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MILLENNIAL VOTERS
Mashable Tech
OPINION
If Democrats Want To Keep Winning, They Need To Engage Millennials
By
Suraj Patel
, Guest Writer
We aren't apathetic or entitled. We're your base.
POST 50
Will Millennials Become The Next 'Greatest Generation' Or The Next 'Lost Generation'?
By
Martha T.S. Laham
, Contributor
Author of The Con Game: A Failure of Trust
Many millennials are driven by extrinsic goals, like money, status, and fame. For example, young people are enthralled with celebrity culture, and many want a piece of fame -- and think they can get it.
POLITICS
The Millennial Vote: A Turning Point
By
Jesse Moore
, Contributor
Vice President for Civic Engagement at Rock the Vote; most rec...
A message for the media and political pundits everywhere: it's time to ditch the narrative that young people won't vote this election cycle.
Mandel Ngan/Getty Images
POLITICS
Three Men Come Up With A Jaw-Dropping Plan For Donald Trump To Win Over Millennial Women
By
Amanda Terkel
They plan to dredge up scandals from the '90s and blame a woman for the affairs of her husband. Really.
Bill Clark via Getty Images
POLITICS
Congresswoman Asks Black Millennials Not To 'Give The One-Finger Salute' And Stay Home On Election Day
By
Elise Foley
Congressional Black Caucus members want young voters to learn more about Hillary Clinton.
POLITICS
Freedom To Choose: Political Elites And The Protest Vote
By
.
, Contributor
.
Could we have a sorrier array of choices? Probably not. But instead of blaming the voters, it is time for elites to look inward.
POLITICS
Why Hillary Is Not Winning Over Young Voters And How To Gain Their Support
By
Jack Myers
, Contributor
Chairman & Media Ecologist, MyersBizNet
A lesson in changing voting patterns shouldn't be needed in a season that has disrupted all traditional campaign strategies.
ShutterStock - a katz
POLITICS
What To Learn From The Bern
By
Heather R. Higgins
, Contributor
President & CEO, Independent Women's Voice
Millennials’ sour experiences with Clinton opens the door for Trump to try to win them over.
BLACK VOICES
Why I Support Donald Trump as a Conservative Millennial of Color
By
Kicker
, Contributor
Kicker
I have listened to Trump's speeches, read his books, and I even attended a Trump rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on December 21st, 2015. I have no doubt in my mind that Trump will do what is best for the American people. He will protect this country. He will make America great again.
POLITICS
Millennials Taking Power
By
Mark Gerzon
, Contributor
Author, Activist, Transpartisan Political Thought Leader
But unlike other states, America's third largest "state" has no representatives in Congress. Consequently, Collegia represents a golden opportunity for mobilizing Millennial Power. This population is heavily concentrated in well-defined college towns.
Do you have info to share with HuffPost reporters?
Here’s how.
POLITICS
The Ghosts of Midterms Past
By
Capri S. Cafaro
, Contributor
Former Ohio State Senator/Minority Leader, Executive In Resid...
Undoubtedly, much is at stake every four years as presidents set the tone and, theoretically, the policy agenda in Washington. But what is occurring in the intervening time? We still have elections. And those elections are much more important than you think.
POLITICS
An Open Letter to Young Voters
By
Khwaja Khusro Tariq
, Contributor
Poetry enthusiast, psychiatrist, socialist, interfaith activist
Yes,
you
. The 24-year-old fresh out of grad school, about to finally embark on that career as a licensed clinical social worker -- except you are $30,000 in debt before you've even seen your first paycheck.
POLITICS
Hillary Clinton Is Pitching Herself To Millennials
By
Howard Fineman
The overwhelming American consensus is that the Iraq War was a mistake and that the bomb-and-drone approach to ending terrorism
POLITICS
Millennials Rock the Marriage Debate
By
Ashley Spillane
, Contributor
President, Impactual LLC
This cultural shift is obviously significant. But where we go from here is just as important. There are 93 million of us in America right now, and as a result, we have the potential to be the most powerful voting bloc in the country. Imagine what we could do if we harnessed that number, and the power that comes with it, into action at the ballot box?
