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Legion of Tech Volunteers Lead a Charge for Bernie Sanders
Daniela Perdomo volunteers as an organizer of coders who are developing sites and apps for Senator Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign.Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times

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Dawn crept into Daniela Perdomo’s Brooklyn apartment, her bleary eyes still focused on her bright computer screen. The founder of a nearly three-year-old communications start-up, she had been up all night again, orchestrating the work of more than 100 other developers, web designers, researchers and writers.

But they were not working for Ms. Perdomo’s company. They were not even getting paid. Instead, the all-night sessions were devoted to the Aug. 12 unveiling of FeeltheBern.org — a website they created to explain Bernie Sanders’s positions on issues in the 2016 presidential campaign.

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Throughout the summer, a largely unseen legion of technology professionals across the country — software developers and designers, product managers and more — have been moonlighting online on Mr. Sanders’s behalf. They have been applying their initiative, creativity, organizational skills and, above all, technical prowess in their off hours to support an underdog candidate who has been more than grateful for the help.

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Legion of Tech Volunteers Lead a Charge for Bernie Sanders
FeeltheBern.org, a website operated by Sanders supporters.

They have built interactive maps of campaign events and are working on an automated flier generator to spit out polished promotional materials with a few clicks. They have set up an app to let volunteers and staff members at Mr. Sanders’s huge rallies use iPads to collect donations by swiping supporters’ credit cards. They have pioneered a tool to pair volunteers with lists of voters to call, automating what otherwise requires many paid campaign workers. And they have built dozens of websites for supporters of Mr. Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, like Ms. Perdomo’s FeeltheBern.org.

Like so many online minutemen, they have given Mr. Sanders an enormous lift in his campaign for the Democratic nomination. But this is no ragtag militia: The people who have enlisted include top-flight digital talent.

“It really blows me away,” Mr. Sanders said of the coders donating their services. “The volunteers we’ve mobilized all over this country, especially all the young people, are helping our campaign move to the next level.”

Indeed, while every political campaign relies on the enthusiasm of youthful volunteers, Mr. Sanders has quickly — and effortlessly — tapped into an unexpectedly large and capable cadre of computer jockeys with years and years of experience. They came forward of their own volition, with hundreds joining a Coders for Sanders thread on Reddit. And they organized themselves so thoroughly that one built an Internet “bot” to help match newcomers to tasks appropriate to their skills.

They are a diverse bunch, too: Ms. Perdomo said FeeltheBern.org grew to 125 volunteers “from every demographic I could imagine.” They include former aides to Mitt Romney, self-described libertarians, high school students (“Because I’m young, I can’t vote, so this is a great way to get involved,” said Justin Zheng, 14, of San Mateo, Calif.) and even an Australian programmer, Jordie Bodlay, who said that a Sanders administration would indirectly improve his own life in Sydney. Nearly everyone interviewed had never been politically involved before, and most cited Mr. Sanders’s views on issues like income inequality or his unconventional style of campaigning.

Most are younger than 35, members of the so-called millennial generation, one that has been dismissed at times as too focused on “hashtag activism,” lazily posting harangues on social media while shying away from the difficult work of organizing. But several who described themselves as introverted to begin with said the chance to do valuable political work from the sanctuary of their computers was irresistible.

Continue reading the main storyLegion of Tech Volunteers Lead a Charge for Bernie Sanders Who Is Running for President?

“When the opportunity came along to do something I love doing anyway, to make a difference somewhere, I’ll always jump on that boat,” said Rob Pieta, 23, a mobile developer in Illinois.

Kenneth Pennington, the digital director for the Sanders campaign, said features like the donation app, which incorporates the Square credit card processing software, were “the kind of tech that other organizations would pay expensive app developers for.”

But Federal Election Commission regulations treat donated tech work like “the 21st-century equivalent of having volunteers build a stage for a campaign event,” said Brett G. Kappel, a partner at the law firm Akerman LLP and an expert on campaign law. “As long as the volunteers aren’t compensated for their services by anyone, their work is not considered an in-kind contribution.”

Other gifts to the Sanders campaign that could have cost tens of thousands of dollars on the open market include a custom interactive map of events and rallies, which wound up on the campaign website to promote a national organizing day and continues to be highlighted there.

“They asked, ‘What do you want for it?’ and I said, ‘Nothing,’ ” said Ralph Castillo, a software engineer from Queens who built the map over one weekend. “ ‘I just want my husband and me to meet Bernie.’ ”

The stampede of coders to Mr. Sanders’s aid can be traced to Kyle Pierce, a mobile software developer who, on a whim, created the Coders for Sanders thread on Reddit in June.

Continue reading the main story

“I have a decent amount of free time, and I can put together a website in a few hours,” Mr. Pierce said. He said he was curious to see if he had much company. Within weeks, hundreds more had joined in.

Their buzzing nerve center is not on Reddit, though, but on Slack, an online chat program popular in the tech world, where the volunteers brainstorm at all hours, ask for help on projects, swap code and design mock-ups.

To help speed the integration of new volunteers, Atticus White, a 26-year-old developer from Boston, built a bot — an app programmed to respond to chat commands — that points users in the right direction. The tuxedo-avatared-app, @butler, begins a conversation with new arrivals (often peppered with an encouraging “Awesome” or “Great”) about their skills and points them toward suitable projects.

Slack is also the volunteers’ pipeline back to the campaign. Sanders aides check in regularly there, offering feedback, encouragement, requests and guidance, like asking those building the flier generator to make sure that union shops were hired to do the printing. Aides also ask that new sites be designed differently from the campaign’s own and include disclaimers saying they have no official tie to Mr. Sanders.

Unaffiliated or not, builders of those websites are free to amplify on Mr. Sanders’s campaign message: “We’re regular people, unassociated with any super PACs or billionaires,” says the fine print at FeeltheBern.org.

Ms. Perdomo said she had been spurred to seek out coders who shared her admiration for Mr. Sanders after she contributed to his campaign and was laughed at. “I was telling friends that I donated this money and they should do it, too, and I got a bunch of L.O.L.’s back saying, ‘He’s great and everything, but I don’t see it happening,’ ” she said.

Her website had more than a million page views in its first two weeks.

As their projects take off, or become absorbed by the Sanders campaign, the coders keep coming back for more. The volunteers who worked with Ms. Perdomo, for example, now are putting together a message board to help people car-pool to campaign events.

“There were too many nights when I would go to sleep with the sun coming up, and I felt like a zombie and would question my sanity,” Ms. Perdomo said with a laugh. “But now, it’s so worth it.”

Read more http://rss.nytimes.com/c/34625/f/640387/s/498e1156/sc/28/l/0L0Snytimes0N0C20A150C0A90C0A40Cus0Cpolitics0Cbernie0Esanders0Epresidential0Ecampaign0Etech0Esupporters0Bhtml0Dpartner0Frss0Gemc0Frss/story01.htm


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