https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/ Innovating in the Public Sector Tue, 03 Jan 2023 23:42:12 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/aws-announces-low-no-cost-security-services-federal-political-campaigns-committees/ Thu, 22 Sep 2022 14:46:26 +0000 6d24abf723060e379f53a20bd7f33e9d840dcc7c It is essential for election campaigns and committees to have access to the latest security services so they can mitigate risks against security threats at minimal cost. To support this, AWS is collaborating with Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC) to offer more than 20 cybersecurity-related AWS services for low-to-no cost to all active and registered national party committees and federal candidate committees for the US House and US Senate midterm elections that are eligible in accordance with DDC and Federal Election Commission (FEC) criteria. <p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17069" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/09/21/election-campaign-committee-low-no-cost-aws-security-services-1200x600-1.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="600"></p> <p>It is essential for election campaigns and committees to have access to the latest security services so they can mitigate risks against security threats at minimal cost. Access to security tools and resources that protect information, identities, applications, and devices is essential to the integrity of the election process. To support this, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is collaborating with <a href="https://defendcampaigns.org/">Defending Digital Campaigns</a> (DDC) to offer more than 20 cybersecurity-related AWS services for low-to-no cost to all active and registered national party committees and federal candidate committees for the US House and US Senate midterm elections that are eligible in accordance with DDC and Federal Election Commission (FEC) criteria.</p> <p>Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and non-aligned organization that provides election campaigns access to cybersecurity products, services, and information, regardless of party affiliation. DDC works with technology companies to make their services available directly to eligible committees at low-to-no cost, as well as education and information sharing for campaign professionals. The FEC granted special permission for DDC to operate under this model, providing all eligible party and candidate committees—regardless of party—with the support they need within the limits of campaign finance law.</p> <p>As part of this collaboration, AWS is offering an extensive suite of cybersecurity and cybersecurity-related services as a part of this program: <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/audit-manager/">AWS Audit Manager</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/certificate-manager/">AWS Certificate Manager</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/cloudtrail/">AWS CloudTrail</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/">Amazon CloudWatch Logs</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/cognito/">Amazon Cognito</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/config/">AWS Config</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/controltower/">AWS Control Tower</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/detective/">Amazon Detective</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/firewall-manager/">AWS Firewall Manager</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/guardduty/">Amazon GuardDuty,</a> <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/inspector/">Amazon Inspector</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/kms/">AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/macie/">Amazon Macie</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/network-firewall/">AWS Network Firewall</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ram/">AWS Resource Access Manager</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/secrets-manager/">AWS Secrets Manager</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/security-hub/">AWS Security Hub</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/iam/identity-center/">AWS IAM Identity Center</a> (successor to AWS Single Sign-On), <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/shield/">AWS Shield Advanced</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/waf/">AWS WAF</a>, and <a href="https://wickr.com/">AWS Wickr</a>.</p> <h3><strong>Learn more about how these AWS services can support election campaign cybersecurity </strong></h3> <p>This offering enables eligible campaigns and party committees to build a wide range of security capabilities. For example, campaigns can detect and mitigate distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks with AWS Shield Advanced. They can use machine learning (ML) and pattern matching to discover and protect their sensitive data with Amazon Macie. Campaigns can continuously monitor their AWS accounts, instances, container workloads, users, and storage for potential threats, and then expose those potential threats and mitigate them with Amazon GuardDuty. And this is just a small sample of what is possible with the AWS services contained in this offering.</p> <p>“AWS’s offering as a part of DDC will be critical to our mission to secure our democratic campaign process by providing eligible campaigns and political parties, committees, and related organizations with knowledge, training, and resources to defend themselves from cyber threats,” said Michael Kaiser, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of DDC.</p> <p>Many previous campaigns and party committees have used AWS, such as <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-in-action-behind-the-scenes-of-a-presidential-campaign/">Obama for America in 2012</a>, the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/democratic-national-committee/">Democratic National Committee</a>, and the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-the-cloud-modernizes-and-simplifies-elections/">Republican National Committee</a>.</p> <p>If your campaign or committee is interested in utilizing this program, <a href="https://pages.awscloud.com/aws-federal-political-campaigns.html">click here to enroll your campaign in AWS security services for federal political campaigns</a>. If you have any questions regarding this program, reach out to your account team for more information, or <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/contact/?trkCampaign=ps&amp;trk=ps_blog_body">send an inquiry to the AWS Public Sector Team</a>.</p> <h3>Read related stories on the AWS Public Sector Blog:</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-aws-supports-10th-anniversary-national-voter-registration-day-digital-tools-civic-engagement/">How AWS supports the 10th anniversary of National Voter Registration Day with digital tools for civic engagement</a></li> <li><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-cloud-enables-transformational-citizen-experiences/">How the cloud enables transformational citizen experiences</a></li> <li><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/ordering-free-covid-19-test-kits-with-the-help-of-the-cloud/">Ordering free COVID-19 test kits with the help of the cloud</a></li> <li><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-public-sector-agencies-identify-improper-payments-machine-learning/">How public sector agencies can identify improper payments with machine learning</a></li> <li><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/elections-sustainable-trucking-fix-this-podcast-march/">Elections and sustainable trucking: The Fix This podcast March round up</a></li> </ul> <hr> <p><a href="https://pages.awscloud.com/aws-public-sector-blog-newsletter.html?trk=ta_a134p000006vtafAAA&amp;trkCampaign=AWS_Public_Sector_Blog_Newsletter_Opt-In&amp;sc_channel=ta&amp;sc_campaign=Blog-opt-in-internal-newsletter&amp;sc_outcome=WWPS" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Subscribe to the AWS Public Sector Blog newsletter</em></a><em> to get the latest in AWS tools, solutions, and innovations from the public sector delivered to your inbox, or </em><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/contact/?trkCampaign=ps&amp;trk=ps_blog_body" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>contact us</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p><em><a href="https://amazonmr.