Author: Sara Gifford

Plot Your Politics

Building Bridges on Infrastructure

We need your voice! September 1st through September 15th! Congress is considering major action to address our nation’s infrastructure. Our elected officials have made real progress toward a bipartisan agreement to shore up our roads and mass transit, expand broadband internet access, improve our water systems, and more. This has made infrastructure an issue of…
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So what’s in HR.1, the “For the People Act” on Democracy Reform?

Voter turnout in 2020 was 66% of all eligible voters: higher than ever in our history and significantly higher than the 60% who showed up in 2016 or even the 62% in 2008. Many people point to the expanded voting options due to the pandemic as one of the reasons for that increase.  The House…
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Our 2nd Birthday!

On January 3rd 2019 we founded ActiVote. 2 years later we find ourselves reflecting on our journey and are so grateful for the experience. 2020 was a difficult year for everyone as we all learned how to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic; adjusting our professional and personal and civic lives to the new reality. We…
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Candidate Survey Participation

Many of you have told us that you love our policy matrix and that you find it helpful in learning about candidates and determining which share your values. That’s been great to hear! Some have asked – how do candidates end up in the matrix? We add candidates into the matrix in 1 of 2…
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Daily Democracy

We are so excited to finally release our new version! We all know that voting is a habit – but it’s a tough habit to form given that most people only have the chance to vote maybe twice per year. ActiVote has built upon the success of our daily policy questions and created an entirely…
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Armchair activism for all

“Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.” We created ActiVote because we believe that the more people who participate in our democracy, the stronger it will be. That is why we are focused on voters and what we can do to help them make their personal choices. It’s why we are non-partisan, it’s why…
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#NationalBeHeardDay

While #NationalBeHeardDay may just be a social media hashtag for people to talk about, it goes to the heart of our goals here at ActiVote! In an age when many are avoiding the toxic partisanship in politics and civic education has declined in our public schools we aim to create a simple and easy way…
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ActiVote announces 2020 Civic Council

We have had so many wonderful interactions with our users over the past year. We have received suggestions for features that help everyone participate in our democracy, notifications of data problems that needed to be fixed and even  typos in our daily questions that we had missed.  We’ve even had users write questions for us…
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Our 1st Birthday!

On January 3rd, 2019 we founded ActiVote in a conference room in Philadelphia. Today we celebrate our first birthday, and what an amazing experience it has been! We have engaged with candidates for local, state and federal office who are passionate to make a difference. We have collaborated with civic entrepreneurs who all want to…
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Politics Plotted @Politicon

We spent the weekend in Music City (Nashville, TN) at Politicon, which is “The Unconventional Political Convention”. Politicon brings together a diverse group of political opinions in attendees, speakers and exhibitors which made for some great conversations! As some of you may have read before we wanted to do a social experiment and plot the…
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