Ready Set Vote

🏆 Awards

I won a pitch competition and raised $27,000 for the project after the tool had been proven succesful, also on the heels on a number of media appearances. I also led the product design and coding.

Challenge

Seattle ballots are notoriously complex, often featuring dozens of races and ballot measures spanning multiple jurisdictions. Voters frequently face unfamiliar races and struggle to identify candidates aligned with their values. Traditional voter guides are scattered across organizations and media outlets, making comprehensive research time-consuming and difficult, especially for first-time voters.

Solution

As cofounder and lead developer, I created Ready Set Vote, an innovative platform that revolutionized how voters engaged with their ballots. The core innovation was a digital ballot facsimile that allowed users to overlay endorsements from trusted organizations directly onto their ballot preview. Users could select endorsements from political parties, advocacy groups, newspapers, and community organizations—all displayed in an intuitive interface that mirrored their actual ballot. This allowed voters to easily see which candidates were supported by organizations they trusted, making informed decisions without juggling multiple browser tabs or printed materials. The platform achieved remarkable engagement, with tens of thousands of voters using it during election seasons and numerous organizations requesting to have their endorsements included in the system.

Technical Details

Ready Set Vote was built as a React application with a focus on performance and reliability during high-traffic election periods. I headed up the product development, from drafting initial mockups, to user testing, to coding prototypes, and overseeing a development team. I implemented a custom component architecture that allowed for the dynamic generation of ballot layouts based on a user's address and the current election cycle. The endorsement overlay system used a sophisticated filtering mechanism that allowed users to toggle multiple endorsement sources simultaneously without overwhelming the interface. I developed a custom state management solution to handle the complex combinations of filters and views. Data integrity was paramount, so I created an administrative interface with strict validation requirements and approval workflows to ensure accuracy of all candidate and endorsement information. The project secured $27,000 in development funding after winning a competitive pitch contest, validating both its technical approach and its potential for civic impact.