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_erMC5rmaj1pKfgG" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Please take a few minutes to share insights regarding your experience with the AWS Public Sector Blog in this survey</a>, and we’ll use feedback from the survey to create more content aligned with the preferences of our readers.</em></p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/simplifying-voter-registration-building-confidence-with-the-cloud/ Mon, 27 Sep 2021 11:24:44 +0000 be550026519d36f3fb9bdd62a139a0d111c3e939 National Voter Registration Day is a nonpartisan civic holiday in the US creating broad awareness of voter registration opportunities and celebrating democracy. The goal of National Voter Registration Day is to register one million new voters by 2022. To reach this goal, state and local governments and nonprofit civic organizations use digital platforms powered by AWS to modernize and simplify voter registration. <p><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-12759 aligncenter" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2021/09/23/national-voter-registration-day-1200x600-1.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="600"></p> <p><a href="https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/">National Voter Registration Day</a>, celebrated on the fourth Tuesday of September, is a nonpartisan civic holiday in the US creating broad awareness of voter registration opportunities and celebrating democracy. First celebrated in 2012, the holiday has been endorsed by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC), and the National Association of Election Officials (The Election Center).</p> <p>The goal of National Voter Registration Day is to register one million new voters by 2022, reaching a total of 5.5 million new voters that have registered on the holiday across all 50 states and the District of Columbia since 2012. To reach this goal, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/elections/">state and local governments</a> and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/nonprofits/">nonprofit</a> civic organizations use digital platforms powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to modernize and simplify voter registration.</p> <h3><strong>National Voter Registration Day encourages all eligible voters to prepare for their civic duty<br> </strong></h3> <p>National Voter Registration Day seeks to elevate reliable and trusted sources of information on voting, such as the collaboration between state and local election officials and government technology organizations to drive voter registration and build trust. In the US, voting-eligible citizens may lack information regarding voter registration and how to participate in state and local elections. Voters need to register or update their registration due to change of address, name change, or when they become eligible to vote upon turning 18 or becoming a US citizen.</p> <p>In Vermont, Secretary of State Jim Condos noted that National Voter Registration Day is a day to remind and encourage eligible Americans across the country to register to vote and to prepare to participate in the democratic process. Vermont offers online, automatic, and same day voter registration to help increase accuracy, access, and operational efficiencies.</p> <p><a href="https://sos.vermont.gov/secretary-s-desk/commentary/vermont-secretary-of-state-jim-condos-issues-statement-on-national-voter-registration-day/">Secretary Condos said</a>, “Automatic voter registration through our partnership with the Department of Motor Vehicles has helped make sure that the vast majority of eligible Vermonters are registered to vote, while improving the quality and accuracy of our voter checklist. Our easy online voter registration is accessible and secure. Same day voter registration, where a voter can register any day leading up to, and on, Election Day, helps make sure that no eligible voter will be denied their right to vote.”</p> <p>Vermont relies on a technology solution from AWS Technology Partner <a href="https://gocivix.com/election-management/voter-registration/">Civix</a>, which leverages AWS to securely simplify and modernize voter registration processes. Civix voter registration tools manage every facet of voter registration, and has been used to <a href="https://gocivix.com/election-management/voter-registration/">register over 25% of all US voters</a>.</p> <p>According to Will Senning, director of elections and campaign finance in the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office, conducting an election in 2020 “was orders of magnitude more difficult than previous years and the professional challenge of a lifetime.” To streamline and modernize administrative processes, Vermont used the Civix Election Platform, which includes modules such as voter registration; a centralized voter registration repository that registers and stores statewide voter information; and My Voter Portal, a public access portal for voter registration information.</p> <p>With Civix, voters’ records automatically follow them as they move, and voters’ addresses are standardized with the United States Post Office and assigned to districts and precincts with geographic information system (GIS) mapping. In addition, signature matching and real-time analytics make sure election data is more accurate and accessible. For the 2020 election season, Civix moved all its elections management systems into <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/?whats-new-ess.sort-by=item.additionalFields.postDateTime&amp;whats-new-ess.sort-order=desc">AWS GovCloud</a> (US). AWS GovCloud (US) Regions are designed to host sensitive data, regulated workloads, and address the most stringent US government security and compliance requirements. Powered by AWS, 45 million US voters registered through Civix technology in 2020.</p> <h3><strong>AWS powers tools to get citizens #VoteReady in local, state, and federal elections</strong></h3> <p>Thousands of local elections are taking place across the US in 2021. There are more than 9,000 election jurisdictions in the US and local elections determine a variety of important policy matters, including education, tax, justice, and public safety. National Voter Registration Day seeks to raise awareness of state-specific voter registration deadlines and policies, and educate voters on election information. Beyond the first step of voter registration, this includes knowing polling place locations, different options for casting a ballot, what, if any, identification &nbsp;is required, and the candidates and issues on the ballot.