Game mechanics on election day
Would you be more motivated to vote if there was some reward for it? Today FourSquare is offering a special badge for people who shout “#ivoted” when they check-in. The media has been referring to this as an example of game mechanics getting people to vote, but I think they are confusing game mechanics with feedback from playing a game.
It’s difficult to say if the FourSquare badge motivated anyone to actually vote (the badge isn’t tied to voting location), but this does raise an interesting question, which is “How can we use game mechanics to get people more excited about the voting process?”
First, voting isn’t a very interesting game because there is little feedback about the progress or effect your actions have. FourSquare’s badge (and the stickers the preceded it) are a start, but lets make it more interesting.
What if after you voted the machine showed you how your vote affected the current standings? What if it showed you your voting history and statistics. Have you picked winners in the past?
What if there were physical rewards for voting in every election? Or rare achievements like voting early in the morning or late at night to help stagger the crowds, or an achievement for always writing in candidates.
What if you gained levels based on how often you pick a successful candidate? In a good game, you need to advance and have some motivation for playing, but the constitution doesn’t give us much leeway there (we can’t give you two votes for example). But what if frequent voters got priority access to their representatives?
It definitely seems like voting is ripe to be improved with some game mechanics!
