Think Design adapts voter engagement platform Palumba ahead of the 2025 NYC Mayoral Election
Think Design is proud to partner with Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the Palumba organization, and Who’s on the Ballot voter information platform to launch voting transparency mobile app Palumba NYC just in time for November’s New York City Mayoral Election!
Swipe right for…NYC Mayor?
New York City residents now have an easy tool at their fingertips to decode how candidates stand on city issues without all the noise! The app comes hyperbole-free, bluster-free, ad-free and free of charge.
Palumba has been the #1 elections app and leading civic engagement platform in Europe, using an evidence-based transparent algorithm to help match voters with candidates that share their values, while providing educational context for every issue.
Launched just as early voting begins!
But first Palumba NYC was presented to the toughest crowd – the policy and voting experts and graduate students at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
Providing context to the importance of an easily accessible voter information app like Palumba NYC, we were treated to an engaging panel discussion from Columbia professors Ester Fuchs and Robert Shapiro. Esther Fuchs is the founder of Who’s on the Ballot, a NYC voter information platform, and Professor Shapiro specializes in American politics with research and teaching interests in public opinion, policymaking, political leadership, and the mass media.
SIPA graduate student Pol Villaverde, founder of open-source Palumba and the non-profit Palumba organization, explained his impetus for creating Palumba for the EU elections, how he was delighted to find it used widely in Europe, and why he wanted to now bring it to the NYC mayoral elections.
So what is Palumba?
Palumba is Europe’s leading civic engagement platform. Through an engaging, nonpartisan platform, Palumba makes political complexity accessible and voting decisions informed.
Palumba reached #1 in App Stores across multiple European countries during the 2024 EU Elections, engaged nearly 200,000 users, collected over 5 million individual responses, earned 100+ media mentions, and won 10+ awards including from Google, UN World Summit Awards, Columbia University or the Innovation in Politics Award.
How Palumba Works
Swipe, Learn, Match: Users express opinions on 25-30 policy statements by swiping left/right. Our transparent algorithm matches them with candidates who share their values while providing educational context for every issue.
Evidence-Based Content: Each policy question includes background information, fact-checking, and links to reliable sources. Each statement is verified by our Scientific Council of academic experts and by the mayoral campaign teams.
Social Virality: Built-in sharing features naturally spread civic engagement through social networks and hook the attention of users across generations to what matters.
Who’s On the Ballot x Palumba: a comprehensive voter information platform
For the November 2025 NYC Mayoral Election, Palumba NYC partnered with Columbia SIPA’s “Who’s On The Ballot” to create a comprehensive digital voting companion for NY’s voters.
What is Who’s on the Ballot? Who’s on the Ballot (WOTB) is a voter information platform that helps New York City residents prepare for elections. WOTB provides personalized ballot previews and polling location information based on their address. WOTB makes election information easily accessible, helps voters understand their choices before Election Day, and streamlines the voting process through location-specific electoral resources. WOTB is an initiative of Columbia SIPA directed by professor Ester Fuchs.
WOTB will prominently feature a link to Palumba. Palumba will direct voters to WOTB. Jointly, the two initiatives will target a larger audience and maximize impact.
Palumba x Think Design: Mobile Flutter development
The Palumba and Think Design teams conducted daily stand-ups for two weeks beginning in late September, and within three weeks, with a significant push from both teams, Palumba NYC was made available in both Apple and Google play stores.
Think Design provided custom software development, in Flutter, for the front end of the app, where extensive changes were needed to customize the app from an EU context to one more suited to NYC.
This work involved extending and adapting the open-source Palumba voter engagement app for a New York City launch. Front-end work in Flutter included updating onboarding, borough and education data, issue prompts, and results pages; incorporating NYC-centric visuals; and tailoring content for NYC’s mayoral election and younger voters.
Why This Matters
Youth Disengagement Crisis: In the last NYC Mayoral Elections, only 11% of young people voted. In the long term, studies show that voting in your first elections is decisive for future civic participation and Palumba NYC’s mission focuses on that.
Information Overload: Complex ballot structures and candidate positions overwhelm first-time and occasional voters. The cognitive burden and learning curves are a barrier to engagement.
Proven Impact: Voting Advice Applications show measurable increases of as much as 4% in election turnout when they’re widely used, and its effects have been proven to be significantly high in increasing political literacy among typically disengaged demographics.