The Jack Brooks Foundation is pleased to announce the winners for the Help America Vote Challenge. Congratulations to the three winners, and thank you to all participants and everyone who made this challenge a success. 

“We are blown away by the enthusiasm generated by the Help America Vote Challenge,” says Jon Bassana, President and CEO of the Jack Brooks Foundation. “Our primary goal with this crowdsourcing competition was to offer a fun and engaging way to identify solutions to improve voter turnout and the caliber of the three winning ideas exceeded our expectations.”

The Jack Brooks Foundation hopes to identify potential collaboration partners for the winners to implement their ideas and programs. 

Please see below to read about the winning teams and entries.

 

1st Place - $7,500 - Vamos a Votar / Vote Week by Laura A. Miniel, Texas

Vote Week is a controlled study to promote and measure first-time voting among Hispanic teens. It has two components: Registration drives at high school campuses to answer questions and register first-time voters, and providing transportation in school buses to polls during early voting. The project is structured as a controlled experimental study, to measure and quantify results.

 

2nd Place - $5,000 - Providing Solutions to Voting Barriers by Spread The Vote Team, Florida

One of the most common barriers for disenfranchised voters is living in a state with restrictive voter ID laws. Spread The Vote helps individuals to obtain the IDs they need for jobs, housing, health care, and voting. It also helps clients register to vote and provides practical, easy to understand, informative and non-partisan voter guides and educational materials.  Spread The Vote works both in the community at large and with partner organizations such as homeless shelters, day centers, family services organizations and re-entry programs in several states. 

 

3rd Place - $2,500 - The Central Texas Civic Engagement Alliance by Cole Wilson, Texas

The Central Texas Civic Engagement Alliance would create a network of organizations, institutions, and clubs across Central Texas with the intent of increasing voter registration, education, and participation on campuses throughout the region. The approach would model the University of Texas-based Civic Engagement Alliance led by the nationally acclaimed student organization, TX Votes (housed within the Annette Strauss Institute).  

 

To learn more about the winning submissions, tune into the Winners Webinar on Wednesday, May 12 at 11am PT // 2pm ET by registering for the webinar here. 

 

HeroX and the Jack Brooks Foundation would like to thank the judges:

  • Costas Panagopoulos, Professor and Department Chair of College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University, Editor of American Politics Research, and Author
  • Lonna R. Atkeson, Professor of Political Science, Regents' Lecturer, and Director of the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections and Democracy and the Institute of Social Research at the University of New Mexico
  • Maggie Bush, Programs and Outreach Director for the League of Women Voters of the US
  • Matthew Weil, Director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center