Matt Kalmans

JANUARY 27, 2018

"People still fundamentally know it’s a good thing to participate in the civic process."

Matt Kalmans is the CEO and co-founder of Applecart, a strategic political consultancy and lab. We discuss the power of voting, how social pressure can influence our actions, and the ways in which science and technology can help us understand our political behavior. 

Human communication is the strongest tool for high civic engagement

Most decisions we make on a day-to-day basis are based on what our friends and co-workers tell us. Real life conversations are deeply influental in our political behavior. Social pressure can bring about social change.

Voting is our political power

Voting is our civic duty and is a matter of public record. Changing behavior from not-voting to voting continues in the long term. Higher voting turnout will lead to radically different people being voted into office. People who are not only solution-oriented, but will also be a better representative of us as a society!

We respond to social pressure for civic duty

People respond to social pressure for higher civic engagement and voter participation. Voting is understood to be a social good, and studies have shown that we respond to social pressure for higher civic engagement and voter participation.

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Matt Kalmans is the CEO and co-founder of Appelcart, a strategic political consultancy and lab that aggregates and processes publicly available online and off-line data with the goal to redefine how political organisations mobilize voters, how nonprofit organisations fundraise or how advocacy groups lobbies elected their officials.