Here’s the scenario: You and four friends are deciding where to eat. Two want pizza. Two want sushi. Everyone turns to you. You have one vote, like everyone else, but yours decides dinner. Your vote has more power.
This fall, something like that is true for about 2.75% of eligible American voters. Just 7.3 million people out of 266 million eligible adults will have more power to decide the outcome of this year’s midterm elections than the rest of us. The difference from the friend group scenario is that these people with decisive power often don’t realize it. In fact, they may doubt whether they should even bother to vote.
A new technology aims to shed light on voting power in a novel way. U26.vote, a website that instantly reveals the power of a person’s vote, uses data science to determine the political, situational, and demographic factors that affect voting power, then uses an algorithm to translate each voter’s relative advantage into a score.
Action Tank, a company founded by serial tech entrepreneur Ben Bilbrough, developed the technology and partnered with Vote.org, the country's largest voter registration platform, to distribute the tool at scale.
U26.vote visitors discover the power of their vote by entering their ZIP code and birth year to see how they compare to the typical American voter. For voters looking for a reason to show up this fall, it could be a game changer.
Four factors determine a voter’s power.
Geography comes first: Of the 435 House districts, only a few dozen remain truly competitive, and in some states a competitive Senate race appears on the same ballot. Eligible voters in those districts have the most influence on the midterm outcome, so they see a score bump relative to how close their race(s) are projected to be.
Age comes next. Young voters are a large and growing share of the electorate, but they skip midterms at far higher rates than older voters, so each young voter who shows up counts for more. The size of each age group in the district, as well as their historic turnout rates, are the levers here.
A third factor is the redrawing of Congressional district maps. New district lines mean unfamiliar candidates and confusion about voting mechanics, which can depress turnout and make every ballot cast in the affected areas more important.
Finally, consider the risk of voter suppression. In contested districts, where fear or misinformation about voting rules is more likely to keep many people home, every ballot cast carries greater relative weight.
In some states, like New York, which allows people who own multiple homes to choose where to vote, the tool makes comparison easier by providing data. College students can also compare their score at home with their score at school. Voting rules for students vary by state, but Vote.org's tools help voters check what applies to them.
Across the country, U26.vote reveals striking disparities in voting power. A Baby Boomer in California's 11th District scores 1.0x – this reliable voter type in an uncontested race receives the baseline score that everyone earns simply by living in a democracy. But in Ohio's 9th District, where a race is projected to be decided by about one percentage point in a state with a competitive Senate contest, a Gen Z voter has a power score of 26.2x - a score the site reveals to be in the top 0.2% nationally.
A voter discovers their vote has real power. Now what?
Billions will be spent this fall persuading Americans to vote for one candidate or another, nearly all of it aimed at people who vote reliably. Young voters, who are less likely to turn out in midterms, tend to be under-targeted in these campaigns, so those messages don’t reach them. To fill that information gap for voters who believe their vote has power but aren’t sure how to use it, U26.vote offers a short seven-question survey on current high-profile topics like clean energy, healthcare, and ICE deportations that maps users to the candidates on their ballot who best align with their values.
Every vote counts, and most Americans already know it. Millions turn out in every election, across every district, because they care about the races on their ballot, the measures that shape their communities, and the simple idea that democracy works best when everyone takes part. That commitment is the foundation of our democracy, wherever a voter lives.
But not everyone feels the same pull to the polls, especially in the midterms, as evidenced by chronically low turnout. A tool like U26.vote unlocks a different incentive or motivation for a different kind of voter, and that’s what Vote.org and Action Tank are leaning into.
David Nevins is the publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
