and drop it back in the mailbox – much like returning a Netflix DVD. As Election Day nears, TurboVote sends users text messages to remind them to mail in their forms.
Flaxman created TurboVote while studying at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “I found myself spending more time trying to figure out how to vote than thinking about who I was going to vote for, which doesn’t make any sense,” Flaxman said.
TurboVote launched last fall at Harvard, and Flaxman said that in one afternoon, half of the freshman class signed up. Since then, nearly 40 colleges and universities have jumped on board.
“We’re launching on college campuses because we feel there’s a big need there,” Flaxman said. “Students often need to register, and a lot of time need to vote by mail.” It also helps that most students are familiar with technology, Flaxman said, “they’re comfortable with it, they expect it to work.”
Most schools will launch the program in September, and Flaxman said he encourages them to incorporate TurboVote into existing systems – such as the class registration process – in order to spread awareness and drive participation. He also said school administrations have offered to cover the mailing costs for students who register. The cost for an individual user is about $1.50 per mailing.
“There are some cases when we’ve had a dean or president or provost approach us and say, ‘This is great, we’ve spent so much money on T-shirts and beer, we can spend a fraction of that on finding a cool new service to help students vote,” Flaxman said.
TurboVote’s reach extends beyond college campuses, and the program has gained popularity among nonprofits and political advocacy groups alike. Dan McSwain, vice president of digital campaigns at Voto Latino, said the group began working with TurboVote last fall, and officially launched the program in early 2012.
McSwain said the concept fit well with Voto Latino’s intention – to try and engage a very important, complicated audience. “Voto Latino is very interested in reaching young American Latinos and potential voters,” McSwain said. “And we know with our audience it’s a lot of time on social media.”
Together, Voto Latino and TurboVote developed tools to launch the program on Facebook, making Voto Latino one of the first organizations to offer voter registration on the social networking site.
And in a few days, Voto Latino plans to introduce a “big update” that will make it even easier for users to register on Facebook, McSwain said. “It will allow them in one click to plug in all of their public information into the right fields in the voter registration tool,” he explained.
Since Voto Latino’s launch, thousands of people have used it to register to vote, and McSwain said that’s only the beginning. “If you look historically about when the peak voter registration happens, its really not for a couple of weeks – toward the end of September,” McSwain said.
And although he didn’t go into deep financial details, he said Voto Latino does cover mailing costs for its users.
According to McSwain, TurboVote also allows nonprofits like Voto Latino to avoid certain laws that make it harder for nonprofit organizations to operate on the ground. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t rules and checkpoints within the system.
In order to complete the process on TurboVote, users must prove – whether through a driver’s license or the last four digits of a social security number – that they are of age and eligible to vote.
When the application arrives at the user’s local government or processing agency, officials there also verify the applicant’s eligibility.
Voto Latino expects user volume to increase in the next few weeks, especially around the first-ever National Voter Registration Day. On Sept. 25, almost 800 organizations in all 50 states will host voter registration drives online and on the ground. “National Voter Registration Day is trying to do for registering to vote what Earth Day did for the environment,” McSwain said.
Since it’s creation, TurboVote has received sponsorships from such notable players as the Sunlight Foundation, Google Inc. and the Knight Foundation.
As voter registration platforms continue to expand, Flaxman said he hopes to form partnerships with local governments. “We think it’s time for this idea,” he said. “Every voter in the U.S. can benefit from TurboVote.”