</p> <p><a href="https://turbovote.org/"><strong>TurboVote</strong></a><strong>,</strong> the flagship tool from <a href="https://www.democracy.works/">Democracy Works</a>, provides the public with information they need to register and vote with confidence in every election, all in one place. Historically, TurboVote sent a series of standard notifications to voters who had upcoming election dates and deadlines, providing them with the information they needed to participate. But in 2020, as the pandemic began to shift these dates and deadlines, Democracy Works knew they would need to deploy rapid response notifications. TurboVote is able to keep users up to date with accurate and timely information—from verifying the election dates, to encouraging voters to look up and confirm their polling place before heading out to vote, to providing information about voting procedures. When the trend of last minute changes continued throughout the 2020 election cycle, TurboVote continued to walk users through each step of their voting journeys. Overall participation reached historic levels, and in 2020, Democracy Works’ direct support to voters included 68.3 million notifications sent to voters, 15.4 million voters given the ability to track their mail ballot, and 3.6 million voters received voter registration assistance.</p> <p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/">Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2</a>) and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/">Amazon DynamoDB</a> allows TurboVote to scale on demand, making it possible for TurboVote to handle tens of thousands of concurrent users on its busiest days leading up to general elections without having to pay for dedicated infrastructure year round.</p> <p>In 2020, Democracy Works co-founded Civic Alliance, a nonpartisan group of businesses working together to build a future where everyone participates in shaping our country. Civic Alliance’s more than 1,200 member companies help increase civic participation among their teams and audiences, ultimately strengthening trust in our democracy.</p> <p>Join in the national civic holiday on September 28, celebrate #NationalVoterRegistrationDay, and help your communities become #VoteReady.</p> <p><a href="https://amazon.turbovote.org/">Register to vote or check your registration today</a>. And read more stories of other <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-nonprofit-civic-organizations-use-cloud-registration-demand-modernize-voter-education/">government and nonprofit civic organizations that use AWS to support voter registration and education</a>.</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/lectures-polls-aws-fix-this-podcast-september-round-up/ Fri, 25 Sep 2020 16:33:17 +0000 2d85265d31414d3ba56f7d3a647fecb0b5082bcb This month, many students are heading back to school. And in the US, citizens are starting to head to the polls for a presidential election year. Catch up on what we covered in September on the AWS Fix This podcast. <p>This month, many students are heading back to school. And in the United States (US), citizens are starting to head to the polls for a presidential election year. Catch up on what we covered in September on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) <a href="http://www.aws.amazon.com/fix-this-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fix This podcast</a>.</p> <h3>Back to school: Higher education institutions digitally transform</h3> <p>Campus this year may look a little different for students—many will be learning from their homes and tuning into lectures entirely remotely for the first time. Colleges and universities around the globe are using the cloud to digitally transform and meet the needs of students. We set out to learn more from Notre Dame University in the US and the University of East London (UEL) in the United Kingdom. From Notre Dame, Professors Sharif Nijim and Chris Frederick shared the lessons they’ve learned about engaging students in a remote setting, creating and fostering community among students, and meeting the unique needs of their classes. From UEL, vice chancellor and president Dr. Amanda Broderick shared how the university is offering synchronous blended learning to improve student and professor interactions—no matter where students may be physically.</p> <p>To learn more about how the AWS Cloud is powering this shift in higher education, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4r3khHQL2ugxZc3ciIDSdB?si=lb3wU0-ATlWJePrL6rEj-g" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">listen to our back-to-school episode</a>.</p> <h3>Get out the vote: National voter registration day</h3> <p><a href="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/09/25/iCivics-pull-quote.png"><img loading="lazy" class="alignright wp-image-8409 size-medium" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/09/25/iCivics-pull-quote-300x225.png" alt="iCivics pull quote" width="300" height="225"></a>How can nonprofit civic organization help get out the vote leading up to the 2020 presidential election in the US? The answer may lie in education, data, and concerts! To foster civic engagement in K12 students, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded iCivics in 2009 with a <a href="https://www.icivics.org/our-story" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mission to reimagine civic education</a>. Today, over six million students across all 50 states and nearly 200,000 teachers rely on iCivics for nonpartisan, engaging civic education. To learn more about their gamified learning approach, the team sat down with Dr. Emma Humphries, chief education officer at iCivics.</p> <p>The episode ends with an interview with Emily White, founder of #iVoted Concerts, a nonprofit with a mission to increase voter turnout. This year, the concerts will be delivered digitally with hundreds of musical artists lined up. To attend the virtual concert series, people must RSVP with a photo of themselves and a blank mail-in ballot or a selfie at their local polling station. #iVoted uses a data-driven approach when creating the festival’s line up, and the cloud will power the festival on election night.</p> <p>This month, in celebration of <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-nonprofit-civic-organizations-use-cloud-registration-demand-modernize-voter-education/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Voter Registration Day</a>, remember to check your registration, update it if necessary, and make a plan to cast your ballot. <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/27njDw58dbraazc2b17AEV?si=k6m-GaO1RBSJXZuqx3m_Mw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Listen to the Fix This podcast episode #23 – “National Voter Registration Day.”</a></p> <hr> <p>Check out more <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/tag/fix-this-podcast/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fix This blog posts</a>. All episodes are available for streaming and download on&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fix-this/id1487464052" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple Podcasts</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Ie2tm6oy6yijpj7h33nacry4kea" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Google Play</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1D6sdm4blr3StimZ5STQ8s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Spotify</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/fix-this" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Stitcher</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/Technology-Podcasts/Fix-This-p1272079/?topicId=134942291" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TuneIn</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://overcast.fm/itunes1487464052/fix-this" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Overcast</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-fix-this-53148187/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">iHeartRadio</a>, and via&nbsp;<a href="https://d3gih7jbfe3jlq.cloudfront.net/aws-podcast.rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">RSS</a>.