Voter turnout in the United States presidential elections
Recent decades have seen increasing concern over the fact that youth voting turnout is consistently lower than turnout among older generations. Several programs to increase the rates of voting among young people—such as MTV's "Rock the Vote" (founded in 1990) and the "Vote or Die" initiative (starting in 2012)—may have marginally increased turnouts of those between the ages of 18 and 25 to vote. However, the "Stanford Social Innovation Review" found no evidence of a decline in youth voter turnout. In fact, they argue that "Millennials are turning out at similar rates to the previous two generations when they face their first elections."
Brigade Media
As technology has advanced, it was assumed that the average individual would have further access to voting, and therefore, voting numbers would increase. Instead, voter turnout at the elections remains low, with numbers at the presidential elections between 50% and 60% of the US population in the last 50 years. At the midterm election of 2014, only 36.4% of people voted, the lowest percentage since 1942. It is hoped that civic technology will incentivize and educate its users to vote. Brigade's voter ballot was an attempt as a civic technology platform to increase voter participation as well as educate its users about candidates and propositions.