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Harvard professor creates a “Yelp for Democracy”

Rate your polling place at MyFairElection.com.

 

Kevin Collier

IRL

Posted on Oct 30, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 8:28 am CDT

“Staff was rude, bad location, voter intimidation, chads hanging all over the place. One out of five stars; would not vote there again.”

If you have a noteworthy voting experience on Nov. 6, whether it’s particularly good or bad, you probably want to share it. That’s the idea behind MyFairElection.com, a new site that creator Archon Fung calls “Yelp for Democracy.”

“If the election of 2012 is anything like 2008 or 2004, thousands of Americans will be unable to vote because polling places will be closed, there’ll be long lines, machines will be broken, and some may even face intentional intimidation,” Fung, a professor of Democracy and Citizenship at Harvard, said on YouTube.

Calling out which polling sites do a good job can “help ensure all Americans can exercise the right to vote,” he said.

There’s only a few categories to fill out: how long you had to wait to vote, whether one actually was allowed to vote, to rank to total experience from one to five stars, and a comment box.

Fung wants at least 10,000 people to participate in crowdsourcing reviews of polling places across America. We’ll be able to see what election conditions are like all over the United States, in real time.”

The voting map will be broken down to precincts, and color coding (red for one star, green for five) will show how accessible polling places are as voters review them.

Just be sure to only review one spot a year.

Photo via MyFairElection.com

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*First Published: Oct 30, 2012, 12:19 pm CDT