</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-nonprofit-civic-organizations-use-cloud-registration-demand-modernize-voter-education/ Tue, 22 Sep 2020 14:16:09 +0000 8b8f7e531194e8ec03a849d56cc10a3bbaec7a0e Tuesday, September 22, 2020 is National Voter Registration Day, a nonpartisan civic holiday in the United States celebrating democracy with a mission to create broad awareness of registration opportunities for voters. Learn how nonprofit civic organizations use the cloud to meet their mission in a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way on National Voter Registration Day and throughout the election cycle. <p><a href="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/09/22/Voter-registration.jpg"><img loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-8371 aligncenter" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/09/22/Voter-registration-1024x512.jpg" alt="Voter registration" width="1024" height="512"></a></p> <p>Tuesday, September 22, 2020 is <a href="https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Voter Registration Day</a>, a nonpartisan civic holiday in the United States celebrating democracy with a mission to create broad awareness of registration opportunities for voters. On National Voter Registration Day and throughout the election cycle, nonprofit civic organizations use the cloud to meet their mission in a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way.</p> <p>With the support of election administrators, civic organizations encourage voters to verify their registration, register to vote, learn about early voting, find their polling place, request ballots, sign-up for election reminders, and gather other important election information.</p> <p>Learn how <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/nonprofits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">nonprofit</a> civic organizations use digital platforms, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), to register voters online, mobilize volunteers, and educate citizens.</p> <h3>Registering, educating, and engaging voters</h3> <p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/modernize-voting-and-increase-turnout-with-the-cloud/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><strong>Democracy Works (DW)</strong></a> is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. They set out to build the necessary tools to upgrade election infrastructure, and improve the voting experience for voters and election officials. <a href="http://turbovote.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TurboVote</a>—DWs’ flagship tool—helps voters register, stay registered, and cast a ballot in every election, from municipal to national.</p> <p>While it took DW five years to reach its first million users on TurboVote, they served a record five million new users in 2018 alone, scaling with the use of AWS. In the lead-up to federal elections, TurboVote is prepared to receive millions of visitors in a single week. <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)</a> and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon DynamoDB</a> allow them to scale on demand, making it possible for TurboVote to handle tens of thousands of concurrent users on its busiest days without having to pay for dedicated infrastructure year round.</p> <p>Through the <a href="https://www.civicalliance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Civic Alliance</a>, a nonpartisan coalition co-founded by DW, DW is helping <a href="https://www.civicalliance.com/service" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">identify 250,000 new poll workers</a> to support safe and secure elections this November. Looking ahead, DW plans to expand the reach of their tools, as more voters look to cast their ballots by mail. By working with election officials across the country to set up mail tracking through the use of Intelligent Mail barcodes, DW’s <a href="https://www.democracy.works/ballot-scout" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ballot Scout</a> allows both administrators and voters to track every ballot like an Amazon package. States like <a href="https://charlottesville.org/924/Ballot-Scout---Mail-Ballot-Tracking" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Virginia</a> have partnered with Ballot Scout to increase voter confidence in voting by mail.</p> <p><a href="https://www.rockthevote.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><strong>Rock the Vote</strong></a>, one of the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations in the U.S. that drives the youth vote to the polls, hosts their registration platform and services on the AWS Cloud. Rock the Vote’s voter registration platform is a free, open source solution that makes voter registration easier for voters and partner organizations across the country. Moving Rock the Vote’s platform to the AWS Cloud allowed for increased scalability for an increasingly mobile society, with the same robust service and approach to security AWS delivers worldwide.</p> <p>“Cloud technology combined with open data, open standards, and open source development can be a game-changer in election administration,” said Teresa Carlson, vice president, public sector at Amazon Web Services (AWS). “Leveraging the AWS Cloud’s highly scalable and secure infrastructure will help enable Rock the Vote to raise the bar on innovative voter registration services.”</p> <p>Nonprofits <strong><a href="https://www.usvotefoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">U.S. Vote Foundation (US Vote)</a></strong> helps American citizens register to vote and sign up for absentee ballots wherever they are—at home or abroad. Founded as <strong><a href="https://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Overseas Vote</a></strong> in 2005, the foundation developed and launched the U.S.’s first comprehensive online voter services site, offering registration, ballot request, and information for voters outside the U.S. This includes military personnel, overseas government employees, and U.S. citizens living abroad.</p> <p>U.S. Vote offers registration, state-specific absentee ballot request, and a full-range of information services. The AWS Cloud provides the flexibility, scalability, and reliability that US Vote requires.</p> <p>“We can scale up and down in terms of capacity very quickly,” said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, U.S. Vote president and chief operating officer. “In voting, there are huge fluctuations in traffic: it starts to build up in the summer, hits big in the fall, and then it drops off a cliff after Election Day. It’s a unique dynamic in terms of user demand and costs.”</p> <p>AWS enables U.S. Vote to manage their costs better by scaling instances up and down as needed. The team is using&nbsp;<a href="https://aws.amazon.com/rds/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Relational Database Service&nbsp;(Amazon RDS)</a> in multiple Availability Zones to increase reliability. They also use <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Elastic Load Balancing</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Simple Email Service&nbsp;(Amazon SES)</a>.