Local Citizen Uses Technology to Educate on Local Elections

Since I first met Jessica Otey, almost one year ago, she has been interested in voter education in Charlottesville.  Even then, her primary desire was to create an InfoBallot for the city to better prepare voters. She believed in going beyond a simple voter guide to the issues.  She wanted to use technology to overlay critical voter information onto the actual ballot.  I’m pleased to share that she has formally published her November 2016 InfoBallot.  From her press release,

“There is probably nothing more anxiety-provoking than finding oneself in the voting booth and not understanding what you are being asked to vote on,” Ms. Otey relates. “This has happened to me personally, and so I designed the InfoBallot as a tool that could, in a matter of minutes, give a potential voter some basic facts that would make him or her a more comfortable, prepared voter.”

According to her site an “InfoBallot is a copy of an official sample ballot to which helpful, non-partisan information has been added for the purposes of assisting a would-be voter.”  We’re cross posting it here because a big goal of ours is to cheer, support, and facilitate civic innovation in Central Virginia.

Have you seen other examples of civic innovation in Charlottesville, we want to know!

Ballot page 1:

Ballot page 2:

See also:

Printable version

Direct link to project on ThingLink (page 1 / page 2)

Jessica Otey’s Infoballot site.