Gen Z app creator hopes to empower a young generation of voters

As a first-time voter, Arabia Simeon stared at her absentee ballot as if she didn’t know the answers to a multiple-choice quiz. 

In 2016, a chaotic year in American politics, Simeon knew Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

But she didn’t recognize the candidates running in other races and the values they stood for. She couldn’t find trustworthy information about them after a frantic Google search. She scrambled. 

“I chose the coolest name,” said Simeon, now 26. “It was very embarrassing.” 

Simeon regretted the way she voted in her first election, vowing to help young people overcome the same frustrations.  

The experience motivated Simeon to create Politics on the Go, or POGO, a free mobile app that provides information on political candidates, policy issues and elections. It comes in an era of political gamesmanship and a growing loss of faith in the democratic process. 

Roughly 70 million Americans are part of Gen Z, the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in the country’s history. Millennials take the crown as the largest living adult generation in the U.S. with 72.1 million members, surpassing baby boomers. Along with millennials, Gen Z will be the largest class of eligible voters by 2028.

In 2022, Michigan had the highest youth voter turnout in the nation during the midterm elections, according to a report from Tufts University. Young voters in Michigan ages 18 to 29 turned out at a rate of 37%, compared to the national youth voter turnout rate of 23%.

As contentious elections loom, some zoomers and millennials have felt ill-prepared to cast their ballots with confidence.

In a national survey, 33% of Gen Z voters wished they had more information on candidates and issues ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, according to an analysis of Gen Z voting behavior by education advocacy organization Murmuration and the Walton Family Foundation. Twenty-one percent of millennial voters wished they had more information.

Simeon believes POGO can transform Gen Z and millennials into assertive actors in a civic life that extends beyond voting.

“I want to remind people of how our government works. And get that baseline education. I feel like the time is now,” she said. 

Civic engagement, reimagined 

To attract a younger audience, Simeon used a familiar style. Like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge or other dating apps, POGO users get a customized matching experience with a political twist.

From presidents, city council and school board elections to races for judges and the comptroller, POGO generates political candidate profiles matching a user’s values. The app scrapes information from multiple web sources, including the Federal Election Commission, Ballotpedia and VOTE411, launched by the League of Women Voters Education Fund. 

Users can learn about political candidates’ voting records, campaign budgets and policy stances, voter registration status, polling locations and more. A public opinion polling feature remains a work in progress. Each time a poll is completed, a user will get a reward like badges and coins. The gameplay is modeled after Duolingo. 

“These things really relate and energize Gen Z and millennials,” Simeon said. She hopes to capitalize on the gamification trend, which is flooding the market with mobile apps for exercise and education. 

Billed as a nonpartisan platform, Simeon stressed POGO won’t be tainted by biases, although the tech entrepreneur acknowledges the challenge. To prevent skewed views, political ads won’t be allowed on POGO. 

The app will be available to the public this month. The polling feature is expected to roll out in July, Simeon said. She’s also recruiting people for focus groups. 

Simeon sees the untapped potential of the growing Gen Z and millennial electorate.

“Millennials. I think when it comes to civic engagement, they’re the forgotten, brushed-off generation,” she said. 

And zoomers?

“We’re still very civically engaged outside of voting and refuse to make our voices, like, stifled,” she said. 

As people age, they become more integrated into the political process, said Jared McDonald, an assistant professor at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, who teaches courses related to American government, political behavior and public policy.

“They tend to skew left. They also identify as political independents at higher rates than previous generations,” he said, describing Gen Z. 

The notion that voting was a pillar of good citizenry has been drilled into the minds of many older Americans. But voting attitudes have shifted across Gen Z and millennials. 

“Younger Americans are less likely than older Americans to say it’s a civic duty,” he said. 

McDonald said access to accurate information may have small effects on voter turnout, but it’s not a silver bullet. 

“So much of why people don’t vote comes down to a lack of interest or the people’s sense that the government simply doesn’t listen to them,” he said. “That’s hard to address.” 

‘I feel like my vote doesn’t matter’

Thirty-year-old Ayanna-Grace King, Simeon’s longtime partner, votes with her principles, not political party affiliation. She votes with her identity in mind: a Black, queer woman from New York. 

The urban farmer and environmental justice organizer said she thinks about which candidates care about people like her and typically checks news websites or YouTube for information. 

This time around, she noticed the silence. 

“I don’t really hear a buzz. It’s hard to find any debates,” she said. 

She didn’t vote in the 2016 election because the process was too inconvenient. She didn’t vote in 2020 because she was mentally tired. King hopes to vote this November, but it’s not a slam dunk. 

King believes POGO has the opportunity to make political discussion feel more like water cooler talk. 

“It’s brought a lot of positive awareness and movement towards normalizing talking about politics in the household and normalizing getting to know that process,” she said. 

Destine Brown, a 26-year-old program manager for nonprofit Global Detroit, scrolls through Instagram or TikTok to get election updates. 

Her fact-finding missions have sowed some doubts. 

“I’m not 100% sure if some of these places are trustworthy,” Brown said. “I’m not necessarily sure how I decipher like, what’s real and what’s not.”

For Brown, voting has been a challenge. She’s moved around the country. Her primary address, always changing. 

The only reason she voted in the 2016 presidential election, the last time she did, was because her alma mater, University of Albany, had folks register students to vote. 

