With the midterm elections coming up, its hard to be 100% informed about every issue as well as read every bill or proposition that’s on the ballot. And after election season, how exactly do you contact your lawmakers? Luckily, if you’re a smartphone owner, we’ve got you covered with these five apps.
WeVote
The best national voting app by far. The app locates you using your location and shows who is running on the state and federal levels. Users can click on each candidate to read a short, unbiased summary about them. This is great for voters who might not be as familiar with more local candidates, such as state representatives. While it asks for your first and last name, state, and year of birth, it can be bypassed with the “not now” feature.
Countable
This app is great for providing clear, unbiased summaries of bills going through Congress. According to its website, countable provides clear, concise summaries of bills going through Congress, let’s you see what others think, and then take action. Users can also tell their reps how they feel using email and now video message options in the app.
Brigade
Brigade allows you to find campaigns that are in line with your political beliefs and connects you with existing campaigns and activism efforts in your area. While it’s not specific to voting, it’s great for getting and staying involved with politics year-round.
The Swing Voter
The Swing Voter is more of a way to send feedback to federal and state representatives. The app provides easy-to-read summaries of bills as well as which politicians sponsored the bill and then lets users vote on how they feel about them, giving politicians a pulse on what their constituents think.
Vote.Org
This app lets you send mass texts to friends and family in your contacts reminding them to vote and sending them a link to finding their polling place. It’s the perfect app for people who have at least a few slackers in their contacts (pretty much all of us).
There are also a lot of great state voting apps that go more into depth on specific state candidates and issues. You can usually find them in the App Store by searching “[Your State] Voter.”
