COM Launches INVOLVD Political Smartphone App

Still unsure who to vote for in next month’s presidential election? Unclear about where the candidates stand on a particular issue? Looking for well-researched, unbiased information that allows you to voice your own opinions? With less than five weeks to go until the 2016 presidential election, the College of Communication has come up with a new smartphone and tablet app, called INVOLVD, designed to reach millennial voters.

INVOLVD’s motto is “Democracy is not a spectator sport.” To engage the user, the app consists of COM-curated news reports that scrutinize the presidential candidates’ ideas for tackling the nation’s problems. Users vote on whether or not they believe the proposal will be successful, and they then have the option to use the app to push out their opinion. Since launching this summer, more than 1,000 people have downloaded INVOLVD, which is available through the Apple and Android stores.

Thomas Fiedler (COM’71), dean of COM, says the concept of the app occurred following a conversation he had with local Boston political organizer Tom Cosgrove about how millennial voters were approaching this election. The New York Times reported last week that “younger voters are shunning the two major political parties on a scale not seen since Ross Perot’s third-party bid for the presidency in 1992,” with many saying they may not vote at all.