Youth Voter Pre-registration Portal

[lhmzhou]

What problem are you trying to solve?

Turnout among 18 to 29-year-olds is consistently lower than other age brackets, so states looking to preregistration as one option to engage young voters in the electoral process.

We can remedy that by making pre-registration easy. Pre-registration is an election procedure that allows individuals younger than 18 years of age to register to vote, so they are eligible to cast a ballot when they reach 18, the voting age for all state and federal elections. In normal circumstances, a pre-registrant will fill out an application and be added to the voter registration list with a “pending” or “preregistration” status. Upon turning 18, the individual is added to the voter registration list and able to cast a ballot.

Texas permits a person who is 17 years and 10 months of age to register. In fact! According to the Texas Tribune, Texas has one of the youngest populations in the country. It’s projected that by 2022, one in three voters in Texas will be under 30.

We can begin by setting up an online portal where qualified youth can fill out voter registration applications online, or retrieve information on how to register in-person at a Board of Elections office or the Department of Motor Vehicles. They will then be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18, without needing a separate trip to the Board of Elections.

Who will benefit (directly and indirectly) from your project?

When young people are engaged from any early age they stay engaged, and this benefits not just the City of Austin, but all of us.

What other resources/tools are currently serving the same need? How does your project set itself apart?

Currently, Travis County maintains a voter registeration portal here, however, no pre-registration portal can be found.

Where can we find any research/data available/articles?

• https://www.headcount.org/think-youre-young-register/
• https://www.fairvote.org/voter_pre_registration

What help do you need now?

• Prototype
• Website
• Demo
• Testing, including automated tests and sanity checks
• Maintenance, Devops

What are the next steps (validation, research, coding, design)?

On the look out for front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers to begin development.

How can we contact you outside of Github(list social media or places you're present)?

Github is a good starting point.

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