Produced by The Democratic Party, this easy-to-use app has a variety of features to keep you informed on all things Democrats. Its Election Central tab allows you to research Democratic candidates and link to your state candidates’ campaign websites; the Alerts button provides you with breaking news alerts or events in your area via AirMail messages, allowing you to RSVP for events directly; you can browse photo and video from the Democrats; get the latest discussion points for water cooler discussions; donate to the Democrat of your choosing; and even call a Congressional representative of your choosing through the app’s search tools.
The Organizing for America team revolutionized netroots political campaigning in 2008, and in preparation for the 2010 midterm elections they’ve released an updated app for iPhone and Android users. The new version has a bevy of helpful feature, including a canvassing map that shows you nearby neighbors you can talk to and a way to report in real time what doors you knocked on and how the conversations went. It also gives you easy access to news and videos and helps you call members of Congress.
Election caster is a political news aggregator for Android. It pulls news from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox, The Guardian, and many more sources of both national and local coverage. It also gives you blog posts and poll results. Best of all, it shows news from both ends of the political spectrum, and lets you select what end you want to see.
iPhone and iPad users can watch political cartoonist Mark Fiore’s animations on their devices. This wasn’t always the case. It wasn’t until Fiore won a Pulitzer Prize for his satire in 2010 that Apple rescinded its earlier rejection of his app for containing “content that ridicules public figures.”
Colbert Report fans can watch the “The WØrd” section of the show on their iPhones and iPads. In the popular segment, Colbert delivers a monologue that is undercut by text appearing on the screen. As he says on the app page, “When Stephen Colbert delivers The Word, it comes from his gut. Isn't it time it also came from your iPhone?”
In the beginning of 2010, the Obama team used the same tech savvy that made the Organizing for America app such an effective campaign tool to the White House, making an app to help the administration maintain contact with supporters and make government more transparent. The White House app for the iPhone updates users with posts from the White House Blog and the Briefing Room, as well as allowing them to stream videos live.
Congress from the Cohen Research Group works like a Congressional directory for your iPhone—it has names, districts, and office contact information for every member of the House and Senate. The Congress+ version even has committee and subcommittee assignments and staff email contacts.
BlackBerry users can follow 15 races with CNN’s Election Center app and get news about election results as they come in on November 2. Election Center will also find polling stations near you and tell you about local races. The app is tricked out with all the graphical interfaces CNN is known for, including one that shows you how many seats are controlled by each party and how many would have to be won and lost for control to change.
MiniVAN Tough by Voter Activation Network is a Democratic campaign platform that allows users to download canvassing lists from VAN sites and then upload the results of their campaigning back to the database. VAN designed the Democratic National Committee’s VoteBuilder, the platform the 2008 Obama campaign used to manage its volunteer operations.
After helping government and financial institutions develop electronic signature programs, Sillicon Valley company Verafirma turned its attention to democracy. In California, where citizens can get initiatives and referendums on the ballot once they’ve collected a certain number of signatures, Verafirma has a program that lets people sign on their iPhones using their fingers.
