Massey University’s Design+Democracy Project was formed as a response to a call from New Zealand's Electoral Commission for academic and research communities to respond to declining voter participation. Their mission is to "work in partnership with industry, government, and the social sector to ignite a passion for democracy in young people through user-centred design”.

Their latest project, VoteLocal “is a game-based questionnaire that guides people towards the mayoral candidate whose policies and ideals best match up with their own. It provides information about the candidates and what they stand for, informs users about what councils do, and debunks the assumption that they aren’t relevant”