Closing that priority issue you’re working on can wait—put down your keyboard and vote! Millions of you already have, and your vote in national and local elections may just impact your work as developers. Government policies influence what software is built, how it’s used, and who gets to build it in the first place. Remember, Tuesday, November 3 is the last day to cast your ballot.
At GitHub we take this civic duty seriously, and we have been preparing the developer community to have your voices heard. We have been helping developers plan ahead to vote. We have encouraged Hubbers to volunteer as poll workers in their local communities, and to take a paid half-day off or more as needed in order to vote and engage in the civic process. Hubber Kyle Daigle has shared his experience helping local election officials as a software engineer. We have also highlighted a few of the many open source software projects that are contributing to better elections.
While previous posts have focused primarily on the US ahead of the November presidential election this year, developers’ civic engagement matters everywhere. In one example of our civic support globally, GitHub partnered with the Times of India and IBM on the Lost Votes Tech Solutions Challenge.
Vote! Then, celebrate once you have and spread the word to other developers by checking out our “I Voted” Octocat that you can add to your profile README. Civic engagement doesn’t have to end with voting either. Wherever you may be in the world, you can contribute to civic projects on GitHub!
