This project started during a fandom vote competition where our team was falling behind. The gap was widening, and to make things worse, participation from our fandom was low. The few of us who were still voting felt like our efforts weren’t moving the needle. That’s when I began thinking: "How can I make voting easier and more motivating for the ones still in the fight?"

My first idea was efficiency. I dug into the host poll’s script, rooted it out, and re-injected it into my own page. Then I made five iframe copies of it, so voters could cast multiple votes faster across different browsers and devices. To prevent issues, I also figured out what triggered the rate limits and added instructions so voters could avoid getting blocked.

The second idea was morale. I built a votes sent tracker that counted every successful vote through the server’s response and stored the number in local storage. This way, each voter could see their personal total across sessions — a number they could proudly share with the group.

I also added a live gap counter that refreshed every 3 seconds, plus a redesigned results page that was far more engaging than the dull original.

In the end, the project hit its two goals: it empowered voters by giving them a clear count of their contributions, and it made voting less boring by turning it into a more interactive and motivating experience.

We didn’t win the competition — we finished in second place — but morale was high. Voters could finally see and celebrate how much they had contributed, and that made the whole experience worth it.

Fans will do anything to support their favorite artists—even lose sleep to vote in online polls and awards shows. I saw this when I joined the effort to vote for Will Ashley, who was nominated for Nylon’s Boldest Breakout Star.

To make the voting more interesting, and to bring out the fandom's competitive side, I created an interactive vote tracker. It was a visual tool designed to reimagine the typically boring, straightforward poll result. Inspired by the dynamic and engaging vote displays of MTV EMAs and MTV Hottest, I built a system that showcased the results with a unique visual flair.

Using cron-job.org and GitHub Actions, I took a snapshot of the vote standings every five minutes, from August 19 to September 1. This real-time data was fed directly into the dashboard, allowing us to see our progress in an exciting new way.

We used the data to figure out our strategy, and even though we only made it to second place, the whole thing proved to me how technology can rally a fandom and make even a simple online poll feel like a true team effort.