Daniela Luzi Tudor left Romania as a 5-year-old girl, shortly after the fall of communism. She and her family bounced from their home country to Germany, to Portugal and finally to Washington state in 1996 when Tudor was 11 years old.
Her father's dream was to get her to the U.S., a country he saw as "the land of opportunity."
"Growing up in communism in theory sounds awesome, but practice it is not," said Tudor, who is now a Seattle tech entrepreneur. "Politics have been intertwined in my life since I was born."
Tudor, who got a green card and later became a citizen, sees voting as a privilege. Inspired by the stories her father told her of British business magnate Richard Branson, she became a technology entrepreneur, and now owns an app that helps people recovering from substance abuse.
She pushes hard for candidates who commit to destigmatize and decriminalize substance abuse. Tudor went through treatment for cocaine and alcohol addiction and wants to make sure others have access to treatment.
She usually votes Republican, but this year she supports Hillary Clinton. Clinton has said she will work to end treating drug abuse as a crime.
Tudor is not crazy about either choice for president, she said, echoing the thinking of many tech workers interviewed in King County, Wash.
Technology's explosion across the Puget Sound region has brought in thousands of software developers and entrepreneurs. One study says there are more than 260,000 tech workers in the state.
But it's unclear how they will affect the November elections, or whether many might vote at all.
It's a largely male, largely white and often affluent group. Software developers in Seattle make a median salary of $113,242 a year, according to Glassdoor, an employment and recruiting website.
The tech industry is known for its progressive social views and sometimes libertarian leanings. Several leaders, including the heads of Apple and Yelp, came together last year to criticize an Indiana law that many felt would allow businesses to discriminate against gay couples, for example.
Many company executives, concerned about the economics of their businesses, support Republican candidates. In this year's presidential election, though, interviews of local tech workers found very few publicly supporting Donald Trump.
Politics don't generally come up much at Microsoft, said Ron Critchfield, a program manager. This year is different.
"What surprises me is just how openly derogatory people are toward Trump," he said. "That's something I don't think I've actually ever seen in an election season before."
The inherent grayness of politics often doesn't mesh with the data-driven way of thinking that comes with tech work.
Some techies are uncomfortable with anything that is not an absolute, said Henry Rose, an engineering manager at Seattle home-improvement startup Porch.com. Software engineers like to approach problems with an understanding of what will happen: If the input is x, the output will be y.
"When we're not talking in absolute terms, it's wildly frustrating," he said. "And then to have a politician who is talking in lots of generalities, it's super frustrating."
Heather Redman has encountered this type of thinking as she tries to raise money for candidates. Redman, chief legal counsel at startup Indix, works with Democratic candidates and has been involved in efforts to encourage techies in King County to vote.
"They want to make sure they're doing more good than harm," Redman said. "They don't just want to blindly vote for all the Democrats or all the women."
Corey Cook, now the dean of the School of Public Service at Boise State University, spent 10 years studying voter habits in San Francisco, particularly those of tech transplants to the city.
"We saw very, very little engagement in local politics," he said. "Very little upticks in voter registration."
This could be the year to change that, he said, as 2016 brings the first presidential election without an incumbent since the height of the most recent tech boom.
Startup founder Diego Oppenheimer, who runs Algorithmia in Seattle, is joining a push started in Silicon Valley that encourages employees to vote by giving them Election Day off. More than 315 companies have signed up.
Oppenheimer doesn't care which candidate his employees support. He just wants them to take some time thinking about their votes.. It's partly symbolic in Washington, given the state votes by mail, but he's hoping the meaning sinks in.
Oppenheimer grew up in Uruguay, where voting is mandated by law, and cities shut down on election days.
"The theory is, "How can it be a democracy if not 100 percent of people voted?'" he said. "I grew up with that mentality."
Reetu Gupta doesn't believe Donald Trump would make policies that advance gender equality. Gupta is trying to teach her daughters that they can do anything, be anything, and she wants to see policies that advance women in technical fields.
As a small-business owner, she also is concerned that Trump would stifle the growth of tech companies. Software doesn't see borders, she said. Tech companies need to be able to expand seamlessly into countries around the world.
"We need to have geographic boundaries that are more fluid," she said.
Trump has said he would close U.S. borders and consider renegotiating trade deals, including the North American Free Trade Agreement. Some view the comments as anti-immigrant, a hot topic in the high-tech community, where many hires come from other countries.
Gupta is founder of Redmond-based Cirkled in, an education tech startup that she plans to take global. An immigrant from India, she emphasized the importance of hiring employees from other countries to understand local mindset while expanding globally.
Gupta appreciates that Clinton is a feminist, and that her presence in the White House would show her daughters what they can achieve.
Gilad Berenstein, founder of travel startup Utrip, once said he didn't think a Trump presidency would be as bad as some of the horror stories, though he never supported the Republican candidate. But after Trump's comments about the voting system being rigged, Berenstein is against him.
"I would never bet the future of the country on him," he said.
Jeff Fatora said he can't support either candidate.
The retired Navy officer and solutions manager at Porch.com worked as an aide for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, for three years.
But Fatora says he won't vote for president this year, only the second time he has abstained.
He will vote for other issues and candidates on the ballot, he said, but he just can't stomach a vote for Clinton or Trump. Clinton is in Wall Street's pocket, he said, and Trump is dangerous. Fatora supported U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran against Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
"Your average tech worker is smart," he said. "And if you look at the choices they're being presented with, there's not a lot of intellectual, thoughtful, ethical candidates."
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(Matt Day, Gene Balk and Justin Mayo and Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.)