</p> <p>Since 1920, the <strong><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/league-of-women-voters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">League of Women Voters (LWV)</a></strong> has sought to improve U.S. systems of government and impact public policies through education and advocacy. The LWV Education Fund (LWVEF) runs the website <a href="http://www.vote411.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VOTE411.org</a>, which provides nonpartisan election information to the public. As a website devoted to elections, VOTE411.org experiences surges in volume over the period leading up to Election Day during federal election years.</p> <p>“The choice to move to the cloud was clear,” said Jeanette Senecal, senior director, LWVEF. “AWS was exactly what we needed: a hosting solution that scaled seamlessly.”</p> <p>Elizabeth Leslie, communication manager for League of Women Voters of California adds, “We are grateful to AWS for keeping our sites running and helping us serve millions of voters in California and across our nation. As a small nonprofit organization, AWS helps us continue to provide safe service to all our websites and continues to safely serve the many voters who will be looking to us for help during the 2020 election season. This work encourages civic participation and makes our democracy thrive.”</p> <p><strong><a href="https://www.vote.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vote.org</a> </strong>is one of the most used nonpartisan voter registration and get out the vote (GOTV) technology platforms in America. Vote.org has registered more than 4.5 million voters, verified 10.3 million voters’ registration statuses, and helped more than 39 million website users by providing registration links and deadlines, polling location details, and other essential voting information for each state. In 2020, Vote.org is on track to serve 12 times the number of people it served in 2018. The organization plans to turn out more than five million low-propensity voters in November’s presidential election. Vote.org has been hosting on AWS since its inception in 2015. Even before its launch, Vote.org used AWS technology and people to help build its initial scale and security. Since launch, Vote.org has worked hard to follow the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/?wa-lens-whitepapers.sort-by=item.additionalFields.sortDate&amp;wa-lens-whitepapers.sort-order=desc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Well Architected Framework</a>, and expanded its use of AWS services to include <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/s3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon S3</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon CloudWatch</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/guardduty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon GuardDuty</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/sns/?whats-new-cards.sort-by=item.additionalFields.postDateTime&amp;whats-new-cards.sort-order=desc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Lambda</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS CloudFormation</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/cloudtrail/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS CloudTrail</a>, and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/shield/?whats-new-cards.sort-by=item.additionalFields.postDateTime&amp;whats-new-cards.sort-order=desc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Shield</a>.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://www.ballotready.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BallotReady</a></strong>&nbsp;provides a free and nonpartisan source for information on the entire ballot for every election. It’s powered by the most comprehensive database from every level of politics, utilizing the security and reliability of <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/rds/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon RDS</a>. The goal for 2020: help 50 million voters request a ballot, find a polling place, and vote informed downballot. Started in 2015, BallotReady has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and the University of Chicago. In 2018, BallotReady was live nationwide, covering 95,000 candidates with over 7.8 million visitors to their sites. BallotReady is built on AWS, from the serverless architecture of <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Lambda</a> to the ability to efficiently turn on Amazon RDS replicas at a moment’s notice.</p> <p>Alex Niemczewski, chief executive officer (CEO) of BallotReady said, “AWS has allowed us to scale for Election Day in ways that would otherwise be impossible. The breadth of AWS products focused on security, along with the account management team and countless resources help us retain the support and trust of our users that is crucial to building our platform and tools to inform and turnout voters.”</p> <p>Learn more about <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elections on AWS</a>. Discover <a href="https://access.awscloud.com/initiate-elearning-series/aws-for-elections-2?sc_channel=em&amp;sc_campaign=%7B%7Bprogram.name%7D%7D&amp;sc_medium=em_%7B%7Bcampaign.id%7D%7D&amp;sc_content=ACQ_la_wwps&amp;sc_detail=initiate_elearning_uf_july2020_internal&amp;sc_geo=namer&amp;sc_country=us&amp;sc_outcome=acq&amp;sc_publisher=other&amp;trkCampaign=7010z000001ll89&amp;trk=wwps_us_20_em_initiateelearning_internal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">how elections administrators, political campaigns, and civic organizations use AWS to improve the voter experience</a> with AWS elections lead Michael Jackson. And check out episode #23 of the Fix This podcast, “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/27njDw58dbraazc2b17AEV" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National voter registration day</a>.”</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/scaling-share-unprecedented-volume-election-donation-data-quickly-cost-effectively/ Wed, 22 Jul 2020 13:22:18 +0000 2cea71b9ab4a263ceeb86ce410d31b5e4cedc174 Campaign contributions have grown exponentially in the United States. In 1980, there were around 500,000 contributions made; in 2020 alone, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) expects 500 million contributions. Meanwhile, the evolution of technology has changed the way Americans contribute to political campaigns, making it easier to make many small contributions. To meet unprecedented demand for data transparency, the FEC turned to the cloud. <div id="attachment_7806" style="width: 1210px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"> <a href="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/07/21/flag-in-front-of-government-building.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-7806" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-7806" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/07/21/flag-in-front-of-government-building.jpg" alt="flag in front of government building" width="1200" height="600"></a> <p id="caption-attachment-7806" class="wp-caption-text"><em>Photo by Jonathan Simcoe on Unsplash</em></p> </div> <p>Campaign contributions have grown exponentially in the United States. In 1980, there were around 500,000 contributions made; in 2020 alone, the <a href="https://www.fec.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Federal Election Commission (FEC)</a> expects 500 million contributions. Meanwhile, the evolution of technology has changed the way Americans contribute to political campaigns, making it easier to make many small contributions. To meet unprecedented demand for data transparency, the FEC turned to the cloud.