Key Points:

• A new mobile app from Turning Point USA shows people who are likely to vote conservative and have not returned their ballots

• Anyone can download and use the app as it’s intended

• A similar app from Democratic organizations needs more authorization to use

PHOENIX — A publicly available app provides insight into who a conservative group sees as people likely to vote with their side.

Designed by Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Charlie Kirk to promote conservative candidates, the TPAction mobile app is specifically meant to aid volunteers who “chase” ballots. They use it to find people in a given neighborhood who have asked for early ballots but have not yet returned them, according to county election records.

But not just anyone with an unreturned ballot.

“It identifies who we want to vote,” said Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer of Turning Point USA, when asked about it.

And how does the organization do that?

“Why would I tell you that?” he responded in a chat on social media, followed by “LOL” — laughing out loud. “I mean, it’s basic logic who would determine our targets.”

But Bowyer declined to answer any more questions.

There’s nothing illegal about all of this, as voter registration records are public.

And lists are available regularly of those who ask for and have returned early ballots. That’s why those emails, text messages and phone calls people get on behalf of candidates and issues tend to stop once the ballot is returned.

Democrats have a similar program called MiniVAN that enables campaign organizers to send out volunteers — just like Turning Point — to find those voters it has identified as likely supporters whose ballots may be sitting unopened on the kitchen table.

But there’s a key difference.

While the MinVAN app can be downloaded to cell phones, actual voter information becomes available only when the user is linked to a specific list. And that list is not publicly available, but is under the control of the organization that controls the list.

That’s not the case with TPAction.

It takes only a name, address and phone number to sign up and activate the app once downloaded from either Google Play or the App Store.

And one option on a menu that appears when you sign in and click the arrows in the upper right is to “chase ballots.”

Click on that and you get a menu that tops off with “voters near me.”

That first turns up a list of neighbors within a couple of hundred yards — at least those who Turning Point believes is worthy of their attention — complete with their names, addresses and whether they’ve returned their early ballots. You may or may not be on that list.

There’s also an option to click on the map to show you exactly where they live from your position.

But you’re not limited to snooping about just the folks in your area.

At the bottom of the map is a button labeled “done for the day.” That not only releases the list back to Turning Point but clears the map for the next time.

And, more to the point, you can then reopen the app — and the map — from wherever is your new starting point. And that produces a list of people in that area who Turning Point wants to pursue.

The app also has other options to allow users to make phone calls directly to those on the list. It even provides information like the target’s gender, age and party, and whether that person is on the early voting list — meaning someone who asked for a ballot by mail.

And even direct texts are an option.