Announcing Hear the Voters
A New Way for you to Contact Your Representatives
Do you feel represented by your elected representatives? Do you know who they are and what positions they hold? Have you read, watched, or heard what they have to say during their tenure?
If you answered no to any of those questions, Hear the Voters is your solution. Available for iOS and Android!
Download Hear the Voters now and unlock the power to connect with your representatives like never before. Be the change, shape the future, and make your voice heard — all with a simple tap on your smartphone. Don’t wait for better representation; speak up NOW with Hear the Voters
Current Engagement with our Representatives is Broken
Voting is the one thing that every citizen can do to help make our country a better place. We place our hopes and dreams in our elected representatives, and in return, they are charged with representing our interests. But what if they don’t?
For most of us, waiting for the next election cycle is the only recourse. However, according to a poll from Pew Research, only 37% of the voting populace voted in the three election cycles of 2018, 2020, and 2022. Our representatives are only hearing some of our voices at the ballot box.
For the longest time, the solution was to get more voters. This is the strategy that Stacey Abrams, a political leader, has taken. Between 2016 and 2020, she helped register 1 Million Georgia voters. Between 2020 and 2023, Abrams led the New Georgia Project, registering 100,000 new voters in Georgia. In 2022, the New Georgia Project spent $19.6 Million to run the organization, and the results were 1.5 Million doors knocked in their Get Out The Vote activities, 173,000 conversations, and 40,000 new voters.
This seven-year period resulted in a change of around 14% of the current voting rolls in Georgia, which has about 7.3 Million active voters.
Will those new voters sway elected representatives’ decisions? Voting is important, but we vote in binaries. How do our representatives know what we want on the issues? How can we maximize those voters’ voices beyond pulling a lever?
Hear the Voters helps you to communicate your thoughts that are more nuanced than checking a box on a ballot.
How it Started
“We have been too quiet for too long. There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time.” — John Lewis — At the House sit-in after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, 2016
*John Oliver, the host of Last Week Tonight, talked about State Attorneys General in 2019. In that segment, he mentioned that most people do not know who their Attorneys General were. This 2018 Johns Hopkins Survey seems to bear that out when they found:
- Nearly a third of respondents didn’t know which state officials they voted for beyond governor, lieutenant governor, and members of the legislature. (Depending on the state, other elected officials might include the state attorney general, comptroller, treasurer, agriculture commissioner, land commissioner, and more).
- Most people surveyed had no idea if the chief judge of the state’s highest court is elected or appointed.
We can think this are a series of straightforward questions to answer, but the truth is that information on who represents you as an individual can be hard to discover. The websites for local representatives often refer to districts, but what are the boundaries of those districts? What if you don’t want to send an e-mail through a form on a website, which is the default for most US Senators? Maybe your local representatives’s incoming calls are routed through one number at City Hall; how can you ensure you reach the right person?
A Pew Research poll from 2018 found that in 2017:
- 29% expressed support online via social media
- 23% contacted an election official
- 11% attended a local government meeting
The number of our voices that are being heard beyond the ballot box is only a quarter of the US population. From 2018–2022, the portion of that population that agreed with the statement: “When it comes to candidates for political office, I usually feel none of the candidates represent my views well,” rose by 20%.
Finding your representatives can be time-consuming and complicated. Finding a way to communicate with a representative is nearly impossible.
Hear the Voters is the solution to those problems.
Hear the Voters is here to help
Hear the Voters is an app that will be available for iOS and Android in early October 2023. Watch our launch video and join the sign-up list to find out when it is available.
Remember those 100,000 new voters in Georgia? Once they vote, their job isn’t done.
- They need to be kept aware of what their representatives say and do — Hear the Voters provides links to Facebook, Twitter Profiles, and YouTube Pages
- Let them know how they are doing — Hear the Voters provides phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and mailing addresses
100,000 votes are decisive. 100,000 engaged constituents take it to another level.
Hear the Voters will list all of your representatives based on your registered voting address. Hear the Voters has compiled several methods to communicate with your representatives and make your voice heard, and we are just getting started.
If you are registered to vote, you have done the first part. Now, it’s time for you to bring the issues you care about to the forefront by directly communicating with your representatives.
Join our mailing list and find out more at www.hearthevoters.com.