</p> <h3>Campaign finance transparency</h3> <p>The FEC aims to protect the integrity of campaign finance process, including for the president, House of Representatives, and Senate, by reviewing campaign contributions, enforcing our campaign finance laws, and reporting and sharing information with the public. This independent agency, created in 1974 as part of the Federal Election Campaign Act, enforces campaign finance law and enables disclosure of political campaign financial information. This work is important to protecting the integrity of the campaign finance system and national elections.</p> <h3>Scaling to meet unprecedented demand</h3> <p>The FEC has used Amazon Web Services (AWS) since 2014, when they migrated their mission-critical public facing website application. But since 2014, the FEC has seen huge growth in the volume of data submitted. In 2024, the FEC expects to review and process one billion individual campaign contributions. This increase in the volume of contributions and data has created some challenges for FEC.</p> <p>“Based on the website’s success, we wanted to look at [our] longer plan to migrate more enterprise applications to the cloud,” said Wei Luo, deputy chief information officer at the FEC. With the 2020 election on the horizon and the important role of FEC, they decided to turn to AWS. Their goal: to improve the website query performance, improve their data ingestion process, and make it easier to access and analyze data internally. What started as a website project in 2014 has now expanded into a digital transformation.</p> <p>“As much as we prepare, it’s hard to prepare for what we don’t know,” said Wei.</p> <p>AWS helped establish their <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/implementations/aws-landing-zone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Landing Zone</a> in the cloud and helped them build the cloud security operations. They are continuing to work through migration readiness planning activities to prepare them for a broader cloud migration. Even with the increase in processed transactions and the additional website capabilities enabled by the cloud, moving to AWS has saved FEC money, and most importantly, FEC can scale up the infrastructure to meet user demands quickly.</p> <h3>Managing multiple databases</h3> <p>With the data coming in from political campaigns, the FEC maintains three main databases: one primary database, one public-facing database, and one that does process receiving. This complicated system of databases requires data transfer every night. The public-facing database is available on the FEC website. Anyone can go to FEC.gov and view political contributions to any federal election—whether it’s your favorite celebrity, neighbor, or coworkers going all the way back to 1976.</p> <p>FEC moved their website database to <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Aurora</a>. The move saved 50 percent of the FEC’s database cost and improves performance time by 50 percent. They also are implementing Amazon Glue to reduce the extract, transfer, load (ETL) data ingestion process—from hours to minutes.</p> <p>AWS also provided a data lake architecture using cloud data warehouse <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjTkor-8KXqAhVRgnIEHQr3AaEQFjAAegQIBBAC&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Faws.amazon.com%2Fredshift%2F&amp;usg=AOvVaw3NyVTbmKWnW1inu_jcCTjE" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Redshift</a> and business intelligence tool <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/quicksight/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon QuickSight</a>, to allow data to be accessed internally.</p> <p>Said Wei, “When I start a project, I learn a new thing every day. AWS has guided me through the process—from executive sponsorship briefing to now. AWS has been a key part of application so they understand”</p> <h3>Realizing other benefits</h3> <p>While the main benefits of the move to the cloud were scalability and cost savings, Wei also credits the cloud with enabling innovation and experimentation due to its ease of access. “Innovation is not cheap, but the cloud makes it possible,” said Wei. “During these IT modernization engagements, one of my staff moved things into sandbox environment. It shows they are willing to try—and the cloud makes them not afraid to try new ideas.”</p> <p>Wei recommends that other independent agencies looking to move to the cloud focus on people. “Everything is about people. Get the right people, get the right executive sponsor—you need to get trust. After you make the business case, you need to have people willing to learn take on a challenge,” said Wei. “We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had great support from leadership and our executive sponsor. Internally, the FEC has a great team that shares the same passion about our mission and partnership with AWS, which is crucial for success.”</p> <h3>Independent agencies turn to the cloud</h3> <p>The AWS work with FEC is an example of how AWS helps independent agencies take advantage of the cloud and achieve their missions. Learn more about how AWS can help government agencies of all missions and sizes by reading about the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/federal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cloud for federal government</a>.</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/elections-voter-education-information-access-security-scalability-absentee-voting/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 18:14:23 +0000 e864ea31e2456ad2e43938bd932e9ad45c2b774d Even in uncertain times, election officials and political stakeholders are committed to serving a dynamic electorate in a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way. Cloud-based technologies from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the AWS Partner Network (APN) can help elections administrators, campaigns, and civic engagement organizations with access to information, security and scalability, and absentee voting workflow solutions. <p><a href="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/06/04/Voting.png"><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7243" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2020/06/04/Voting.png" alt="Voting booth" width="1024" height="512"></a></p> <p>Even in uncertain times, election officials and political stakeholders are committed to serving a dynamic electorate in a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way. Cloud-based technologies from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the AWS Partner Network (APN) can help elections administrators, campaigns, and civic engagement organizations with access to information, security and scalability, and absentee voting workflow solutions.</p> <h3>Voter education and access to information</h3> <p>Elections organizations need to quickly communicate updates to voters, including changes in voting dates, locations, or ways to vote, with intuitive omni-channel engagement and outreach efforts.</p> <p>AWS and its partners can help elections organizations:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Provide accessible and up-to-date election information</strong> to voters, through: <ul> <li><strong>An Alexa-enabled device and skill</strong>—including any smartphone with the Alexa app—to access state or county elections information. See how New Hampshire rolled out their <a href="https://meritalkslg.com/new-hampshire-revolutionizes-delivery-of-elections-information/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alexa skill</a> to prepare for their 100th first-in-the-nation primary and the upcoming general election in November. Similarly, check out how West Virginia’s Secretary of State modernized voter education and accessibility with their <a href="https://sos.wv.gov/news/Pages/04-09-2020-B.