CEO Update: What we're building
It’s been a minute since we sent a proper update, and a lot has happened. I want to walk you through what we’ve been building, because I think you’ll be impressed. I’m impressed, and I work here!
The team grew. We brought on four new people: Emily Abrams as Director of Partnerships, Sandhya Anantharaman as Director of Mobilization, Lindsay Folker as Fundraising Associate, and Sara Cederberg to consult on digital communications. Lean team, high output.
The software got a lot better. We have quietly built the most comprehensive suite of voter mobilization software on the market. Ten tools covering everything from teen pre-registration to Election Day polling place lookup. All 50 states and DC. Free to use. SOC 2 Type 2 certified. HIPAA compliant. Third-party pen tested annually. You can see everything we do to keep voter data safe at trust.voteamerica.org.
What’s new in the last six months:
FutureVoter.com is live. We built an entire website and web application for teen pre-registration. It’s awesome. You can pre-register to vote in all 50 states before you turn 18, and most people don’t know that. The app walks teens through the process step by step, and if they’re not old enough yet, it follows up automatically when they are.
This really matters because young people who register before they turn 18 turn out at a rate 13 points higher than those who register after they turn 18. Only about 20% of eligible teens are pre-registered. Right now, the largest voting cohort is people over 65, and they turn out at rates 20 points higher than the youngest voters. I want to know what American politics looks like when that changes.
You may have heard the narrative that young voters “shifted to the right” in 2024. Four separate exit polls say otherwise: young voters were the most progressive bloc in 2024. What actually happened was a 10-point shift to not voting at all. 2020 Democratic voters didn’t become Republicans. They stayed home. That is exactly the problem FutureVoter exists to solve.
A 50-state election calendar. Searchable by state, election type, and date range. We’re working with Ballotpedia to add better coverage for the 100 largest cities. Bookmark it now and share it with everyone you know!
A permanent absentee voting tool for the states where voters can sign up to automatically receive a ballot in the mail for every future election. You should also bookmark this and share it with everyone you know!
Easy Links. Many of our partners have zero engineering support, so we built a system where you create a free account and immediately get branded URLs for every tool. Copy a link, paste it anywhere, done. Here’s what it looks like: voteamerica.org/l/83112201/home
(And if you run an organization, or you know someone who does, sign up at secure.voteamerica.org. It’s free. It will stay free.)
New: VoteAmerica Action Fund. We now have a C4, and we’ve joined the America Votes coalition, which connects us with hundreds of organizations working on voter turnout. We’ll remain nonpartisan and we won’t endorse candidates, but we will do advocacy work on voting access. You may have noticed we were active around California’s Prop 50 last November. When states try to rig elections through gerrymandering, we get involved.
Who’s using our tools. Organizations like MoveOn, DoSomething, Common Cause, Everytown for Gun Safety, Feel Good Action, the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters Foundation, and Voters of Tomorrow are currently deploying our software.
I know the news cycle is relentless right now. I know it’s exhausting. But the math is on our side if we do the work. The tactics exist, the infrastructure is built, and November is closer than it feels. We just need to run the programs.
You’ll be hearing from us more regularly now. We’ve got a lot to tell you about.
