Chatham County, NC  – October 8, 2024 – InformNation, a new AI-powered civic engagement app, launched on the Apple App Store. Designed to help citizens stay informed and involved in the political process, InformNation  provides a simple and effective way for users to react to issues and bills their representatives and candidates are debating and voting on. As users enter their preferences, InformNation shows how officials align with their views and dynamically updates over time.   InformNation empowers citizens by enabling them to: React  to issues and bills using a straightforward agree/disagree scale. Discover  which of their politicians support or oppose those issues or bills. Track  their alignment with their politicians over time, building a personalized civic profile. Engage  through a calendar featuring key civic events such as elections, town meetings, and other opportunities to participate in the democratic process. "We wanted to create a platform where people can quickly react to key issues and see how their representatives align," said Joe Weston, founder of InformNation. "As we approach the election, many citizens know which presidential candidate they support but feel disconnected from their other representatives. InformNation aims to bridge that gap—not just during election time, but throughout the entire term. By making civic engagement simple and impactful, we help citizens stay connected with their representatives year-round." InformNation is now available for download at GetInformNation.com , the Apple App Store. Download today and start engaging on the issues that matter to you. InformNation is a product of Civicly Envolved Inc., a company dedicated to making democracy easy. Both InformNation and Civicly Envolved Inc. are non-partisan, unaffiliated with any political party, and neutral on policy and party positions. For more information, contact: Joe Weston Founder and CEO  Civicly Envolved Inc joe@civiclyenvolved.com (312) 459-3032 LinkedIn Profile InformNation  is a product of Civicly Envolved Inc.

In our last post, we found that early voting spans the gamut from no early voting at all (like Alabama and New Hampshire), to 46+ days (like South Dakota, Minnesota and Pennsylvania).   But concluded that the real question is:  How much time is the right amount of time for early voting?  Like any good business problem, there’s multiple ways you can analyze it.  In this instance you could measure market supply and demand, or building issue trees to understand every aspect of the behavior and operation, or policy folk might choose a traditional cost-benefit analysis. To keep it simple for today’s purposes, let’s look at this in a simplified view of comparables.  Comparables is often used when estimating the value of a company, where you look at similar companies to estimate the appropriate metrics to apply to your own company.  In our case, today, we’re going to look at two basic criteria, one for the citizen, and one for the government.   The citizen’s needs The average citizen’s life is busy, whether you are working parents trying to keep the food on the table for your family, or a young aspirational professional burning the night oil trying to get ahead.  No matter who you are, you have to complete key tasks every week, month or year.  They come in different flavors and from different organizations.  The DMV requires you to renew your license and the bank requires you to pay your mortgage.  In any situation, you are probably accustomed to certain norms around getting those things done and how much time you get to accomplish those tasks.  We compiled a list of comparable government activities, like responding to a jury summons, updating your address after moving and paying your mortgage and found similar average expectations to complete these tasks.   Chart of Comparable activities and their typical, min/max grace period: Activity Avg Min Max Renewing Drivers License 30 30 90 Renewing Business License 30 10 60 Response to Jury Summons 20 10 30 Car Emmissions 15 0 30 Responding to Court Citation 22 14 30 Proof of Insurance after a Traffic Stop 12.5 10 15 Updating Address on Legal Documents after Moving 45 30 60 Filing for Unemployment 10.5 7 14 Mortgage Payment 12.5 10 15 Phone Bill 7.5 5 10 Utility 11 7 15 Credit Card Bill 23 21 25 Unsurprisingly, the average government task came with a much longer grace periods, on average than their corporate counterparts (see chart below).  However, Early Voting grace periods measured much closer to corporate comparables on (and below) average, than it’s government peer grace periods.  