Inspiration
Millions of Americans lack a Voter ID which is required in order to vote. The rules change by state and are often confusing. VoteRiders (www.voteriders.org) is a non-profit that offers information on how to obtain a Voter ID through their website and hotline. Many potential voters do not have internet access, prefer to obtain information by asking questions and getting verbal answers.DemLabs (www.thedemlabs.org) has developed an Alexa skill for VoteRiders (pro bono) so that they can help more Americans vote.
What it does
Users can ask Alexa what the requirements are for them to get a Voter ID. Alexa asks them what state they live in and then searches a database (with information from VoteRiders) for the required information and then reads it out. It also sends out an SMS to the user with a URL from where they can obtain more details.
How I built it
We first stored Voter ID requirements by state into the Dynamo DB. We then built the Alexa skill to interact with users, obtain the state they live in, retrieve the info and verbalize it to them. Next it asks them for their phone number and we used Twilio to send out the SMS to them. A Lambda script is used to also store these phone numbers in Dynamo DB as well
Challenges I ran into
There were a few user interface issues we had to deal with. We needed to give more time to users to say their phone number. We added more error handling scripts in case the users didn't respond with the correct input.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We were able to get this skill build this Alexa skill in four days!
What I learned
People are being held back in many ways by not having access to information that would let them get ahead. Just putting the information on a website isn't enough. The combination of an intelligent device (Alexa) and an interactive way to communicate at scale (Twilio) can help millions of people.
What's next for GO VOTE
Getting a Voter ID is just one part of the challenges involved with voting. We plan to add more information from other partners such as (1) how to register to vote (2) how to check to see that you have not been purged from the voter rolls (3) finding your nearest polling location (4) arranging for a ride to the polling center.
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