Russian government hopes to boost voter turnout with dating app

Forget Tinder, Together at the Elections is the only dating app you’ll need in Russia come 10 September.

Sources close to the Kremlin have notified television channel TV Rain that a special version of Mamba — a free dating website popular across Russia and the former Soviet Union — will be launched in various Russian regions in advance of September’s regional elections.

Rather than finding the love of their life or a date for the night, users are tasked with finding someone to take to the polling station. The app asks, “Will you go with them to the elections?” If the “yes” is mutual between two users, they receive a message saying, “It looks like we like each other. We can go to vote together on 10 September.”

While the head of Mamba, Andrey Bronetsky, told TV Rain that his company was “advised” to launch the election app, he declined to specify who had advised them. TV Rain, however, claimed that sources “close to the matter” had confirmed that the proposal had been discussed in the Kremlin, and forms part of an initiative aimed at increasing voter turnout.

Should the use of Mamba be a success at 10 September’s regional elections, the themed app could be rolled out across Russia for the presidential election in 2018.

Source: Meduza