Democratizing Democracy - Carpool Vote

Fighting back against voter suppression in the US with Open-source tech

Transcript

1. Carpool Vote Fighting back against voter suppression
2. Carpool Vote • Voter outreach - economic, social and racial justice • Tech activism & open-source tech • Non-partisan
3. Why build CarpoolVote?
4. Change to Voting Rights Act • 2006 - Congress re-authorizes the law – Few dissenters in the House, none in the Senate • 2013 - Supreme Court ruling – section 5 – Justice Ginsburg • “The court errs egregiously by overriding Congress’s decision.” • "subtle methods" have emerged to diminish minority turnout • like closing your umbrella during a storm because you’re not wet
5. Impact of Changes • Sherrilyn Ifill -president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund – in jurisdictions once covered by Act, 868 polling places closed – in Alabama, many people have to travel up to 25 miles to vote • Shorter periods for early voting • Voter ID laws – hard-to-reach locations to obtain Photo ID
6. What is CarpoolVote? • A web application that: – enables drivers to offer anyone a ride to be able to vote – needs no tech skills to use - anyone can volunteer a ride – those needing a ride don’t need a PC or computer – provides a visual guide to where rides are needed and on offer
7. Track record of CarpoolVote • Several thousand volunteer drivers - November 2016 • Part of ad campaigns to encourage voting, June & November 2017 – especially in Virginia, including the Danica Roem district • contests where fighting voter suppression has a big impact • Getting ready for May 2018
8. Demo
9. Our practices and lessons learnt • Build your project in the way you want • Our experience may be relevant
10. Open-source • We encourage a wide range of contributors – clear and helpful contribution guidelines – support and engagement of new contributors – code of conduct • Friendly Slack channel • Specific GitHub issues for first-time contributors – an ongoing process
11. A founder with clear goals • Wide range of contributors • Equal enthusiasm • Different – skill-sets – amounts of time – reasons for helping
12. Clear visual design • We had this very early – Design had been used for proof of concept • Developers can start to build at once – Removes need for long discussions • Great for showing what the product will do
13. Benefits of automated tests • Up to November 2016, mostly manual testing – with a system undergoing a lot of change, this is hard work • Building tests is hard – no spare time until the first version was built • Now just a few clicks to confirm the code works – significant benefits (green badge - https://travis-ci.org/voteamerica/backend)
14. Increasing public awareness • Reach out to supportive media channels • People tweet the maps – great to have some clear, visual, element
15. Election night • Phone team • Tech team
16. Open-source – a team over time • People want to help and do, but... – Some other commitment pays the bills – Spare-time varies over time • Visibility of the need changes – A huge % of the world’s population aware about 2016’s election – Mid-term elections aren’t so visible
17. Open-source – a team over time • Visibility impacts co-ordination – Those who already assist with elections know the dates – International volunteers don’t – US volunteers may not be aware of things to assist • Visibility impacts the team’s bonding and coherence – In tough times, people band together – If the need isn’t so obvious, people naturally drift away
18. Support from ProgCode • 2017 – support from ProgCode • Chat about Docker for tests • Slack is a focal point for interested people
19. Where next? • Reach out to organisations – Reduces need for adverts and phone support • Maintain and enhance app – easier to use self-service portal – more automated support for phone team • Maintain and build the team – Always great to have more resources