Secure voting for anyone, right from their phone

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 19 million registered voters did not vote in the 2016 general election. Of those voters, 14.3% (2.7 million people) cited busy schedules as the reason they couldn't get to the polls.

The challenge: Lack of ease and access

Busy schedules aren't the only reason people don't vote. Many groups lack basic access, including:

Voters targeted by suppression tactics (reduced polling locations, strict ID requirements, registration purges)

Persons with disabilities, elderly voters, or others without reliable access to transportation to reach their voting station

Native Americans and Alaska Natives in rural or tribal areas with limited polling locations and unreliable mail service

Military and overseas voters who may not receive their absentee ballots in time

Voters who can't take time off work or arrange childcare to make it to the polls during limited voting hours

Military and overseas voters who may not receive their absentee ballots in time

Voatz set out to build a secure, reliable, and intuitive mobile voting app that could be easily accessed by any registered voter with a smartphone.

User research: Understanding the voter

Interviews

Open-ended questions designed to surface qualitative insights

Observed gut reactions and emotional responses in real time

Verified that trust and security were top of mind for users, often before usability

Surveys

Quantitative questions that revealed broader voting patterns and preferences

Reached a larger, more diverse audience I couldn't meet face to face

Surfaced demographic trends across a wide range of voter groups

While we needed to account for almost any registered voter with a smartphone, this research allowed us to define three broad user archetypes to help guide our design decisions.

The serious skeptic

Voting = civic duty

Vote in every election

Tend to be older

Invested in the issues

Technology = untrustworthy

The party person

Voting = personal

Vote in some elections

Wide age range

Vote along party lines

Technology = convenient

The indifferent techie

Voting = optional

Vote if there's time

Tend to be younger

Candidate-based voting

Technology = part of life

Three considerations

Security

This was a non-negotiable priority. Every step, from account creation and identity verification all the way through to ballot submission, had to feel airtight without feeling intimidating or overwhelming. Getting that balance right required careful iteration.

Election law

Ballot language, ballot structure, and voting rules vary by jurisdiction. The design had to be flexible enough to accommodate legal requirements without becoming inconsistent or confusing for voters.

Lack of competitive landscape

We had no other mobile voting apps to benchmark against, which presented both a challenge and an opportunity. With no existing patterns to draw from, design decisions had to be deliberate and centered on the needs of the user. But it also meant we had a rare chance to define what mobile voting could look like from the ground up.

Re-architecting the app

We had a basic, functional app, but it had been built without any design input. The result was a visually inconsistent interface, unclear hierarchy, and a confusing user experience. The screens were busy with content and distracting imagery, and lacked any cohesive visual language to guide users through what was, for many, an unfamiliar and high-stakes process.

To start, I created wireframes for five essential flows: Sign-up, core navigation, identity verification, voting, and ballot submission. These went through multiple rounds of review, iteration, and stakeholder feedback.

The ballot screens required particular intentionality. Real ballots are long, unique, and legally specific. The design had to present multiple races and voting instructions without overwhelming or confusing voters, and without any ambiguity about what they were selecting.

Solution

The goal wasn't just to make the app look better, but to rebuild the experience from the ground up with the user at the center. The comprehensive UX overhaul provided:

A defined visual language through clean typography and a streamlined color palette

Structured user flows and information architecture that gave each area of the app a clear purpose

A unified experience that made users feel confident and in control at every step

First impressions and account creation

The sign-up flow was designed to set expectations before asking anything of the user. A clean splashscreen and brief introduction established trust upfront, so that by the time voters were creating an account and setting a PIN, they already understood the process and why each step mattered.

Core navigation and verifications

The home screen became the anchor of the app, with available ballots surfaced front and center the moment users logged in. The verification flow was restructured as a transparent checklist, making a multi-step security process feel manageable rather than daunting.

Voting and ballot submission

Real ballots are long, legally specific, and vary widely by jurisdiction. The design prioritized clarity and confidence at every step, ensuring voters always knew where they were, what was being asked of them, and that their vote had been successfully cast.

Check out a walkthrough to see how the flows and design decisions come together, from sign-up through ballot submission.

View prototype

Outcomes

By 2020, Voatz had successfully run 76 elections, and even reached 1.7 million voters in a single election. Pilots spanned state party conventions, state, municipal, and federal elections, international elections, and student government elections.

NOVEMBER 2018

US Midterm Election: West Virginia Pilot

150 voters in 31 countries

Overseas military/families

Sign-up and registration was easy to maneuver with an ID verification process that gave me confidence that the process was secure. When the ballot was available, I quickly reviewed the candidates and submitted my ballot with Touch ID on my phone. That was it - it was pretty slick!

- Deployed military voter

NOVEMBER 2019

US General Election: Pierce County, WA

160 voters in 28 countries

Overseas military/families

We had an excellent experience with the Voatz pilot. We plan to continue offering mobile voting as an option for overseas voters, and potential for voters with disabilities, especially those who are blind or have difficulty handling paper and pens. A mobile voting app could be an important accommodation.

- Julie Anderson, Pierce County Auditor

APRIL 2020

Utah GOP
Virtual Convention

7,000 delegates voted

93% participation rate

The Voatz platform made possible the remote verification and voting processes for thousands of statewide delegates, allowing them to participate from the ease of their mobile phones… We will look back and see this moment, and our partnership with Voatz, as a turning point for our party.

- Derek Brown, Chairman of the Utah GOP

Reflections

We were on a tight timeline, working to implement this between elections, which meant we shipped and iterated in the field rather than through formal testing rounds. Given more time, I'd want to invest in broader usability testing and conduct a deeper exploration of the verification flow, as it was a high-friction point of the experience.

What stands out today is how lasting this work has proven to be. This redesign was completed in late 2018, and is still in use today. The principles that drove every decision to build a clear, reliable, and trustworthy experience remain as relevant now as they were then. Designing for mobile responsiveness as it was becoming an industry standard gave me a strong foundation in the constraints, opportunities, and considerations of mobile design that has informed every project since.

This project left me with a clear sense of where the work still needed to go.

Our tight timeline meant we shipped and iterated in the field rather than through formal testing rounds. Given more time, I'd want to invest in broader usability testing, a deeper exploration of the verification flow (it remains the highest-friction part of the experience), further color and accessibility refinement, and a closer look at how the design accommodates varying election timelines and ballot structures across jurisdictions.

Previous case study

Next case study