Official Foursquare 'I Voted' Badge Released for Polling Place Check-Ins

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October 27, 2010
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Official Foursquare 'I Voted' Badge Released for Polling Place Check-Ins

Visit elections.foursquare.com for visualization of voting check-ins nationwide

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Foursquare has partnered with a team of experienced political strategists, designers and activists to release the official "I Voted" badge in conjunction with launching a real-time visualization of check-ins for Election Day. The joint effort encourages voters to check-in at their polling place and share that they have voted with their friends through social media. Including the text #ivoted in their polling station check-in will unlock the badge.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101027/NY89935 )

(Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20101027/NY89935 )

The 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 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.

JESS3 built a custom map visualization around cutting-edge technologies like HTML5, using semantic components and new features like the "canvas" element for interactive graphics.  The site is accessing over 108,000 official polling locations provided by the VotingInformationProject, which were then geocoded by the foursquare team and made available to JESS3 through the foursquare API.

Words From Our Partners

    --  "Every day we see new examples of foursquare encouraging and reinforcing
        positive behaviors. We're excited to work with such an amazing group of
        partners to harness the power of foursquare to drive civic engagement
        through the 'I Voted' badge," said Eric Friedman, Business Development,
        foursquare. "With over four million users, foursquare is now at the
        scale where check-ins communicate a larger trend and we're excited to
        make this data more accessible to the public."
    --  "For the first time ever, voters are going to show up to their
        workplaces on Election Day wearing their physical I Voted sticker and
        their co-workers will have already seen their virtual I Voted badge on
        foursquare, Facebook and Twitter," says Jordan Raynor, President of
        Direct Media Strategies and Founder of the popular Twitter petition on
        Act.ly which fueled the community drive for the I Voted badge.
    --  "With foursquare's new 'I Voted' badge, the age of social voting is
        here," said Patrick Ruffini, partner at Engage who worked with the
        Voting Information Project to obtain polling place data for every state.
        "Asking all your friends to vote is now as easy as tapping 'Check in'
        while you're standing in line to vote."
    --  "Foursquare has been popularized by users competing for points and
        badges for checking in at the grocery store or the local watering hole.
        The right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy, and it's only natural
        that we should be recognized for checking in at our polling place too,"
        says Mindy Finn, partner at Engage.
    --  JESS3 co-founder and President Leslie Bradshaw added: "The age of social
        media truly impacting the political process is here; as an information
        design firm with roots in DC, helping bring this moment to life with a
        real-time visualization along side so many incredible partners is a
        dream come true for the entire JESS3 team."

About Us

The following team of passionate and experienced political digital strategists, campaign managers and activists came together to make this idea a reality:

Eric Friedman - Director of Client Services at foursquare; Patrick Ruffini - Partner, Engage & former eCampaign Director, Republican National Committee;  Mindy Finn - Partner, Engage & former eStrategy Director for Romney for President 2008; Jordan Raynor - "IVoted"Act.lyPetitioner and President, DirectMediaStrategies; Patrick Ottenhoff - Founder of The Electoral Map and Correspondent at TheAtlantic; Tracy Viselli - Team Member of the TwitterVoterReport and Community Manager at ACTionAlexandria; David Almacy - Former Internet & E-Communications for the White House (oversaw http://whitehouse.gov) and current SVP at EdelmanDigital; Jesse Thomas - Founder and Chief Executive Officer of JESS3 and Leslie Bradshaw - 2008 Election C-SPANHub Community Manager and current President and Chief Operating Officer of JESS3.

Learn more about I Voted by visiting: elections.foursquare.com

SOURCE  JESS3

Photo:http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20101027/NY89935
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
Photo:http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101027/NY89935
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
JESS3

CONTACT: Erin Gleason of Foursquare, +1-917-859-0501, press@foursquare.com, or Leslie Bradshaw of JESS3, +1-703-994-7781, lesliebradshaw@JESS3.com

Web Site: http://www.JESS3.com

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