POLITICS
Politicians Are Always Giving College Students the Shaft: Why Shouldn't They?
By
Matt Teitelbaum
, Contributor
President at College Democrats of Maryland
As a politically active student, I am incredibly frustrated by the lack of political engagement demonstrated by my peers. When asked how they feel about the government, I find young people are very quick to blame politicians for many of their problems.
POLITICS
Notes for Next Time: From Turnoff to Turnout
By
Robert Kuttner
, Columnist
Columnist
The voting turnout in this year's congressional and gubernatorial elections was the lowest since 1942. Much of the story was in young people, poor people, black and Hispanic citizens who tend to support Democrats voting in far lower numbers than in 2008 or 2012. The Democrats just weren't offering them very much. But the other part of the Election Day story was older voters and the white working class, especially men, deserting the Democrats in droves -- again, because Democrats didn't seem to be offering much. Republicans, at least, were promising lower taxes. Turnout on average dropped from 2012 by a staggering 42 percent. But as Sam Wang reported in a post-election piece for the American Prospect, the drop-off was evidently worse for Democrats. The two parts of this story seem to create an impossible conundrum for Democrats.
POLITICS
To Young Liberals in Red States: Stay
By
Madison Lawson
, Contributor
Student, University of Tennessee in Knoxville
It's tough living in a red state as a young liberal. However, for each liberal that leaves a red state, there is, consequently, one less liberal in that state. One less liberal to fight for, and vote for, change.
LATINO VOICES
Defying Shelby: Get Informed, Then #GoVote!
By
Yándary K. Zavala
, Contributor
Yándary Zavala is the Communications for the Utah Democratic P...
If there is one day this year that will determine the future of the Latino community, it is November 4. With Latinos poised to influence the outcomes of key races nationwide, it is crucial for us to vote.
POLITICS
The Conundrum of the Midterms
By
Marc Brownstein
, Contributor
Bass player for The Disco Biscuits, founder and co-chair of He...
The truth is, there are intelligent, well-spoken, educated people who just don't feel represented by the politicians in Washington; a lot of them. Is there a solution?
POLITICS
The Conundrum of the Midterms
By
Marc Brownstein
, Contributor
Bass player for The Disco Biscuits, founder and co-chair of He...
The truth is, there are intelligent, well-spoken, educated people who just don't feel represented by the politicians in Washington; a lot of them. Is there a solution?
VIDEOS
Poll Shows Millennial Voters Favor The GOP. Really?
A poll of young voters released Wednesday bore what on the surface seemed like terrible news for Democrats: A majority of millennials likely to show up at the polls said they were backing the GOP.
POLITICS
Poll Shows Millennial Voters Favor The GOP. Really?
