Funky Citizens: 2500 vote observers to protect democracy

Funky Citizens is a civic NGO (the biggest one in Romania) that I’ve got a good long history with. In the midst of the latest elections in Romania, they called me for help to create and implement a campaign to recruit vote observers (volunteers) who could make sure the ballots would be safe from electoral fraud. Every vote matters, after all.

Therefore, I brought in a team of creatives and a bunch of ideas that, in a short time, would become real hits and make the news of the day. We created a campaign that shaped the label of vote observers, previously seen as people with a boring job and in need of a lot of legal training. To change that, we made sure these people would be seen as “democracy superheroes” with an easy but important job that didn’t require special skills — just enough civic spirit.

We made many things — posters, spots, merch, digital campaigning, and manifestos that would spread the message, create new labels, and spark inspiration. It soon became a national mission; lots of people wanted to be part of this movement that could save Romania. And it did. At the presidential elections, we had a quarter of the voting sections in Romania covered by our people. In the first round of the presidential elections, the 2nd and 3rd candidates were at a difference of a few thousand votes. We protected millions of votes and made sure breaking the rules wouldn’t be so easy on our watch.