When she moved to Detroit, Brown didn’t know where to find an absentee ballot. 

She’s disillusioned. She blames the way the Electoral College is set up. 

“I feel like my vote doesn’t matter in a presidential election,” Brown said. “I think it matters in a local sense.” 

What would help motivate Brown to the polls this November: More information on who a candidate is as a person instead of a talking head on a campaign trail. More information on political candidates’ policy stances—she’s passionate about immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. Human rights. 

“As a Black person, I’m voting on who’s the least racist,” she said. 

She thinks POGO could expose younger people to an array of political voices.

“We only hear the perspectives of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party,” Brown said. “Now we’ll be able to have the opportunity to really tap into folks who may identify as independent.” 

At the University of Michigan, sociology major Sydney Olthoff, 19, has been on the frontlines of the pro-Palestinian movement. 

The mood on campus is depressing. None of her friends are thrilled about any of the presidential candidates. 

“It sucks to feel like you’re picking the lesser of two evils,” she said. “I’m really sad that this is the first election that I’m voting in.”

Originally from Muskegon, Olthoff plans to vote this November, although she’ll leave the box blank for the presidential race. 

“I don’t know if I can stomach voting for either candidate at this time, but I definitely would never deter anyone from voting,” she said. 

Olthoff doesn’t encounter trouble finding facts on federal elections, perusing Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and NPR. The local level is a different story. 

“It’s really hard to find stuff about, like local officials,” said Olthoff, adding POGO could make election research easier.  

Cameron Sims, who lives in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood, has trouble finding unvarnished truths about politicians. 

“I don’t know what news articles or news stations to really look for,” he said. “Sometimes, things are either blown out of proportion or a bold-faced lie.” 

Both presidential candidates fail to inspire his faith in democracy. 

His mom told him voting matters, but at 17, Cameron doesn’t believe that’s true. “I really don’t understand,” he said. “How could my one vote impact really anything?”

Cameron thinks POGO could be a solid resource, saving him from the hassle of rummaging through news articles and videos online. 

“It could give me a better insight,” he said. 

Cameron just graduated as Detroit Community High School’s valedictorian. He’ll study nursing at Michigan State University in the fall. He’ll soon begin his adult life and plans to give voting a chance.  

For her ‘hood

Simeon was raised by working-class people. She grew up in the Tompkins Projects, located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. 

A curious child, Simeon broke computers apart and put them back together. 

“I’ve always been very artsy and technical,” she said. 

A high school civics class excited Simeon about the right to vote, but then she was crushed by the reality that so many of her friends didn’t have the same chance at defining the future. 

Some racked up felonies and went to jail. Because they were incarcerated, elections would march forward without the voices of her friends being heard at the ballot box. 

“That was like an eye-opener for me,” Simeon said. 

Out of her childhood heartache came a political awakening, driving Simeon to fight for social change. 

Simeon left the projects to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she majored in computer science and studio art. 

During her time at the elite liberal arts college, Simeon forced her white peers to confront systemic racism. 

For an art project, Simeon bought a BB gun from Walmart. Then she decorated the gun with a collage of victims shot or killed by police. 

When a person pulled the gun’s trigger, audio from a viral video documenting police brutality played. “They were crying,” Simeon said of her classmates’ visceral reactions. 

Simeon was the only Black person in her class. 

She graduated from Smith in 2019. Two years later, she moved to Detroit on a fellowship from the nonprofit Venture for America to learn project management skills and product development. 

Simeon planned to live in the Motor City for a few years. 

“I decided to stay because I felt like I was a part of history here. I feel like there’s a renaissance across the whole city, but especially in tech. And I think it’s being led by Black people,” she said. 

After getting laid off from a job at an HR technology firm, Simeon got serious about POGO. 

She used her severance and won more than $30,000 in grant money from Venture for America, Build in Tulsa and more to help fund POGO.

She’s about to level up. Simeon is directing a short documentary following potential first-time voters in New York, Baltimore and Detroit. Cameron is one of them.

All of these dreams were made possible by Simeon’s hustle—an obsession fueled by her struggles as a first-time voter. 

“I don’t want to be a lawyer. I don’t want to be a politician, but I can code,” she said. 

“I want the people in my ‘hood to feel like they have an understanding of what’s going on around them.”

POGO had a launch party on Wednesday afternoon. The vibes swelled with 313 pride, representing the vanguard. 

Dozens of young, stylish folks trickled into Spot Lite in Detroit’s Islandview neighborhood. Palestinian and pride flags fluttered in the wind while DJ Problematic Black Hottie played “So Fresh, So Clean” by Outkast. 

The party people got a POGO demo, munched on glazed Dutch Girl Donuts and scooped up POGO pins, keychains and stickers emblazoned with a warning: “IF YOU DON’T DO POLITICS, POLITICS GON’ DO YOU.” 

Simeon shook hands and posed for pictures. Family members celebrated with her. She embraced her third cousin Steven Rowe, an automotive engineer who commuted from Sterling Heights. 

“She’s a go-getter. Outgoing person. Very bright. Respectful. Smart,” Rowe said. “We’re proud of her.” 

City Council President Mary Sheffield gave Simeon a Spirit of Detroit Award. Simeon was ecstatic, realizing the city believes in her vision to keep democracy alive.  

“I think I’ve been welcomed with open arms in Detroit,” Simeon said. “I’m forever grateful for it.”