HuB Sarasota asks: Do you Y.O.V.O.? Well you should!

The HuB located in Sarasota, FL has launched a new Vote Sarasota website. The website is unique in that it allows those who sign up to become “virtual volunteers” in any local election.

Here is the video introducing Vote Sarasota:

The City of Sarasota will hold elections for two city commission seats on May 14th. What data shows is off cycle elections suppress the vote. Getting out voters is difficult as they tend to miss key elections like this one. City government can and in many cases does have a greater impact on local taxpayers and businesses than what happens in Washington, D.C.

So what is Y.O.V.O.? Y.O.V.O stands for You Only Vote Once. According to the Vote Sarasota website:

We created this website to motivate residents to vote in City elections in Sarasota on May 14th. Our voter turnout is 17% in City elections (versus 75% in November elections). Joining Y.O.V.O. is simple. You register on our website, and then you can search for friends or neighbors and remind them to vote via email.

Also, we have opened up our entire platform for anyone to build an application to help get out the vote. View our OPEN API.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did you get the data?

The Supervisor of Elections office provides Voter data to anyone who requests. We built this website to make it easy for anyone to search and use this data to improve voter turnout.

Why should I take the time to look-up friends and remind them via email?

It is important to us and the City for everyone to vote. Unfortunately, with an off-cycle election most people simply forget to vote. A reminder from a friend or neighbor can improve voter turnout drastically.

Why do we need to email them, why not call them?

Unfortunately calling people is difficult, and most people don’t want to make the calls and they certainly don’t want to receive them. We also don’t want to just have random people calling people asking for their vote. It has proven ineffective. The only option left is to have volunteers contact people they KNOW and send them a nice email reminding them to vote.

This application has great potential. According to the developers they plan on making it commercially available to others. This is the new wave of GOTV. No more annoying robo calls and people knocking on your door. Just sign up, point and click to become a virtual volunteer.  It is that easy.

To learn more visit The HuB Sarasota.