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">custom Alexa skill</a>.</li> <li><strong><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/creating-a-question-and-answer-bot-with-amazon-lex-and-amazon-alexa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A question and answer chatbot</a></strong>, which lets voters ask natural questions and get quick and relevant answers. Voters can ask questions such as: “How do I register to vote?” “How can I be a poll worker?” “Can I vote absentee?” and “What are the results of the election?”</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Automate outbound voter messaging</strong> with multi-channel communications with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/?c=ce&amp;sec=srv" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Pinpoint</a>. Leverage delivery channels including email, SMS text messages, and voice messages. You can quickly send up-to-the minute messages and use powerful analytics to monitor and fine tune outreach campaigns.</li> <li><strong>Create instantly scalable cloud-based call centers</strong> with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/connect/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Connect</a> and streamline communications with voters who prefer to call in, for a lower cost of ownership and superior service.</li> </ul> <p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Streamlining Election Administration and Voter Engagement with AWS | AWS Public Sector" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0ybHSVCPqMo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin"></iframe></p> <h3>Security and scalability</h3> <p>Elections organizations need to address unpredictable threats and load demands on sensitive workloads, including online voter registration, online absentee ballot requests, election night reporting, and e-pollbooks, which are <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4O033aN9AiehHs3ulrhUqE?si=ohFg6e0ZQOa-O8V7INaLIQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">used by Rhode Island’s Department of State via AWS partner KNOWiNK</a>. Similarly, the Indiana Secretary of State’s office worked with <a href="https://investors.fireeye.com/news-releases/news-release-details/indiana-secretary-state-connie-lawson-and-fireeye-partner" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Partner FireEye to help Indiana protect its election infrastructure</a> against potential breaches through the 2022 elections.</p> <p>AWS and APN Partners can help elections organizations:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Assess and improve application and infrastructure security, reliability, and scalability</strong> to mitigate or lower risks before they happen, through <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Well Architected Framework</a>.</li> <li><strong>Implement a new AWS multi-account environment</strong> through guardrails using <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/controltower/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Control Tower</a>, and other key security related services and best practices, including <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/guardduty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Guard Duty</a> and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/security-hub/?aws-security-hub-blogs.sort-by=item.additionalFields.createdDate&amp;aws-security-hub-blogs.sort-order=desc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Security Hub</a>.</li> <li><strong>Protect election websites against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks</strong> with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/shield/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Shield Advanced</a>.</li> <li><strong>Provide upgraded support</strong> throughout the extended election process with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/programs/iem/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Infrastructure Event Management (IEM)</a>.</li> <li><strong>Recreate realistic election security threats</strong> during rapid response exercises with <a href="https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws_security_incident_response.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS Security Incident Response Simulation (SIRS)</a>.</li> </ul> <h3>Election management and absentee voting</h3> <p>As election administrators strive to modernize and optimize key parts of the end-to-end absentee voting workflow, including a voter’s ballot request, delivery, and tracking, AWS and its partners can help:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Help secure digital ballot delivery</strong>. Learn more about <a href="https://sos.wv.gov/news/Pages/02-28-2020-A.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">West Virginia’s solution to deliver online ballots to disabled and military citizens with Democracy Live</a>.</li> <li><strong>Track voters’ absentee ballot location and status</strong>. Learn more about implementation of the <a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advisories/2020-news-releases-and-advisories/ap20041-san-mateo-26th-county-adopt-wheres-my-ballot-vote-mail-tracking-tool/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Where’s My Ballot?” tool</a>, powered by AWS partner BallotTrax, in many counties across California.</li> <li><strong>Architect secure cloud solutions</strong> that comply with the FedRAMP High Baseline with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/?whats-new-ess.sort-by=item.additionalFields.postDateTime&amp;whats-new-ess.sort-order=desc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS GovCloud (US)</a>.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <hr> <p>AWS stands ready to support elections administrators, campaigns, and civic engagement organizations. Our teams of technologists and subject matter experts are available to immediately engage with customers and deploy the solutions and analyses required to support critical elections processes.</p> <p>Learn more about how <a href="https://access.awscloud.com/initiate-elearning-series/aws-for-elections-2?sc_channel=el&amp;sc_campaign=initiateseriesblogpromotion&amp;sc_geo=mult&amp;sc_country=global&amp;sc_outcome=reg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elections administrators, political campaigns, and civid organizations use AWS to improve the voter experience</a>. Read more about <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS elections solutions, customers, and use cases</a>, listen to <a href="https://d1hemuljm71t2j.cloudfront.net/us-east-2:65f53a08-954d-4ac0-a438-970606c9fe30/%2309+-+More+than+voting%E2%80%A6.mp3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fix This podcast episode, “More than voting…,”</a> or contact us at <a href="mailto:Elections2020@Amazon.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Elections2020@Amazon.com</a>.