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Data4Democracy
Nationwide Polling Place App?
I find it hard to believe that this doesn't exist or that someone isn't feverishly working on it right now, but my searching has turned up nothing at the moment. Happy to take pointers to anything I've missed, but I'm specifically not looking for voter registration or education functionality. I just want to help get people to the polls.
The problem: one huge barrier to getting young people to vote is that it's not top of mind, and IF they do remember they want to vote on election day they don't know where to go. Making that information easily available in a way they're used to getting it could have significant effects on voter turnout.
THE PROPOSITION: a simple smartphone app that tells the user where their voting place is based on their supplied address, and gives you an alert on election day (and/or the day before) to vote. One interface for anywhere in the country, so the trick is scraping/linking all the various state elections websites for the official information.
I emphasize that the interface should be simple, both for usability and for speed in development. Adding other functions like candidate or issue look-ups/information is nice but I want to focus on solving one big problem and then fit others in later if it's possible.
I have expertise in scraping data in Python and some familiarity with Java but haven't ever developed an App myself, so would be looking to partner with anyone who does have App development expertise. Thoughts?
Seriously its embarrassing. Check out the Android app store for "polling place" and there's apps for Pakistan, Liberia, and Nigeria front and center. Come on, America.
https://www.votinginfoproject.org/about Google and other websites use the data provided by VIP to help people find their polling places based on their address. The other relevant project here is the Ballot Information Project.
Fantastic! Thanks.
On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 1:20 AM John Min [email protected] wrote:
https://www.votinginfoproject.org/about Google and other websites use the data provided by VIP to help people find their polling places based on their address. The other relevant project here is the Ballot Information Project.
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