Election Management

USDR Election Software Collaborative: A New Way for Election Offices to Access Tools and Technology

Our approach

The USDR Election Software Collaborative helps election offices nationwide access the modern tools they need to run smooth elections. Created by U.S. Digital Response (USDR), a nonpartisan nonprofit, we provide an affordable software platform to manage essential tasks like managing election workers, tracking campaign finance records, organizing candidate information, running an election help desk, and monitoring voting wait times.

Our intuitive platform is configurable, and our model can overcome barriers such as tight budgets, lack of technical experience, and limited resources. We aim to empower election administrators with convenient solutions to strengthen key areas of their work.

Current offerings

Polling Place Wait Time Tracker

Give your voters a heads up of where they will encounter lines either during Early Voting or on Election Day. Containing all of your voting location details, like address, driving directions and a photo, this tool is simple to set-up, maintain and update. You and your poll workers can update the wait time on your website within seconds by filling out a short form from your laptop or phone.

Learn more about the tool »
Build an Election Website

Help your constituents find information about voter registration, what’s on the ballot, where to vote, how to become a poll worker, voting by mail, requesting absentee ballots, and more. We developed this website template in partnership with the Center for Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Civic Design (CCD).

See the template on CTCL’s website »
Election Worker Management Tool

Bring election worker management online. We’ll help you set up online tools to manage election worker applications locations, assignments, and roles (poll worker/judge/clerk/inspector); training; election day communication; and payroll.

Learn more about the tool »
Don’t see what you need? Talk to us about a custom project.
We’re always looking to partner with governments on new solutions. Contact our team to discuss the problems you’re facing.
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13 million
People reached through
our work on voting access
48
ELECTIONS OFFICES AND NONPROFITS SUPPORTED

Selected case studies

Harris County, TX
Automating Harris County’s Student Election Clerk Program

Harris County, Texas, the third-largest county in the U.S. with more than 4.7 million voters, was working hard during the summer of 2020 to prepare for the November election. The team managing the county’s Student Election Clerk Program, which encourages high school students who are 16 years of age or older to serve as election clerks, was overwhelmed with a completely manual system.

In less than two weeks, USDR volunteers built a completely new online application and launched a full database management system within two months. These new tools helped the Harris County Elections team process more than 7,000 applications, and staff more than 700 student election clerks across more than 100 polling locations over the early voting and Election Day periods. There were virtually no lines in Harris County on Election Day.

In March of 2021, the Harris County Elections Administrator team won a 2020 Clearinghouse Award from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, commonly known as a “Clearie” award, for its management of the state’s Student Election Clerk Program.

Read the full case study »Read more about this project »
Team members
Caleb Meredith
Product Engineer
,
Airtable
David Yoon
Head of Engineering
,
Antara Health
Haitham Mahmoud
Product & Strategy Consultant
,
Dalixir
Priya Garg
Elections Program Co-Lead
,
U.S. Digital Response
Centre County, Pennsylvania
Deploying a free election information website

In the past, Centre County, Pennsylvania’s roughly 160,000 residents struggled to register to vote, check a sample ballot, or find their polling station online. In 2020, due to COVID-19, Centre County voters were even more confused by the voting process.

When Centre County officials approached commercial vendors about building a new website, they were quoted costs of up to $40,000. But within weeks of reaching out to USDR, Centre County was able to deploy a new election information website—for free. As many as one thousand residents per day visited the new website ahead of the election. Michael Pipe, chair of the board that oversees elections, reports that the new election website saved personnel time, provided a better experience to residents, and instilled more trust in the voting process. USDR’s partnership with Centre County was profiled in the New York Times ahead of the 2020 election.

Read the full case study »Read more about this project »
Team members
Benjamin Bregman
Developer
,
Poesie
Girish Shankarraman
Engineering Manager
,
PagerDuty
Left
Right

“USDR are ideal project partners—they asked important questions to better understand the problems we’re trying to solve, they listened to our ideas and understood our constraints, and they delivered a product that all of us are really proud of.”

Whitney May
Director of Government Services
Center for Tech and Civic Life

“During an incredibly hectic time in election administration it is helpful to have a partner like USDR who can bring additional capacity to election offices that are stretched to the limit.

Eric Fey
Democratic Director of Elections
St. Louis County Election Board

“With the help of U.S. Digital Response, we were able to build a new elections website that will better inform our voters on what to expect when voting in November. We launched our new website within a week, and USDR provided support each step of the way. I highly recommend them if you need to scale up any tech quickly.”

Kammi Foote
County Clerk-Recorder & Registrar of Voters
Inyo County

Working with USDR was easier than I expected. They listened well and valued our time. They were very understanding of the flexibility we needed. The point person they provided for our projects helped us streamline communication and coordinate efforts easily. I would happily work with them again.”

Rachelle Obakozuwa
Elections Administration
Harris County, Texas

“When Center for Civic Design started our work to support the scale-up of voting by mail in 2020, the addition of skilled graphics design pros to our team made it possible to do more in a compressed schedule. As a result, more voters will get mail-in ballot packages that help make sure their vote counts.

Whitney Quesenbery
Executive Director
Center for Civic Design
Left
Right

Meet the team

Alex Allain
Alex oversees the development of technological tools, automation, and infrastructure at USDR. Alex most recently served as a Director of Engineering at Dropbox.
Jide Ehimika
Jide is a technical product manager working with partners to build tools required to run modern, efficient, and trustworthy elections. He has over a decade experience in helping teams build tools and processes to transform their organizations.
Kevin Miller
Kevin is a product engineer for USDR’s Elections Program. A web developer with over a decade of experience in the California State University system, he most recently led the website team at The COVID Tracking Project.
Lindsey Wilson
Lindsey co-leads USDR’s Elections Program. An experienced technologist, Lindsey most recently served as Executive Director and Co-Founder at Unloop, a nonprofit social enterprise and software development agency.
Lynn Constabile
With over 20 years’ experience in Elections Administration, Lynn most recently served as the Elections Director in Yavapai County, Arizona.
Melissa House
Melissa is the lead engineer for the Poll Workers project in USDR’s Elections Program. Melissa spent most of her career at Apple, where she she was most recently a Director in the apple.com team.
Priya Garg
Priya co-leads USDR’s Elections Program, which is building a digital infrastructure for American elections. An experienced technologist and product manager, she most recently developed innovative shopping experiences at Amazon.
Truman Cranor
Truman most recently served as an engineer on Airbnb's listing compliance team, building tools and features to help users navigate a complex global tapestry of regulations.
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