Convenience
People always prefer convenience. We see smartphone applications like Tasker and Yelp with millions of downloads just for the purpose of adding convenience to a person’s daily routine.
Online Voting Provides Convenience
At Follow My Vote we believe voting should be convenient. Being a civically engaged citizen should not be a task that requires extreme amounts of effort and time. We want citizens to be able to stay informed on the actions of our government and representatives. Citizens should also have the ability to hold elected officials accountable without expending vast amounts of their own time and money. But most importantly, citizens should be able to register and cast a vote without the unnecessary headache of taking of of work, traveling to the polling place, and waiting in a line. Follow My Vote has the technology to make online voting convenient and secure.
Convenience & Voter Turnout.
Increasing electoral convenience will vastly improve voter turnout. In the last US Midterm Election, voter turnout averaged 36.3%; the worst turnout in American history since 1942. We do not believe that apathy is driving low voter turnout, but instead the failure of electoral practices to adapt to the busy and demanding modern lifestyle. If Americans could vote online remotely, we at Follow My Vote feel that our voter turnout would be among the best in the world.
Proof: People Want Voting Convenience
Recently, a press release from the California Association of Voting Officials showed a strikingly impressive increase in votes cast by mail ballots. Specifically, in the time period from 2002 to 2014 the ballots cast via the mail rose 69%. In 2014, a total of 6.7 million votes in California were votes by mail ballots. This increase has shown that the citizens of California are capitalizing on the most convenient method of voting. This instance of opting for the most convenient way to vote is not singular. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that currently there are a total of 20 states that offer online voter registration, with more and more states hopping on the bandwagon. And not only does online registration provide convenience for voters, it reduces election costs. We have compiled a page for every state on our website dedicated to online voting and registration by state. Here you can see if your state has made the leap towards modernization and added convenience and cost reduction to your voting process.