Coming November 2: The FourSquare ‘I Voted’ Badge!

On June 17, 2010, I started a petition (and many in the GovLoop community signed) on Twitter calling for foursquare to create an “I Voted” badge for voters who check-in to their polling place locations on Election Day. On November 2, 2010, that dream will become a reality. Today, The I Voted Project is thrilled to announce that foursquare will be awarding an official “I Voted” badge to voters who check-in to their polling place location and “shout” #ivoted on November 2.

This project was designed with three purposes in mind:

1. Encourage civic participation through the distribution of the “I Voted” foursquare badge;
2. Increase transparency by visualizing how many voters are checking-in, and at which polling locations; and
3. Develop a replicable and scalable system to use for the 2012 Presidential Elections and beyond.

The official I Voted Project site, located at elections.foursquare.com, will go live on November 2nd and display “I Voted” check-ins throughout the country as they are happening. The site will allow users to explore check-ins by city and state, while also providing data about the volume, time of day and gender that each polling location is experiencing. The interactive map of check-ins will also be available for embed on any website. Here’s a taste of what you will see on Election Day:

So how did this whole project come about? Shortly after our petition caught fire, Leslie Bradshaw of JESS3 (the brilliant design and data-visualization team behind this project) reached out to me and a handful of others about creating a coalition of passionate and experienced political digital strategists to make this idea a reality. We knew right off the bat that the biggest challenge to making this project happen would be uploading more than 107,000 accurate polling place locations across the country for a one-day affair. Fortunately, Direct Media Strategies had been working on producing that list since June when we joined the Voting Information Project with our good friends Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn at Engage. The data we were able to share with foursquare via the Voting Information Project proved to be a critical cornerstone to this project’s launch.

When I first started the Twitter petition in June, I blogged that, “Someday soon, you will show up to your office with an “I Voted” sticker and your friends and colleagues will have already seen your “I Voted” foursquare badge on Facebook or Twitter.” I am excited to say that that day will be November 2, 2010. To all of you who signed the petition that helped fuel this project, THANK YOU! I am honored to have been a part of this I Voted Project with the rest of this talented team:

• Eric Friedman, Director of Client Services at foursquare
• Leslie Bradshaw, Former Community Manager for C-SPAN’s 2008 Convention and Debate Hubs (Webby Nominated) and current President & Chief Operating Officer at JESS3
• Jesse Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of JESS3 and Creative Mastermind
• Patrick Ruffini, Partner, Engage & former eCampaign Director, Republican National Committee
• Mindy Finn, Partner, Engage & former Internet Director for Romney for President 2008
• Jordan Raynor, President, Direct Media Strategies and Founder of the “I Voted” Act.ly Petition
• Patrick Ottenhoff, Founder of The Electoral Map & Correspondent at the Atlantic
• Tracy Viselli, Member of the Twitter Vote Report team & Community Manager at ACTion Alexandria
• David Almacy, Former Internet & E_Communications for the White House & current SVP at Edelman Digital.