By
Ariel Edwards-Levy
One theme that's more consistent across the Harvard poll and other recent surveys is a sense of disenchantment with politics
HUFFPOST LIVE 321
Sec. Of The Interior: Millennial Voters Can Turn The Tide On Climate Change
By
Rahel Gebreyes
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![<img alt=""/><p>In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, app developer Leo Sussan was unhappy and looking for a way to become more politically active. So he volunteered for a long-shot congressional candidate, 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in New York City. </p>
<p>Since he was a full-time employee at a real estate startup, Sussan offered his programming skills to the campaign during his off-hours. The app he and his small team created, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://reach.vote">Reach</a>, reimagined the way volunteers found other sympathetic voters — and ultimately helped get Ocasio-Cortez elected. </p>
<p>Historically, political campaigns have reached voters through a process called "canvassing," or making direct contact with people door-to-door. Apps typically facilitated this process by giving volunteers in the field an easy way to access a list of voters compiled by the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>The list of potential voters was usually built from historical voting data and party registration. Volunteers would use it to find sympathetic voters, knock on their doors, and ask them a predetermined set of questions, typically about whether they were likely to vote for a specific candidate.</p>
<p>But Sussan's app — Reach — was different. It made it easier for volunteers to find brand-new voters, regardless of whether they'd voted in a previous election or registered as a Democrat in the past. It was a technological solution to one of the campaign's key principles: Ocasio-Cortez wanted to expand the electorate, and help more people take part in the political process. Sussan did too, so he built the app with this as a core principle.</p>
<p>Now, using Reach, volunteers were able to easily target new voters on the street, at the mall, or basically anywhere they could think of, and log their interactions. Canvassers were no longer confined to a list of people who'd voted for a Democrat in the past or registered with the Democratic Party. Instead, they could add new names and contact information to the list on the spot. Plus, it helped that Reach worked on all the major platforms including iOS, Android, and web browsers, making it easier to get into the hands of the right people.</p>
<div><p>SEE ALSO: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://mashable.com/video/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-youngest-woman-elected-to-congress?utm_campaign&utm_cid=a-seealso&utm_context=textlink&utm_medium=rss&utm_source">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes history as she becomes the youngest woman ever in Congress</a></p></div>
<p>When Ocasio-Cortez faced off against 10-year incumbent Joe Crowley in the Democratic primaries in June, the app played a pivotal role in her upset victory, according to Sussan. Shortly after the win, Sussan left his day job to join Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign full-time as the technology director.</p>
<p>Ocasio-Cortez's midterm victory over Republican Anthony Pappas (she won a whopping <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2018-election/midterms/ny">78 percent</a> of the vote) made her the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, but that doesn't mean Sussan can rest. We spoke to him just a few days before Election Day to get a better sense of how he’s continuing to build technology that will help find potential voters and what the future holds for progressives in the technology industry.</p>
<p><img title="Leo Sussan (standing in white) celebrates with the rest of the Ocasio-Cortez team upon learning of her primary win in June." alt="Leo Sussan (standing in white) celebrates with the rest of the Ocasio-Cortez team upon learning of her primary win in June."></p>
<p>Leo Sussan (standing in white) celebrates with the rest of the Ocasio-Cortez team upon learning of her primary win in June.</p><div><p>Image: Andrew Bard Epstein</p></div><p><strong>Can you tell me more about the app you created, Reach?</strong></p>
<p>We built Reach as a tool for ourselves. We wanted something that let us go where people are and have electorally relevant interactions. Reach let us canvas and record responses at community events, on the streets, on subways, in taxis, and even online. Volunteers set up tables on the street and would talk to folks on their way to work, in Ubers and on the subway. All of these interactions that are usually untracked by a campaign were now being fed into our get-out-the-vote system and our outreach efforts.</p>
<p><strong>How did this differ from the old way of getting out the vote?</strong></p>
<p>Traditional door-to-door canvassing methods limit who you talk to and where you're able to effectively collect data. One of the main ways that canvassing is broken is that it's list-driven. Those lists are generated based on what a campaign has guessed would predetermine support for their candidate. A major variable is whether or not they voted in the last election. What ends up happening is a lot of voters who are already supporters get knocks on their door. You end up selling to the [people who’ve already been] sold [to].</p>
<p><img title="Screenshots of the Reach app for iOS." alt="Screenshots of the Reach app for iOS."></p>
<p>Screenshots of the Reach app for iOS.</p><div><p>Image: reach / itunes</p></div><p><strong>How important was Reach to the success of the Ocasio-Cortez’s upset primary win against Joe Crowley?</strong></p>
