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Foursquare and JESS3 team up to visualize election data and offer an I Voted badge

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By on October 27th, 2010

Foursquare’s checkin data offers a wealth of information about the places people visit and when. Data visualization agency JESS3 (an About Foursquare sponsor) is looking to put that to good use on election day by visualizing the people who check in to polling places on foursquare. The data will be tracked anonymously and broken down by region and gender on a new site called “I Voted,” which will launch on November 2.

“We see this as an opportunity to look at the data that’s out there and to use the reach that Foursquare has,” Ben Slavin, JESS3’s head of tech, told Politico’s Morning Tech, who broke the story. “It gives insight into how our democracy works.”

There will also be an I Voted badge for checking in on foursquare and including #ivoted in your shout. This badge has often been requested by foursquare users and was even the subject of a well-circulated petition this summer. Given the response to foursquare’s recent push toward encouraging good habits through foursquare badges, it’s possible a badge could actually encourage more users to vote. Foursquare added a “Voting Booth” category a few weeks ago to help make tracking easier. Data has already been collected for more than 107,000 polling places.

“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.”

This election will serve as a test for ways to use foursquare data in the 2012 Presidential election. With about 2.4 million users in the US, foursquare’s data should be very useful in determining voting patterns. “In 2012, we’ll be able to provide more valuable demographic information because our user base will hopefully continue to grow,” said foursquare spokesperson Erin Gleason.

Foursquare, JESS3, MTV’s Rock the Vote, Pew Center, Google and the Voting Information Project all partnered to make the site and badge a reality.

It will be interesting to see how the “I Voted” site works next Tuesday. It should provide some interesting real-time insight into the election.

What do you think about visualizing foursquare data in this way? Will a foursquare badge make you more likely to vote?

  • Sassy

    I really, really like this!

    I think the badge would make more people vote, which means more voices heard which can only be a good thing!
    I went to 5 Starbucks to get my Barista badge and I don’t even drink coffee!

    Even as a non-US resident I’ll be following this to see how it all pans out, it looks exciting!

    • Sassy

      Urgh, that came out wrong lol

      What I meant to get across is that I think the badge will make more people vote as so many foursquare users make special trips just for badges, like I did for my barista badge and I don’t see this badge being any different

  • Ching Yu

    Guess I’ll be shouting on November 2 even though I cast my ballot in early voting on October 25.

  • twjonesjr

    my immediate question is absentee ballots. I’m at college at a different town from where I’m from and won’t actually be voting next Tuesday since I have already sent in my ballot

    • Jason

      exactly What Ching Yu said. You should get the badge by shouting “I voted”. So, even though you mailed in your ballot early, do the shout on 11/2 and you should get the badge!

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  • Gordon Werner

    What about residents in Washington State? Most counties in Washington (and I believe Oregon too) are 100% vote-by-mail

    this means that many of us, like myself, have already voted.

    So how exactly will it connect my “shout” / vote to Washington? i it based on where I say my home is in foursquare’s preferences? or what?

    • Jason

      I could be wrong, but I think checking in to a polling place would only work if you physically go and vote. Shouting “I voted” only gets you the badge, with no connection to your location.

      We’ll see how many Indonesians get the badge on Nov. 2 :)

    • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

      I wonder if a check-in is actually required, or if a simple shout will do.

      In any case you could probably check-in at your local post office since you voted by mail.

    • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

      The project description at JESS3 seems to say that you have to check in a polling location. You mail-in voters may just be screwed.

      Which is something I warned the proponents of this badge about months ago. See why I’m always cranky people? Being able to predict the future is frustrating.

  • http://foursquare.com/user/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

    I call “bullshit” all around. If you want to increase voter participation, work on a “get out the vote” drive. A Foursquare badge won’t encourage a damn thing, other than a lot of cheating in Indonesia.

    Which is conveniently left off the map, I see. So. in order to obscure Foursquare’s cheating problems, we’re just going to ignore expatriate American citizens who legitiimately voted from outside the country. Fuck that.

    And, fuck everybody who petitioned for this badge. Those people didn’t give a rat’s ass about encouraging voter participation. They just wanted Foursquare to give them an easy badge, and Foursquare pandered to them. Pandering is a bad plan. Want to know all the reasons it’s bad?

    Too bad, I’m going to tell you anyway.

    First: It’s going to lead to more whining from non-U.S. users about how Foursquare only cares about the U.S. They’re going to start demanding badges for all their elections, too.

    Second: U.S. users are going to expect this badge every election. Its going to become a boring badge.

    Third: If they do push out an election badge every year, they risk Foursquare begins to look like a clock-watching game (like all those awful Facebook) games where people are expected to be rewarded for doing rote things on schedule. People are going to start demanding badges for all other annual things in their lives, like holidays.

    Which means, eventually, some halfwit fundamentalist is going to start petitioning Foursquare to prove they don’t hate Jesus by creating a “Merry Christmas” badge, and then the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket, because Foursquare becomes another battleground in the culture wars.

    • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

      Yeah I’m going to disagree with you, while some of us will vote in every election badge or no badge I’m sure that there are plenty others who don’t bother, and I also believe the demographic of 4sq users overlaps heavily with the demographic of “too busy to vote”.

      For people who vote by mail, I doubt you will need to check in at a polling place to get the badge, a simple shout of “#ivoted” will probably do it, worst case scenario is you check in Indonesian style at your polling place (the one you would use if you were able to or inclined to vote in person).

      Perhaps a “get out the vote” campaign would be more effective at encouraging voter participation, perhaps you can come up with a plan and suggest it to 4sq for 2012.

      You say people will come to expect the badge every election, if they keep it to mid term and presidential elections that’s only one badge every two years, hardly badge overload. Even if they included the local elections that would only be once per year.

      I did not participate in or was even aware of the petition but I think the badge is a decent idea, I certainly can’t see where all the anger is coming from.

    • Zach

      The only thing I can take away from your post, Michael, is that you are beyond ridiculous and rather sad. As much as I enjoy foursquare, I don’t throw a hissy fit when we don’t have certain badges available in Denver or decry foursquare’s sinister motives and tactics. Is there an AA-type meeting for foursquare users you can attend in your area? Get some help.

      • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

        Zach :
        As much as I enjoy foursquare, I don’t throw a hissy fit when we don’t have certain badges available in Denver or decry foursquare’s sinister motives and tactics.

        You appear to be responding to something I didn’t say, and making assumptions about my motives that are wildly inaccurate. (There are people here who know my stance on limited availability of certain badges. Ask them.)

    • Chris (FoursquareHelp)

      I tend to agree with your assumption that this will not increase voter participation. What it will do is allow Indonesians and Americans alike to claim they voted when in fact they did not. It should be tied to a venue categorized as a polling place, and not simply the result of shouting something.

      I personally was planning to vote no matter what, but I decided to not vote absentee and will instead vote in person based on my original assumption that this badge was going to be tied to a specific category.

    • http://jess3.com Leslie Bradshaw

      Michael: Sorry if there was any confusion. Using #ivoted is the easiest way for folks to rally around a single hashtag for voting, but vote, voting and voted in your shout will also unlock it.

      On a personal note: As a student of social and political theory, I agree with your Hobbes / Locke skepticism about our capacity to truly care and increase our participation in the political process. That said, as an infinitely hopeful person, I am ready, willing and making my company able to help any effort to try and increase engagement from our civic populī!

      Don’t hesitate to be in touch directly via email at: lesliebradshaw@JESS3.com

      Sincerely,
      Leslie

      (co-founder / president @JESS3)

  • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

    So are we supposed to add the “Polling Place” category to the venue for our polling place (in my case a church) or are we supposed to create a new venue for the polling place and then close it after the election?

    • http://foursquare.com/user/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

      Realistically? If this is a venue-dependent badge, you should brace yourself for a influx imported venues (based on the Voter Information Project list) that will create thousands of duplicate venues, many of which have the “time-shifted checkin problem” that other massive imports had.

      If you don’t see a flood of duplicates, then it probably doesn’t matter what venue the shout comes from, or what category the venue has.

      • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

        …and if there is going to be a venue import, it could be ugly. Judging by the Voter Information Project spreadsheet of polling places for my county, Foursquare could end up with a lot of venues with incomplete names like “CITY HALL” and “BURNS ELEM SCHOOL.”

        Also, some polling places have the wrong city listed in the spreadsheet. At first glance, it seems to be a problem with ZIP codes that include more than one municipality .

  • http://vincea.twitter.com Vince Averello

    Just added my local polling place (firehouse) to Foursquare so it’ll be ready for me to check on Tuesday. The venue didn’t exist previously so it was easy for me.

  • Michael

    My polling place is a local senior center by my apartment (Chicago seems to like this as the one before it was too). It’s labeled as a “home” (thanks to me). So, basically anyone with an odd poling place would be pretty much screwed out of the badge if it wasn’t a shout. Not everyone votes at a library or church.

    That being said, I don’t think it will increase voter participation. But it will increase civic pride. People who are not power users I know on Foursquare are pretty excited about this badge in a way they are not even for normal ones.

    • http://foursquare.com/user/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

      I have no idea why you think the badge requires checking in at a library or church. There’s nothing to that effect in this story, or any of the sites it linked to. You’re just assuming stuff. Stop that. That’s how all the stupid games of “telephone” start, and we end up with 10 different websites giving people bad information about how to unlock badges.

      Also, I have no idea why you think “Home” is the appropriate category for a senior complex. The recent filtering of “Home” entries from the search engine makes it clear that Foursquare means “Home” for a private residence, not a whole apartment complex. You should change that category.

      • Michael

        Church and library were two examples of more commonplace voting venues where people would look and think to add.

        What should a senior residence be categorized as?

  • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

    Hey Chris, do you have that hashtag correct? What you’re reporting doesn’t match What JESS3′s project description says.

