ABOUT

Concept

Driving the Vote for Equality is a grassroots campaign by ERA Now, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit led by former Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, working to secure Congressional recognition of the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The ERA has been ratified by 38 states, meeting every constitutional requirement under Article V, but remains unrecognized due to an arbitrary 1972 Congressional deadline that opponents continue to invoke. Until Congress affirms the amendment, women in the United States lack the explicit constitutional protections already extended to men.

The campaign draws its concept from a lesser-known chapter of American history. In 1916, suffragists Alice Burke and Nell Richardson drove a gold Saxon roadster called the Golden Flyer 10,700 miles across 29 states, rallying support for what would become the 19th Amendment. One hundred and ten years later, the restored Golden Flyer II, the same make and model, sets out again on a 25-state national tour to collect one million petition signatures and pressure Congress to act.

The website was conceived as the digital backbone of that tour: part educational resource, part organizing tool, part living archive. The brief was to translate a century-spanning act of civic persistence into a modern interactive experience that informs, mobilizes, and documents the journey in real time.

Execution

Ryan Paonessa led design and creative direction on the project, designing the site in Figma and managing build-out in close collaboration with developer David Solheim, who built the site in Next.js on Vercel with Tailwind CSS. The project was overseen by political direct-mail pioneer Roger Craver.

The visual identity draws on the iconography of the ERA movement, the broader history of women's rights, and the gold and chrome of the Saxon roadster itself, with a typographic system that balances editorial weight with archival warmth. The result reads as both campaign and document.

The site is structured around several interconnected features:

A comprehensive education section explains the ERA, its 100-year legislative history, and the procedural obstacles still blocking its recognition.

An interactive national map traces the Golden Flyer II's route across the country, with detailed cards for each stop that link directly to corresponding entries in the Daily Diary, a content stream of dispatches and media galleries published as the tour unfolds. The diary functions as both real-time storytelling and a permanent archive of the campaign.

An Accountability page lets visitors select any state to see all of its Congressional representatives and their stated positions on the ERA. A zip code lookup surfaces a user's specific House representative. Each representative card is color coded by stance and includes direct contact information, turning awareness into a clear next action.

A dedicated News and Information section runs alongside the diary with broader ERA reporting and education, and an in-depth Media Center houses press coverage, releases, team bios, and contacts. Integrated calls to action route visitors to sign the petition at Sign4ERA and to support ERA Now's 501(c)(3) work directly.

Results

Since launch, Driving the Vote for Equality has been covered across national and regional press, including features in The New York Times, NBC, and Ms. Magazine, and has circulated widely across social media. The Golden Flyer II is currently mid-route through its 25-state tour, with each stop generating local press, community organizing activity, and new petition signatures added to the national drive toward one million by Election Day 2026.

Beyond the immediate campaign, the site is built to evolve. New features are planned in the run-up to the midterm elections, and the platform will continue as a living archive of the tour, the campaign, and the broader fight for constitutional equality, ensuring the work of 2026 remains a public record long after the Golden Flyer II reaches its final stop.