Make My Vote Matter

MAKEMYVOTEMATTER.COM  is a website that compares the competitiveness of a college student's "Home" vs "School" voting districts, and tells them how to register where their vote will matter the most!

THE PROBLEM
Young adults (ages 18-29) made up about 21% of the voting eligible population in 2014, but voter turnout for this demographic has reached record lows in recent years. Only 18% voted in the 2014 midterm elections, compared to 37% of the general population. Only 46% voted in the 2016 presidential election, compared to 61% of the general population. This becomes significant when you consider that about three dozen House races considered competitive this year are in districts that were decided in the 2016 presidential contest by margins smaller than the number of college students living in those districts. 

THE POTENTIAL FOR CHANGE
Because students can choose to vote in either their home town OR their college town, they can play a pivotal role in swing districts. Of the 20.4 million students currently enrolled in college, about 28% are attending out-of state and many of the in-state students have a choice between different congressional districts within their state. By providing a data-driven comparison showing where their vote will be the most impactful, we hope to boost  meaningful voter turnout in this important demographic. 

WHY WE NEED MONEY
A number of people have donated a great deal of time and energy to make the site  operational. Ursula Kwong-Brown developed a quantitative model synthesizing competitiveness data from multiple sources on every Congressional, Senate and Gubernatorial race for the 2018 midterms. Jason T. Roff  and his team at First Factory  developed a robust backend database system to process user input against this dataset. 

While labor and site development costs to this point have been provided pro bono,  we now need to pull the trigger on a comprehensive marketing blitz to drive college students to the site. Working with a professional media buyer, we will set up carefully targeted ad buys on Instagram, Facebook, Google and other platforms... and this needs to happen fast! In many states, the voting registration deadline for the upcoming midterm elections is October 7th, 2018. The faster we can fill our coffers, the faster we can buy ads and get students registered to vote in the right places!!!

100% of your donation (minus GoFundMe fees) will be put towards our media buy!

THANK YOU for helping us take back the House (and hopefully the Senate, and key Governorships)!!!