At VoteFTW, our mission is to provide accurate polling location data to empower all voters to participate in the democratic process. We believe that when voters have the information they need, democracy thrives. Ahead of the New York primary election, we sent messages to New Yorkers in a unique visual format—an image of their polling location—because we believe visualizing one’s polling place increases the likelihood of voting. We also provided an official government link for voters to verify their polling location.
Unfortunately, some of these texts contained incorrect polling locations due to an error on our part. We take full responsibility for this mistake. Upon discovering the error, we promptly issued a correction text directing voters again to their official poll lookup tool. Below, we provide copies of both the original and correction messages sent to New Yorkers.
We have been in touch with Kathleen McGrath of the New York State Board of Elections and have followed the corrective steps they recommended.
We are currently working to determine how many people were affected by this database error.
Original Message:
{firstName}, if you’re registered to vote at {address}, records suggest you may not have voted yet. It looks like you can vote in the primary election on Tuesday, June 25th at {pollingSiteName} at {pollingSiteAddress} (pictured). We’re not election officials though, so you can confirm whether that’s correct and check voting hours on the official gov’t site: https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/stop = end - VoteFTW [{imageUrl}]
Correction Text Sent Today:
The primary election is on Tuesday, June 25th. It’s come to our attention that some of the polling addresses we sent out were based on an error in our database, so please make sure you check the official govt website to confirm your local polling place: https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/ stop = end - VoteFTW
We apologize to the people of New York who received the wrong polling location image. We urge all New Yorkers to visit https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/ to look up their polling location, hours, and other information about accessing their polling place.
Virgie Madrigal
Press Secretary, VoteFTW
press@voteftw.com
