Grassroots technology is fighting voter suppression and election hacking in North Carolina

[Insightus]

Hey DUers,

A new initiative here in the Tar Heel State (and soon beyond) could use your help getting the word out.

NC-GoVote is a non-profit collaboration of professional data scientists and software engineers volunteering to develop new technology to fight the types of voter suppression - such as poll book purges and voter caging - that denied 1 out of every 80 NC voters the right to vote a regular ballot in 2016.

This new service, called Reg Watch, is non-commercial, non-profit, nonpartisan, and private. It works a lot like the credit report monitoring services you may already be familiar with, except that what it monitors for problems is your voter registration record. If a user who is enrolled in Reg Watch is purged from the poll book, Reg Watch alerts her in time for her to take action before election day. As a side benefit, it can also alert her if hackers alter or delete her voter registration record.

A non-technical introduction to Reg Watch recently appeared at Daily Kos:
In NC, election hacking, voter caging and poll book purges meet new grassroots technology resistance

A slightly more technical introduction is at Medium:
#TechForGood: Building an App for Voter Self-Defense

If you're a North Carolina voter, we invite you to sign up for Reg Watch. If you love a North Carolina voter, we ask you to pass the word along. And before you ask...yes, we intend to see this spread beyond NC, too, if it proves popular here first.

(Edit) PS: Even if you're not a North Carolinian and don't know any, you'll find some really interesting data visualizations in our Data section - a chronicle of the ongoing fight for voting rights in this critical battleground state.

Thanks!

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. Emphatic K&R! The Demormocratic Party should sponsor this nationally. n/t

[Insightus]

2. Thanks! We're finding that...

...for a lot of people, this technology is a forehead-slapper (as in "DUH! Of course!&quot . The response has been very encouraging in this, our first week of operation.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. It's a great idea.

And, less I forget, I just noticed your post count - Welcome to DU. When you say, "we're finding that...,", who is the we you are referring to? Understanding the service you describe is important, but so is understanding the effort to organize to get it into use. It seems like something that should be replicated in every state!

[Insightus]

4. Our credits are on the home page (https://ncgovote.org)

"We" are an all-volunteer team consisting of professional data scientists from the 'data-driven activism' progressive non-profit, Insightus, and professional software engineers from another progressive non-profit, Ragtag.

[Insightus]

5. I should add that

we're now beginning to work with a number of established voting rights organizations and Indivisible-type groups here in NC to help them incorporate Reg Watch sign-ups into their voter-facing field work such as voter registration drives and door-to-door canvassing. We'll be announcing some partnerships along those lines soon on our Twitter account (@NC_GoVote).