DESIGNING WITH SEVENTY
Designing with a good government group

The Committee of Seventy is a century old not-for-profit and non-partisan group in Philadelphia that fights for better government, fair elections and an honest political culture. For fourteen weeks, we focused on strengthening their Election Protection Program (EPP) which aims to keep voters informed and voting with ease. It is volunteer driven and involves different activities to support voters during elections.

To better understand the organization, we interviewed employees, volunteers, interns and others who played a role in the Election Protection program using visual tools to make complex structures easier to comprehend. From our research we discovered some pain points in their program and created different prototypes to target the issues. We found that the EEP program could be strengthened as a whole by keeping the volunteers engaged year round, more connected to Seventy and by making Seventy more visible to the community.

Overall, we helped the volunteers to be more prepared and better equipped at elections by using the tools we created. We also pushed to have volunteers be better integrated into the Committee of Seventy while helping them have a better sense of community among each other through year-round activities and an annual volunteer appreciation event. At the end of the project we presented the Committee of Seventy with tools and suggestions that could strengthen them as a whole.
We conducted interviews using design tools to better understand Seventy.
We made trainings for volunteers before election day more engaging and easier to retain by turning them into a role playing workshop.
We helped engage voters on election day by creating a small poll about election day including takeaway stickers with more information about Seventy letting voters know that they were there to help.
We created a quick reference handbook to help volunteers know what to do in tough situations without needing to go back to the volunteer manual.
We also made navigation easier for volunteers while making Seventy more visible to voters by creating a paddle with seventy's logo on one side and with the map of polling places on the other side.
Previous Election Protection Program model (left) vs Ideal year-round Election Protection Program Model (right)
Ultimately, we helped in making the Committee of Seventy's Election Protection Program look more like the diagram on the right.