US-Israeli app helps US Jewish groups get out the vote for key campaigns
UpVote allows volunteers to contact acquaintances for voter outreach, has been used in pivotal congressional races
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
NEW YORK — Last year, Jewish volunteers scoured New York’s Westchester County during the pivotal Democratic party Congressional primary that pitted Jamaal Bowman, a harsh critic of Israel, against George Latimer, a pro-Israel centrist.
Bowman’s rhetoric had alarmed Jewish volunteers, who went door to door in the area’s leafy suburbs in a get-out-the-vote campaign, telling residents that “antisemitism is on the ballot.”
The volunteers were guided by an Israeli app called UpVote, a key tool in the campaign.
Latimer defeated Bowman, the incumbent, in the Westchester race, marking a significant setback to progressive critics of Israel. The race was decided by 12,000 votes, and around 14,000 Jews voted, making up 20% of the total, political organizers later said.
The victory marked the highest-profile win so far for US campaigns using UpVote, and has demonstrated the app’s success in getting voters to the ballot box. The app has long been used for political campaigns in Israel, and has been quietly making inroads in the US for several years.
UpVote makes use of “relational organizing,” a peer-to-peer approach to get-out-the-vote campaigns, said the company’s vice president for business development, Idan Dolgin. The strategy has people reach out to acquaintances to encourage them to vote, which the company and organizers view as more effective than pitching a campaign message to strangers.
“That’s how you get really high turnout, because it’s your college roommate that you’re reaching out to, instead of a random spam number you’ve never heard,” Dolgin said in an interview.
The company takes publicly available data on voter registration that is available to registered candidates. UpVote’s technology allows volunteers and campaign staff to match that information with a user’s phone contacts through the company’s app. The volunteers can then deliver campaign messages to their acquaintances through calls or messages. Campaign managers can also track volunteers’ efforts and collate data through the system.
The company is an outgrowth of FeedBack, a communications firm that operates in the US and Israel. The company made its first foray into US politics during a Miami mayoral campaign in 2021. Jewish activists had heard about the technology’s use in Israel and got in touch for their campaign to reach Jewish voters in the Miami election.
Since its launch in the US, UpVote has spread mainly through word of mouth in US Jewish communities, said Dolgin, the company’s sole US-based employee, in addition to its six employees in Israel.
In the US, progressives have made use of relational organizing through apps in past campaigns. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used an app called Reach for her successful 2018 campaign. Reach and similar US firms, such as the Empower Project, are explicitly marketed to progressives.
Some of UpVote’s biggest campaigns have been used to turn out voters opposed to progressives, such as the Latimer-Bowman race and a Missouri House primary between Cori Bush and Wesley Bell. A campaign focused on this year’s New York City mayoral race is rallying Jewish voters, many of whom are opposed to the far-left Democratic Socialists of America.
UpVote is apolitical, though, Dolgin said, highlighting the firm’s work with both conservatives and liberals in Israel.
“We’re not ideological. Of course, we’re very close with the Jewish community. All of our team is Israeli, if not Israeli and American, so if somebody is an anti-Zionist or BDS supporter, they’re not going to want to work with us,” she said. “But anyone else, we’re totally open. We work on the right side of the aisle and the left side of the aisle.”
The New York City campaign, run by a group called the Jewish Voters Action Network, was inspired by the Bowman-Latimer race last year. The current campaign is urging Jewish voters to change their party affiliation to Democrat to participate in mayoral primaries. The app filters voter data so volunteers can see who among their contacts is not registered as a Democrat.
Avishai Rostamiam, a field director for the campaign, uses the app to monitor data on voter registration.
“The main thing as a whole is the community receiving tailored texts to them from their friends. They actually look at it and they click on the link,” he said. “A lot of times they say, ‘Thank you so much. I just registered, I had no idea.’”
Rostamian also used UpVote in a separate Long Island campaign last year.
“Other politicians have used similar things in a grassroots effort to get them elected, so this is our version of it. It’s developed in Israel, we have an Israeli team behind it, and it’s pretty effective,” Rostamian said. “At least for us in our little Jewish community, this is our thing. This is the app that we use.”
The company is privately owned and Dolgin declined to discuss its financial information or pricing, but noted that costs varied widely. Someone using the app to run for a school board position, for example, would be charged less than a candidate in a gubernatorial race, she said.
In the future, the company plans to expand nationwide in the US and other countries.
