the mobile app made in Toulouse for all the knowledge of the candidates for the election
If you still don’t know who to vote for three weeks before the first round of the presidential election, there are “Votons”. The application, presented in January by three young people from Toulouse, details the program of the candidates. It has already been downloaded nearly 1,600 times.
The official list of twelve candidates was unveiled on March 7. According to an Ifop poll for the JDD, 72% of French people have made their choice for the 1st round. But this figure drops by four points among those under 35. In 2017, less than one in five voters under the age of 29 voted in both rounds.
So in an attempt to reconnect youth with politics, Eden Wisniewski (30), Sami Touihri (26) and Mélissa Cassan (27), all from Toulouse, launched Votons. They hope, on their scale, to fight against abstention.
“Eden told me about it at the end of last year», explains Sami Touihri. The two young people are in the same web development training in Toulouse. The project takes shape in the minds of these jacks-of-all-trades, who have already developed several applications together.
Mélissa Cassan, who works in the support and childhood sector, joined the team very quickly: she will be in charge of editing information and checking the main lines of the programs – all presented from official sites. candidates. Eden and Sami take care of the “development of the app, server, layout and graphics“.
The application is now available on the App Store and Google Play since January 20, after two months of six-handed work. “The period of time is short until the elections, but it is precisely the opportunity to surpass oneself to make it known“, assures Sami Touihri.
On the menu: the social networks of each candidate, the key measures of their program classified by category (environment, education, security, etc.) or even a count of the number of days remaining before the first round. Another tab was intended to guide the first voters in their process of registration to the electoral lists.
To ensure a certain neutrality, the candidates are listed in alphabetical order. The application is intuitive and offers a “night” mode, which is darker and therefore less energy-intensive. An update, available on Google Play and the App Store in a few days, will display the twelve official candidates.
“We thought we had to offer people non-partisan and as comprehensive support as possible, while remaining accessible.“, summarizes Sami Touihri. “That they can read the elements that interest them as simply as possible. We want to give voters a complete overview of the candidates.“
If the application does not make money since it is offered without advertising, it represents a real showcase for the work of its three designers: “what we have not gained in money, we have gained in experience and small fame. And we fulfill our civic mission! We had positive feedback, people told us that we had helped them to make their choice“, rejoices Sami Touihri.
Downloaded nearly 1,600 times, the application could also be used for legislative and municipal elections, on a smaller scale. The latter even received the attention of the mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, who congratulated the team.