On average, early voting durations were about 8 days less than the average government grace period,  Chart comparing Early Voting Duration Quartiles with Average Comparable Activity Grace Period Corp Comps Early Voting Gov Comps Low end 11 12 14 Average 14 15 23 High end 16 28 41 Practically, residents in states like South Dakota, Minnesota, Virginia, Mississippi, and Illinois get as much time to vote as they do to update legal documents with a new address or renew their drivers license, and therefore can fit it into their busy days with less stress. Meanwhile, residents living in Alabama, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Florida, Delaware or Maryland have as much time as their Phone or Utility bill payment before they fear service disconnection – making it practically a more stressful activity.   The voting operation The government operation behind our elections is not trivial.  There’s massive amounts of state and local coordination required that vary based on the size of your state’s geography, population and funding, and one might expect states to offer more early voting to accommodate more complex needs.  However, the bottom line conclusion here: There’s zero good explanation in the data for why some states have more/less early voting than others.   Operationally, you would expect that larger states in terms of population, landmass or GDP need a longer early vote duration to accommodate a more complex civic landscape.  However, there is an extremely low correlation between any of these variables, which you can see in the charts below.  No linear modeling of these factors (including partisan leaning), provide any explanatory significance (economic or statistical) to the early voting duration.  Technically, Democrat leaning states offer their citizens ~1.5 days more early voting than Republicans, but it's statistically insignificant and means little when comparing 14 vs 15.5 days of early voting.  In the chart below, (or in our previous blog post here), you can see that early voting isn’t partisan at all – many states of both Republican or Democrat lean are over/under investing in early voting. The obvious callouts here include: Texas, New York and Florida, which provide less early voting than their citizens need, given the geographic size, population and funding available to make it happen.   Conclusion People generally don’t have as much time to vote as they probably need.  Half of US states provide less time to early vote then their bank gives them to pay their mortgage.  Further, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason behind this.  Some states are wise to give their citizens more time, while others don’t see it as a priority and that doesn’t seem to be driven by the factors we’d expect – operationally or politically.   If you're in a state with less time to vote than you have to pay your mortgage, or worse, your phone bill or utility, call your representative and tell them.  Don’t have the time?  GetInformNation.com and find the Trending Card stating “My state allows me sufficient time to vote early.” and speak your mind.   Sources and Acknowledgements:  The data from this analysis was reconciled from vote.org  and the usvotefoundation.org  with population data from the US Census , land data from wikipedia, gdp data from NBER.  Data on non-voting activities was gathered from ChatGPT and spot checked for accuracy.

We’re in the midst of multiple seasons right now; Pumpkin Spice is in everyone’s coffee, football is back, and Election Season is in full swing, (which may or may not be on your mind).  And, now, voting season is upon us, too!  Last week marked the kick-off of early voting in a number of states. Approximately 98% of the country has access to some means of voting before election day (by our math below), and some estimates  suggest nearly 50% of voters use some form of early voting.   Are you one of them? How many days do you need to vote early, or at least, how many days does each state legislature think you need?   State legislatures write the laws by which the state must operate.  Those laws are usually executed by either the State’s Secretary of State’s office or an independent (often non-partisan) State Board of Election. As such, there’s 50 different ways we manage voting in the US.  Some states have delegated even further, such that early voting can vary at the county level.   ”Early voting” ranges widely across the country: in-person vs mail-only, any-person early voting vs absentee early voting, ballot request requirements, and even absentee reasons (excused vs unexcused).  This analysis includes any voting that can occur before election day, so please keep in mind that we’re simplifying quite a bit here to the general number of days where one of the above options is available.  No matter what, you should always check with your local county about your voting options.  Download InformNation  to help you get started. Who gets the most/least time to vote? On average, early voting lasts about 19 days, though most states offer around 15 days of early voting opportunities, calculated as the difference between the start and end dates of early voting. States that provide the most time for early voting—over 28 days—fall into the top 25% for duration, while those offering the least time—less than 12 days—rank in the lowest 25%.  