I made a very quick Android app to help you get 5 friends out to vote for democratic parties on Sunday
It’s very “graphic design is my passion” so be gentle, but Friends Against Fascists is also entirely offline and doesn’t send your data anywhere.
[TLDR. Here’s the link to download the APK directly. Why isn’t it on Google Play? Read the not so TLDR below…]
Earlier this month I had a panic attack. I am only-just missing out on being able to vote in this election, and frankly, as a queer disabled migrant (albeit far more privileged than most) I am not relishing the notion of the country in which I live (and was born) bringing in the most fascists since the second world war.
So I had a think about what I could do. It’s been quite a while since my last rather successful foray into impacting the democratic process with tech, and I didn’t really have much time. What could possibly really help ensure the AfD vote is minimised in the 2025 Bundestagswahl?
So, obviously, I panic-wrote an app.
Elections aren’t won on popularity, but on turnout
I remember a spot of “telling” I did in London a number of years back — it’s an odd word that describes the party volunteers who stand outside polling stations asking you for your voting number as you go in (and actually a very important part of the democratic process).
The teller for the Conservative Party was chatting to a fellow activist who had come to vote. As they said goodbye to each other, the teller said “let’s pray for a low turnout”.
That’s weird isn’t it? Being a democrat and hoping that as few people engage in the democratic process as possible?
Even after the many years I’d been involved in politics, it was still cutting to actually hear them say it — but they were just being logical. When turnout is low, *normally* it tends to benefit the Conservative Party in the UK because their voters are *normally* known to come out, whereas those from more progressive parties are less. There are some obvious socioeconomic reasons for this, but there’s even a known effect that when it’s raining on election day, Conservatives do better (I briefly checked to see if this was the case in Germany and found an actual study on it).
But anyway, the point: Even when more people want Party A to win, Party B will still win if more people get out on election day.
That might sound like I’ve stated the bleeding obvious, but the fact that parties in the UK have huge “GOTV” (get-out-the-vote) operations on polling day is because they know that the key is not convincing people — it’s concentrating on the people they think they’ve already convinced to go and vote. You would be surprised how many people forget, or are on the fence, and how a nudge can help. Otherwise why would these parties piss everybody off from 6am to 10pm (yup) on a Thursday by constantly banging on doors?
Do you know who can have a greater impact on someone going out to vote for a democratic party than some random stranger with a clipboard? Yup… a friend or family member. Most of the time anyway…
Friends Against Fascists does one thing very simply: helps you get out 5 friends to vote
If you can’t vote, or even if you can, just ensuring 5 of your friends/family have voted for a democratic party ensures that you have multiplied the chances against fascism succeeding by 5, vs simply voting yourself and doing nothing else. That’s strong voting power.
Every vote for a democratic party reduces the vote share of fascism, and thus their seat share (yes, I know the 5% hurdle creates an exception, but let’s ignore that for now). And in this election, it really matters.
How does it work?
Using your contacts list…
- Go through and find some people to ask. Swipe them right onto your Ask-List.
- Ask them. If they say they’re voting for a democratic party on Sunday, swipe them right onto your Voter-List.
- On election day, remind them to vote. Tick them off when they have.
- Number go up. Gaudy colourful progress circle increases. Dopamine go yay!
- You’ve done more than your usual bit for the democratic process and can feel nice and warm and smug.
Are you stealing my data?
I made the entire app offline — I wanted to build an app you can trust without wondering if I’m being a terrible Tech Bro. No data is sent by the app from your device to anywhere.
The only permission it has is to read your contacts and, obviously, you need to grant it that. It does not even store the contacts locally — simply a unique ID for them. You remove that data from existence by simply deleting the app.
The downside to this: if you uninstall the app or delete the data locally, you have to start again. And obviously you can only access it on one device. Maybe in the future I’ll change it so syncing is an option, but this would have been too much work to ship this so quickly.
Why not on Google Play?
I had a lot of fun trying to get my developer account approved this week. However, even though it is now approved, to put an app into production, I have to have 12 internal testers playing with it for two weeks. Probably a reasonable quality precaution, but not good for people who panic-write a last-minute app.
I will likely distribute further versions of this via Google Play. If you’re interested in being one of those internal testers, do let me know.
Anything else?
Yeah, I dedicated this app to my Dad, David Ward. We lost him a few months ago and I’ve been processing that. But one thing that’s been constantly in my mind is just how much we disagreed on almost everything for most of our lives (he was a bit of a Tory, me a wet left Lib Dem), but we often talked about it (sometimes heated, sometimes I was flouncy) and I’ll admit — sometimes he convinced me. I like to think I convinced him occasionally too.
In the last general election we voted for the same party for the first time. That doesn’t really matter, because despite our differences, we only ever wanted the same thing: a better world. We all change politically throughout our lives (or at least we should), and one should never underestimate the power of talking to close ones. The credit for that specific talking should probably go to my stepmum though.
Dad, the last few months have been tough, but thanks for helping me think about some small thing I could try to do to make a difference. And thanks for being my awesome, weird Dad.
Where and how do I report problems if the app is entirely offline?
Here is fine, or email: chrisandjosh.de@gmail.com. Or bother me on Bluesky.
Thanks all! 🫶