<p>After we won, we looked back, and Reach accounted for about 10 percent of our total positive IDs, or in other words, pledged voters. Reach was only deployed in the last three weeks before the primary. And the difference in the number of votes between Crowley and Ocasio was about 15 percent. So, I’d like to think that there was an impact, but you can't see who votes for who. I think it played a big role, especially in bringing out folks that had not voted before.</p>
<p><strong>Reach is now being deployed in campaigns other than Ocasio-Cortez’s. How did the app branch out to other candidates?</strong></p>
<p>A lot of Ocasio’s volunteers went over to work on other campaigns and were like, ‘Why are we using this old piece of software? And why can't we use Reach?’ The problem at the time was the solution wasn't built to scale. It was built just to solve our own [campaign’s] problems. We had to rebuild it.</p>
<p>We ran a beta in the final days of a campaign in early August. The results were insane. We ended up accounting for 10 percent of IDs in just the three days that we deployed it in the field with volunteers. That was unexpected. </p>
<p>About 20 campaigns ended up using it. We had a waiting list of something like 35 campaigns. The next step for us is to bring it to as many folks as humanly possible while maintaining control of the technology, making sure that only the right candidates get access to it. We're only working with progressives and hard-left campaigns right now.</p>
<p><img title="Screenshots showing Reach in action for the iOS." alt="Screenshots showing Reach in action for the iOS."></p>
<p>Screenshots showing Reach in action for the iOS.</p><div><p>Image: reach / itunes</p></div><p><strong>How do you determine which campaigns to work with?</strong></p>
<p>Everyone who built Reach, and there's about seven of us total plus a few others who contributed some code to it, votes on any campaign that comes to us asking to use it. If 60 percent or more of us say yes, then we'll deploy it for them. We've turned down a couple campaigns. Because each voter file in each state is different, we have to essentially build new data loaders for each state. </p>
<p>Our calculus that goes into it is A) do all of our members like the politics of a candidate who is requesting it? and B) given that they do, can we build the loader in time to have an impact, and if not, should we re-prioritize and focus on campaigns in states we’re already working in?</p>
<p>All the candidates we worked with were long shots. And all but one were running against incumbents. We’re only interested in the most progressive races and making a difference in them regardless of their chance of victory.</p>
<p><strong>What if a canvasser using Reach comes across someone who isn’t registered to vote? </strong></p>
<p>Because it's based on the voter file, if you were to search a person who isn't registered to vote yet, they would not show up. But I've been recently experimenting with builds that allow you to register a voter on the spot and that is one thing that we're heavily considering as a kind of a major release to all campaigns that end up using us moving forward.</p>
<p><img title="Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks with reporters after casting her ballot in the 2018 midterm general election." alt="Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks with reporters after casting her ballot in the 2018 midterm general election."></p>
<p>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks with reporters after casting her ballot in the 2018 midterm general election.</p><div><p>Image: JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock</p></div><p><strong>Can you tell me more about Reach and its use as an online get-out-the-vote tool?</strong></p>
<p>We’re working on using social media as a way of generating IDs. We’re taking some of the folks that consistently interact with us on social media platforms like Twitter and finding them in the voter file and marking them. By doing that we're able to follow up with them outside of the sphere of social media to get them out to vote.</p>
<p><strong>What do you think of Google, Facebook, and other major tech companies’ roles in the political arena, particularly in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal?</strong></p>
<p>As global monolithic entities, these companies have a huge impact on what our politics look like. They need to do better. Companies as distinct entities have one job and one job only, and that’s to look after their shareholders and to extract the maximum amount of value. But companies are made up of parts, the people that are working at these companies. Those individual parts are getting experience and access to valuable resources that they wouldn't have before. As a result of that and this kind of globalized awakening of people to the political process, the net result is going to be a lot of politically involved techies trying to use their skills to create new and better solutions for progressive campaigns. As an example, almost all the folks who work on Reach with me had not worked in politics prior to this campaign.</p>
<p><strong>Any final thoughts on the future?</strong></p>
<p>What I can say with certainty is that my future has been written for me. I want to be involved in creating the solutions that elevate us from where we are to where we need to be. So whatever I end up doing, it's going to be for the greater good in the political world.</p>
<p><em>This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.</em></p>
<div>
<h2><a rel="nofollow" href="https://mashable.com/video/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-youngest-woman-elected-to-congress?utm_campaign&utm_cid=a-bonusvideo&utm_context=textlink&utm_medium=rss&utm_source">WATCH: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes history as she becomes the youngest woman ever in Congress</a></h2>
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