Highest Early Vote Duration The top three states with the highest early voting duration for any kind of early voting are:  Pennsylvania , South Dakota and Minnesota Pennsylvania :  Technically, Pennsylvania offers 50 days of time where counties may make absentee and mail-in ballot applications available to voters in person up to 50 days before Election Day which may be dropped off in county offices until 8pm on Election Day.  However, Vote.org specifically states that Pennsylvania does not offer early in-person voting.  South Dakota and Minnesota:  Voters have 46 days of “in-person absentee voting”.  That window starts 46 days prior to the election day and remains open and available up until election day.  An honorable mention to Virginia  and Mississippi , where eligible absentee voters can cast their ballot up to 45 days prior to the election, but they also close that down for a few days before the election.   The top 25th percentile of states by early voting duration here: State Early Voting Duration (days) Pennsylvania 50 South Dakota 46 Minnesota 46 Virginia 43 Mississippi 43 Illinois 40 Nebraska 30 Montana 29.5 California 29 Wyoming 28 Ohio 28 Indiana 28 NOTE: Vermont’s data conflicts between our sources, so it’s excluded from the above. Lowest Early Voting Duration The three states with the lowest early voting duration are:  Alabama, New Hampshire and Kentucky Alabama and New Hampshire :  New Hampshire and Alabama do not offer early voting per usvotefoundation.org and vote.org . Kentucky :  According to vote.org , Kentuckians have up to 5 days before Election Day to cast an early ballot, but it ends the Saturday before Election Day – leaving only 3 days to vote early.  However, according to the US Vote Foundation, if properly excused from voting on election day, you can add an extra week to your early in-person voting, starting October 23rd.  The bottom 25th percentile of early voting duration:       State Early Voting Duration (days) Alabama 0 New Hampshire 0 Kentucky 3 Oklahoma 5.5 Florida 8 Delaware 9 Maryland 9 Michigan 9 New Jersey 9 New York 9 Utah 11 West Virginia 11 Voting Duration and Toss-up States Toss-Up states may play an outsized role in deciding key outcomes in the November election, and studies show that longer early voting duration with the right set of broader electoral reforms can correlate to higher voter participation.  A partisan may see more early voting as a (dis)advantage, especially in Toss-up states, but most Americans probably just want to vote at their convenience.  While the duration for Toss-up states may appear to be less represented in the higher end of early voting duration, it actually is a fair representation of the population. Assuming states are weighted equally (a debate for another post*), the Toss-up group of states has a similar mean and median and no statistically significant difference (using the t-test) from the entire set. * weighting by electoral vote concentration may yield a different result Your Early Voting Duration  Where does your state falls on the spectrum of early voting duration. Is that enough time for you to vote?  Whether satisfied or not with your early voting options, download InformNation   to let your representatives know.   Conclusions or Questions The national consensus is a median of around 15 days of early voting, but the complexity of voting rules is not accurately represented in the above data summary.   How much time is the right amount of time for early voting?  Two perspectives that might warrant further investigation:  The busy American’s schedule  – How much time does it take to fit voting into life?  How much early voting is needed to maximize participation? If the course of a week leading up to the elections is likely busy for the average American; we’re always busy! With work, kids, and other obligations, one week or even 10-11 days may not be enough to wait in line.  The operations of early voting  – What is the trade-off for each incremental voting day? It may be excessively expensive or logistically cumbersome to have elections open for more than 30 days. There is likely a point of diminishing margin of return for duration to early vote. While early voting is available in many states in some form or another, we should all consider what is the “right” type and amount of early voting to meet our needs. If you have ever missed a vote, think about why that may have happened and whether or not additional voting options would have allowed you to voice your opinion in the election.  Most importantly:  You most likely have an option to vote before election day, so get InformNation  to know when you can vote and take advantage of your options. Use InformNation  to know about key registration deadlines, early voting, with links to official information and more. You can also use InformNation  to stay up-to-date on what’s happening in your state and federal legislature.