as the days countdown to saturday’s nsw state election, politicians are using every way they can to gain votes, and one of these is to advertise on gay hook up app, grindr labor’s penny sharpe, who is looking to become a member of the legislative assembly, and sydney state independent mp alex greenwich are both using the app in a bid to get as many votes as possible the two gay politicians are following up on the example set by greens candidate sam hibbins who won a seat in prahran in november’s victorian state election labor’s penny sharpe (left) and sydney state independent mp alex greenwich (right) are using the grindr app to reach out to the electorate  hibbins was one of australia’s first politicians to use hook up apps as a method to reach voters successfully he used the grindr app to send political messages to members of melbourne’s prahran electorate, living in the suburbs of prahran, windsor, south yarra and st kilda east, as the candidate campaigns ahead of the election the star observer reports that sharpe was using the app on a trial basis for this election 'it’s not a space i play in regularly,' said ms sharpe, who is standing as labor’s candidate in the inner west seat of newtown ms sharpe and mr greenwich both placed ads on grindr to encourage people to vote for them  'but i’m sure that some of my volunteers have profiles 'for us, it’s a totally new way of talking to people and we know there are lots of people who aren’t as engaged' mr greenwich also said that it was the first time that he had used the app to reach out to the electorate but if it proved successful he wouldn’t rule out using other apps in the future ms sharpe’s ads were paid for out of her campaign funds while mr greenwich’s is courtesy of campaign group out for grindr is a smartphone app to facilitate casual sex for gay men  however, it was mr hibbins who was the original trailblazer ‘this election we're using grindr to reach voters in prahran,' mr hibbins wrote on his facebook page before the victorian state election last november 'we'll be using it to promote events, our support for equality and broader policies' mr hibbins believed that although he was the first to use the strategy in australia, the idea would take off as a popular campaign approach sam hibbins used grindr to send targeted messages to the homosexual community in his electorate in prahan ahead of last november's state election in victoria  dutch and irish politicians were the first to use grindr to connect with voters dutch politician jan bert vroege used the app to campaign in march last year he did not use pop up messages like mr hibbins however, rather transforming his own pre existing grindr account, changing his profile description to: ‘let’s have a date on march 19’ to promote a political event about gay issues last may, irish politician phil prendergast used grindr as part of her european parliament re election campaign but lost the seat dutch and irish politicians were the first to use grindr to connect with voters 
alex greenwich sharpe november sam hibbins victorian hibbins penny sharpe prahran greens greenwich labor grindr
penny sharpe and alex greenwich sent messages on the app to voters  labor's sharpe is using the app on a trial basis for this election  mr greenwich hopes the app can help reach out to the electorate  greens candidate sam hibbins successfully used the app in this way  mr hibbins won a seat in prahran in november’s victorian state election  grindr is a smartphone app to facilitate casual sex for gay men 