    • Chris Thompson

      Thanks for asking; you’ve got sharp eyes. It looks like it changed somewhere along the way. The early comps on the JESS3 site show it as #VOTE, but the more recent stuff shows it as #ivoted. That’s also what it says in the release I received from them, so I believe it’s correct.

      • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

        …and now, Foursquare’s blog is telling users they don’t even need a hashtag. There could be a lot of confusion on Tuesday.

  • http://www.srpodcast.com c_mc

    This is awesome, but where is my world series badge? GO GIANTS!

  • http://www.therealjamesdean.com Dean T.

    Looks like the Foursquare blog has also confirmed that actually checking into a polling place isn’t necessary. Simply check-in anywhere and shout “I voted” for the badge.

    I just checked my registration information and it’s really outdated, and I can only update in person. Looks like I may not be voting after all. Now…to decide on whether or not to shout something like “I voted back in 2004 and that’s good enough for me” just to get badge. lol

  • http://www.engagedc.com/patrick Patrick Ruffini

    I worked on this project, and specifically with VIP to get the data into Foursquare, so I can clarify how this is going to work.

    First, you WON’T have to check in at a polling place location to get the badge. Just Shout, Vote, or Voted, or “#ivoted” and you get the badge.

    The polling places will come into play for the data visualization piece, which will enable us to visualize check-ins at different levels geographic levels. This is a different aspect of the project altogether, and won’t be tied to the badge because of the number of people who have voted early or absentee.

    Early and absentee voters are encouraged to shout at some point during the day to help remind their friends to vote.

    And yes, it’s preferable that you check in at the voting-specific venue so we can display the data on the map. It’s my understanding that these locations may be highlighted more on Election Day, but fade back in the listings after the election as they fall into disuse.

  • Troy Bell

    Also set up the venue for my polling place as it did not previously exist.

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  • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

    Foursquare just imported several thousand “voting booth” venues. Search for “Voting at” to find them.

    So all of you panicking about your obscure polling places were wasting time.

    (Also, I was right the list having incomplete names and incorrect cities. Screw all that, I’m just going to check in at the regular city hall venue in my city.)

    • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

      Indeed you are right, there are a bunch of these in my area including my polling place.

      I’m still checking in at the _correct_ venue for my polling place (I’ve made “Voting Booth” the primary category until tomorrow. night)

      I wonder what 4SQs plan is for all these venues after tomorrow?

      • Brian

        Yeah, I already flagged my “Voting at” polling station as a duplicate. I’ll definitely be checking in at the correct venue as well, as it was the one I checked in for the primary. If my datapoint doesn’t show up on their project as a result, then so be it. It is much more important to encourage proper gameplay, and a mass duplication of venues is antithetical to that end.

      • http://foursquare.com/bauserdotcom Michael Bauser

        Checking into “Voting at” venues unlocks the badge without a shout.

        Flagging, recategorizing, and otherwise messing with the venue list today is probably a bad idea. You’re going to confuse low-involvement users, and possibly cheat them out a badge.

      • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

        Yeah I was tempted to flag the “Voting at” venue for my polling place as a duplicate but I didn’t want to mess anything up (this program seems like it has enough challenges to it’s success as it is).

        Would be nice if 4SQ would give us some guidance about this stuff rather than let people guess what they are supposed to do.

      • http://smalltownbigcincy.wordpress.com Rachel

        oh my goodness you 2… you are thinking way to much about these things… as easy as it is for you to add a venue it’s just as easy for super users to delete a venue!!

        Much like other things/events i’ve seen that have been sponsored by some big company or another, (dew tour badges anyone?) 4sq sets them up, sets them to the top of the list (as was the case when i went to vote, to get the badge i might add, as shouting did no good, and i was a provisional as i just moved and hadn’t changed my registration) And now even searching for them, won’t show up. You people are seriously making mountains out of ant hills here. It’s a game ffs… either enjoy it or don’t play. and let those of us that do enjoy it, enjoy it for crying out loud!

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  • Karen

    I have both checked in at my polling place and shouted I voted and still no badge. Is the system overwhelmed?

  • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

    Rachel :
    oh my goodness you 2… you are thinking way to much about these things… as easy as it is for you to add a venue it’s just as easy for super users to delete a venue!!

    Actually Super Users cannot delete venues, we can close them but that’s not the same thing as deleting.

    • Sassy

      Robert Aitchison :

      Rachel :
      oh my goodness you 2… you are thinking way to much about these things… as easy as it is for you to add a venue it’s just as easy for super users to delete a venue!!

      Actually Super Users cannot delete venues, we can close them but that’s not the same thing as deleting.

      Beat me to it, I wish it was easy!

    • http://smalltownbigcincy.wordpress.com Rachel

      actually super user level 3 CAN delete. And super user 2 can mark for deletion…. in which case deletes from an SU2 go to a different que than those just marked by whoever…

      • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

        I”m a SU3 and I can only flag for deletion, can’t delete directly.

      • Sassy

        Nope, I’m an SU3
        Screenshot where I can delete and I’ll eat my own hat ;)

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