In response to COVID-19, Neapolitan Labs is working with multiple County Auditors across Iowa to build and launch election-specific county websites.
Neapolitan Labs launched its first elections-centric website a little over a year ago in February 2019 with Pottawattamie County.
Beginning in March, Neapolitan Labs started receiving attention from multiple County Auditors across the state to build similar sites as they became closed to the public due to the pandemic. Since then, the company has pivoted to focus on building and launching these election websites for counties, to be available for residents on-demand given the coronavirus situation.
“Most county websites have a lot of content and sometimes things related to elections — whether it be trying to find election results or try to figure out how to register to vote — can be difficult to find,” said Brian McMillin, founder of Neapolitan Labs. “Its often buried in the website and sometimes not available at all. So they had the concept of putting together standalone websites specific to elections.”
Neapolitan Labs is now contracted with 10 counties to build standalone election websites.
Every site has a directory of elected officials, all the way down to the township level. Past election results are available, easy to filter by year. Quick links to register to vote or find your polling place are included. We also have information on upcoming elections, including deadlines for registration or how to become a candidate.
All of the websites also include alert bars and easy online forms for voters to request an absentee ballot request form to be mailed to them.
“This gives people that outlet to vote and not have to go out in public with COVID-19,” said McMillin. “Hopefully things are better in June but presumably the fewer people they can have at the physical polling sites on election day the better.”
Previous coverage
Neapolitan Labs is helping small businesses with their web presence -Oct. 23, 2018
At Clay & Milk, we want to tell stories about the many ways entrepreneurs and startups are adapting and stepping up to combat coronavirus. Fill out this form to tell us your story and we will be in touch.