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Music to a Politician's Ears

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Music to a Politician's Ears wednesday, march 26, 2014 People Music to a Politician’s Ears PhishPhish BY CHRISTOPHER SNOW HOPKINS “Between my contacts and Marc’s con- tacts, we were able to put together a board If you want to know the secret to motivating of directors,” Bernstein said. “By early 2004, young voters, music may be the answer. Meet people started coming out of the woodwork Andy Bernstein, cochairman and execu- and asking how they could get involved. tive director of HeadCount, a group that reg- “To this day, I can’t believe how fast we istered more than 103,000 voters at concerts moved. By April 2004, we were registering and music festivals in 2012. voters at 25 concerts a week. Throughout it all, This week HeadCount announced a strate- the concept never changed: We would set up gic partnership with iCitizen, an app for mo- card tables at concerts and build a community bile devices that allows users to skim policy- within a community.” related news coverage and track the voting Fast forward to 2012. During the last election records of their elected officials. cycle,HeadCountregisteredmorethan100,000 In the coming year, the two organizations voters. Like concertgoers in general, these new- will set up “a co-branded event oasis” at hun- ly minted voters skewed toward a younger de- dreds of concerts and major music festivals. mographic: 44 percent of them were under the These pavilions—outfitted with charging sta- age of 24 and 65 percent under the age of 29. Bernstein:Bernstein: Truly rocking the vote. tions, comfortable seating, and Wi-Fi connec- Last year, HeadCount debuted #Sound- tivity—are designed to entice young people Off, a mobile-friendly Web platform that al- into the political milieu. “It’s all about getting lows users to tweet to members of Congress. malist aesthetic, is “something new and fresh them registered,” Bernstein said. “We really believe that to engage young to make voter registration sexy,” he added. Accordingto companylore, HeadCount Americans, you have to be on the cutting edge The iPhone version of iCitizen was introduced started with a rant from its gregarious execu- of technology, and you have to make it really inNovember,andtheAndroidversionwillbe tive director about Guantanamo Bay. easy and convenient,” Bernstein said. “We’re released at the end of this month. It is orient- “It began on a whim,” said Bernstein, a for- in an era where everything has become one ed around 18 policy areas, from the budget to mer writer for SportsBusiness Journal. “In late click and one touch.” women’s rights to the environment. 2003,I was interviewing [anESPN reporter] Today, HeadCount collaborates with an “Our partnership with HeadCount gives when he made an offhanded political remark, eclectic array of artists—from Phish and the usthe opportunitytoapplytechnologyto the which prompted me to make an offhanded Dave Matthews Band to Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, and voter-registration process,” said Rod Massey, political remark. Before I knew it, we were the Roots—and expects to be present at more CEO of Citizengine and one of the app’s ar- having a spirited conversation about civil lib- than 500 concerts in the year to come. It has chitects. “iCitizen allows you to find out eas- erties.… I put the phone down, and I said to also formed alliances with progressive orga- ily who your elected officials are and what myself, ‘I’ve got to stop complaining, and I’ve nizations like GLAAD and the NAACP, al- they’re doing in your name.” got to do something.’ ” though Bernstein insists that HeadCount is A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Bernstein studied Bernstein, an acolyte of the band Phish resolutely nonpartisan. modern culture and media at Brown Universi- and coauthor of the 1998 compendium to the “From the beginning, we wanted Head- ty, where he called hockey games for the Brown group called The Pharmer’s Almanac, dashed Count to be neither Democratic nor Repub- Bears. He then spent 11 years as a sports jour- off an email to Marc Brownstein, bassist for lican,” he said. “Voter registration should be nalist before that fateful conversation with the the Disco Biscuits, and the two decided to something that everybody, or nearly every- ESPN reporter. “I had this career that was com- start a voter-registration campaign for con- body, can get behind.” pletely separate from what I’m doing now,” he certgoers. The iCitizen app, which embodies a mini- said. “I had no desire to get into politics.” photos: courtesy of andy bernstein; michael loccisano/getty images 10 national journal daily nationaljournal.com.
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