TurboVote growing in Denver

Democracy Works' TurboVote tool aims to make it easier for people across the U.S. to vote.

"If you take a national view of things, there's an election somewhere in America every Tuesday all year every year. says Wes Morgan, Chief Technical Officer of Democracy Works, which makes TurboVote. We're trying to get people to vote in those as often as in the presidential elections."

People across the country can register at the non-partisan site and it allows people to download and print voting forms for their jurisdiction, and people can also pay a small fee to have the organization mail the documents. "We have people who work day in and day out to make sure it does the right thing for people no matter what kind of election jurisdiction they happen to be in," Morgan states.

The non-profit parent organization is headquartered in New York City, but it opened up a second office in Denver after hiring Morgan in 2011. He began working for the organization at home part-time, then went full-time in 2012.

"Fast-forward to today there are five of us now," says Morgan. "We have a suite in the coworking space at 15th and Blake in LoDo and we love it. One of the people here was given the choice between here and Brooklyn and said they would much rather be in the Denver office."

"One of the big things we push is voting by mail," Morgan says. "We see that as like a convenience factor. It's a way of meeting people where they live in the 21st century and voting on your couch with a laptop to research candidates and the issues. We think it’s a lot better than standing in a long line at the polling place then having a few minutes in the booth."

To help expand the reach of voters, the organization also is partnering with other organizations, colleges and universities, which align with the emphasis on voting by mail, according to Morgan. "Generally at any school, a significant portion of the students need to vote by mail," he contends.

As partners, the schools can pay for TurboVote's services and help students use the service with no costs. "When we partner with these schools we also work with them to help them role out best practices for getting the most of those people registered to vote, getting them to vote and voting in every election possible," he says. To help with those efforts, TurboVote can send texts and emails to voters that sign up at the site.

"We're starting to partner with election authorities," Morgan says. "One of the things we're working on is a ballot-tracking tool so that when people do vote by mail they can have some insight as to where it is throughout the mail system."

The organization has more plans to make it easier to vote. "We’re actively going out there to partner with organizations and eventually we’re going to do a big push on opening up the APIs and open-sourcing our code, allowing others to incorporate this stuff into other projects," Morgan says.

Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Chris Meehan with tips and leads for future stories at chris@confluence-denver.com.