Pledge to Register

Pledge to Register on TurboVote makes it easy for 15- to 17-year-olds to get registered to vote as soon as they turn 18, and to invite their friends to pledge to register, too!

Entry Points

Users can access the Pledge to Register feature via three entry points:

  • By visiting your TurboVote home page and clicking the Pledge to Register button

  • Through your customizable, dedicated Pledge to Register landing page: [yourURL].turbovote.org/pledge-to-register

  • Through your customizable Pledge form: [yourURL].turbovote.org/pledge-to-register/voter-info

User Experience

Sign Up

Once a user clicks “Pledge to Register” at either the home or Pledge to Register landing pages, users are taken to a form where they are asked to enter the following:

  • Preferred first name

  • Younger people often prefer being addressed by something besides their legal name. We enable users to provide whatever name they feel comfortable seeing in text messages sent to them from TurboVote. When they turn 18, they’ll be asked to provide their legal first and last name to help them register to vote.

  • State (where they’ll eventually register to vote)

  • Date of birth

  • If a user is under 15, we explain that they need to be at least 15 to use this feature to pledge to register.

  • If a user is already 18 or older, we explain that they’re old enough to register to vote and link them to a TurboVote page where we can help them register to vote.

  • Mobile phone number

Confirmation

On successful sign-up, users receive an SMS message confirming that they’ve signed up to Pledge to Register.

 
 
Implementation Tip: Elevate Pledge to Register when engaging members of your audience that are 15-17 years old. Focus on their opportunity to be a leader among their peers and make an early commitment to be a voter!

Text a Friend

Once a user signs up for Pledge to Register, we encourage them to text their friends to Pledge to Register, too.

 
 

Tapping “Text a Friend to Pledge to Register” opens the user’s phone or computer’s default text messaging app with an editable SMS message complete with a direct link to Pledge to Register to Vote.

 
 

Notifications

16 and 17th Birthday Notifications

On their 16th and 17th birthdays, users will receive an SMS reminding them that they’ve pledged to register to vote, along with a link to update their state and other account info, if necessary.

 
 

18th Birthday Notification

The day after a user turns 18, they will receive an SMS message linking to TurboVote to help them get registered to vote in their state.

 
 

Updating Account Details

Within all text notifications a user receives, there will be a unique URL for them to click to update their account details. This link will bring them to a page where they can change the first name, voter registration state, and mobile number associated with their account.

 
 

Privacy

We’ve taken a number of approaches to protect the privacy of TurboVote accounts created by users aged 15-17 to Pledge to Register (“Pledge Accounts”).

Pledge Accounts are stored separately from existing TurboVote accounts created by users who are eligible to vote (i.e., those already aged 18).

Pledge Accounts only store a limited amount of 

  • personally identifiable information, restricted to the user’s

  • preferred first name (Not necessarily legal name. Any value will be accepted.)

  • state of residence

  • date of birth

  • mobile phone number

  • other information including

  1. language preference

  2. TurboVote partner

  3. TurboVote partner referral code used on sign-up

Individual-level Pledge Account information cannot be accessed by partners. Partners can only access information about Pledge Account users in aggregate (i.e., how many users have pledged to register on your TurboVote site).

Pledge Accounts can only be accessed by a tightly restricted set of Democracy Works employees (e.g., TurboVote help desk agents, product development team members) in order to assist users to manage their account.

Pledge Accounts are purged a reasonable period of time after the user turns 18 years of age. See our updated Privacy Policy for further information.

Sample Calls-to-Action

  • Can’t wait to vote? You can pledge to register! Sign up for text reminders at  [yourURL].turbovote.org/pledge-to-register

  • Get reminded to register to vote on your 18th birthday! Pledge to register to vote with TurboVote:  [yourURL].turbovote.org/pledge-to-register

Knowing Your Impact

Upon logging in to the Admin Console, your TurboVote Dashboard will show how many users have Pledged to Register via your TurboVote website. Just scroll down a bit on the page to this new section:

 
 

If you’ve added your Google Analytics tag to your TurboVote site, you’ll automatically gain insight into how users engage with Pledge to Register.

Stay tuned for much more insight into your impact.

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Page last updated on: 09/14/2022