Show HN: Get Your Friends To Vote On Election Day | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Get Your Friends To Vote On Election Day

pleasevotetoday.com

12 pointsgailees20 comments

What is the message they are getting though? Is it a message that asks them to go vote, or one that says to go vote for Obama?

It just says "Please Vote Today"

"Please Vote Today!"

We just want to get young people out to vote; we think this may be one of the most effective measures at this point.

by sending spam to your friends?

So, you want me to give you their phone number without their consent? uhm...no.

You can text them yourself; can you not?

All the app does is send the numbers through a twilio script on election day that will shoot them a message: "Please Vote Today!"

True - but you have to understand the distrust people have with supplying a website with information like other people's phone numbers. What happens to the numbers after Tuesday? Will the data be used for anything else? Will the message include any additional advertising?

I'm sure you're doing this with the best of intentions, and commend you for that. But you have to understand that healthy skepticism on the internet is necessary to protect yourself.

For sure. I'm not really sure how to handle that though - any suggestions?

The twilio script we are using deletes the numbers after the text "Please Vote Today!" is sent to them. That's all the text will say; no advertising at all.

Exactly. There's almost no information. Skeptics (like myself) will want to know who is behind this app, why they're doing it, or something. About Us? Terms & Conditions? Privacy Policy?

As someone mentioned above, the fact that it's got am "obama favicon", yet makes no other reference to obama anywhere is also sketchy. Being neutral about the importance of voting is a little more trustworthy.

Resolve all those things, and I'm still not to keen on giving out my friends' phone numbers for fear I'm adding them to a spam list.

We launched a similar sort of thing yesterday, taking advantage of our community we're sending people free stickers if they take a picture of themselves at a polling place or with their ballot papers. http://dft.ba/vote

This idea seems pretty cool, could you not just add an entry to peoples calendars (Might reduce the number of people you could influence to just smartphone users, but I would imagine most people would have smartphones. Guessing it's using Twilio?

Yup. Twilio. We think texting is by far the most powerful way to actually get people out to vote.

I worked a lot at the beginning of the semester on getting my friends registered to vote; now, I really just want to see them get out there and actually vote :)

love your site, BTW!

All Obama needs to do is read this on how to win an election, and he should be okay...http://mises.org/daily/5036

Interesting read; not sure how much it'd help the POTUS...

It wouldn't =D

Why is this specific to Obama - I'm pretty sure they are having the same problem across the board.

The op is probably an Obama lover.

A majority of the young vote tends to lean towards Obama; this app mainly targets people who frequently use text messaging for communication aka young people.

Pretty simple idea, simplicity sells.

Better than robo-calls.

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