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/modernize-voting-and-increase-turnout-with-the-cloud/ Thu, 07 Feb 2019 19:59:42 +0000 253f196aa524a252d6d00b791b00dbe7128440a7 After missing several elections as a graduate student living away from home, Seth Flaxman set out to build a reminder system alongside friend and classmate Kathryn Peters so no one would have to miss an election again. Energized by a vision to make voting a simple, seamless experience, Seth and Kathryn started Democracy Works, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the status quo. Democracy Works set out to build the tools needed to upgrade the infrastructure of our democracy and improve the voting experience for voters and election officials. <p><img loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/06/09/DW1.png" width="367" height="146">After missing several elections as a graduate student living away from home, Seth Flaxman set out to build a reminder system alongside friend and classmate Kathryn Peters so no one would have to miss an election again. Energized by a vision to make voting a simple, seamless experience, Seth and Kathryn started <a href="https://www.democracy.works/">Democracy Works</a>, a nonpartisan, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/nonprofits/">nonprofit organization</a> dedicated to changing the status quo. <a href="https://www.democracy.works/">Democracy Works</a> set out to build the tools needed to upgrade the infrastructure of our democracy and improve the voting experience for voters and election officials.</p> <p><a href="http://turbovote.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TurboVote</a>—Democracy Works’ flagship project—helps voters register, stay registered, and cast a ballot in every election, from municipal to national. Their six-millionth voter signed up for TurboVote in 2018 thanks to the largest college, nonprofit, and corporate voter engagement coalition in the country.</p> <h3>Scaling TurboVote with AWS</h3> <p>While it took Democracy Works five years to reach its first million users on TurboVote, they served a record five million new users in 2018 alone, scaling with the use of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud.</p> <p>A tool like TurboVote sees long periods of low visitor volume, but in the lead-up to federal elections, TurboVote can receive millions of visitors in a single week. <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/">Amazon EC2</a> and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/">Amazon DynamoDB</a> allows them to scale on demand, making it possible for TurboVote to handle tens of thousands of concurrent users on its busiest days without having to pay for dedicated infrastructure year round.</p> <p>Planning and organizing the November 6 wave of over five million notifications required the TurboVote developer team to review rate limits and maximum capacity of all their third-party services, but with AWS, they were able to trust that even their biggest day would not strain the infrastructure. <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ses/">Amazon Simple Email Service</a> (SES) seamlessly processed more than three million email messages on the day prior to the 2018 midterm election.</p> <p>Beyond supporting fluctuations in application usage, Democracy Works turns to AWS to deliver new features that directly improve how TurboVote serves their users. For example, DynamoDB’s full-disk encryption across all instances helps protect voters’ personal information.</p> <h3>2019 and beyond</h3> <p>Looking ahead, Democracy Works plans to engage even more voters, providing them with better tools and technology for getting to the polls. One of the most successful on-ramps for new voters has been The <a href="https://www.turbovotechallenge.org/">TurboVote Challenge</a>, a program that brings leading companies and organizations together in a nonpartisan, long-term commitment to increase voter registration and participation across America.</p> <h3>Prepare for elections</h3> <p>Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers scalable election solutions within three core pillars: Security and Compliance, Voter Engagement, and Elections Management. So whether you’re launching a political campaign to mobilize supporters through strategic messaging, or serving citizens with a <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/personalize/">personalized digital experience</a> as an elections administrator, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/">AWS Elections-as-a-Service</a> provides building blocks you can quickly assemble to support virtually any secure workload for your digital marketing needs. To learn more, contact us at <a href="mailto:Elections2020@Amazon.com">Elections2020@Amazon.com</a>.</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/spotlight-on-elections-voting-cloud-and-alexa/ Mon, 05 Nov 2018 19:50:23 +0000 83f17a81fed23df3ee8f0c03064c9e9967283248 With mid-term elections upon us, the world’s spotlight is on our electoral system: How can people vote? Where can they vote? How can we secure the polls? Election officials, candidates, and voters are balancing scale, security, and usability to modernize elections. <p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/"><img loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/06/09/Elections-blog.png" width="458" height="254"></a>With mid-term elections upon us, the world’s spotlight is on our electoral system: How can people vote? Where can they vote? How can we secure the polls? Election officials, candidates, and voters are balancing scale, security, and usability to modernize elections.</p> <p>The passion that elections ignite on all sides is matched by AWS’s commitment to security, compliance, and high availability, enabling voters to be confident that their voices will be heard. As a reflection of that commitment, AWS was accepted into the&nbsp;U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC)&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/12/14/dhs-and-eac-meet-election-industry-members-launch-sector-coordinating-council">Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council</a>&nbsp;(EISCC) to help make the U.S. election systems as secure as possible.</p> <p>From voter engagement all the way to the voting booth, AWS continues to <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/">deliver infrastructure for elections</a>.</p> <h3>Secure, available, and innovative – pick three</h3> <p>West Virginia is proving out the opportunity for innovation within elections, while staying secure. In 24 counties, West Virginian service members serving overseas are among the first in the country to cast federal election ballots using a smartphone app – a move designed to make voting easier for troops stationed abroad. <a href="https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/history-making-mobile-voting-app-for-overseas-military-now-in/article_0402b7dd-af11-56ed-a42d-5981a214f9c0.html">West Virginia</a> uses the <a href="https://voatz.com/">Voatz</a> blockchain voting solution running on AWS. From voter verification to ballot secrecy, Voatz incorporates biometrics, cryptography, and blockchain to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.</p> <p>Using AWS, the North Carolina State Board of Elections also runs elections in a highly scalable and secure manner. Rather than spending tens of thousands of dollars to modernize and scale their on-premises infrastructure, they run cost effectively without worrying about losing public trust due to failing or crashing elections sites.</p> <p>“For us, the overarching feature of using AWS is reliability. On election night, I trusted that I wouldn’t have to worry about capacity or load, and could instead focus on delivering results,” said Marc Burris, Chief Information Officer, NC State Board of Elections and Ethics.</p> <h3>AWS partners provide voting technologies for the modern voter</h3> <p>For an optimal voting experience, AWS maintains a network of technology partners. Take a look at how some of our partners are providing tools for the modern voter:</p> <ul> <li><strong>KnowInk</strong> offers a secure, modern toolset and interface to mirror the devices citizens interact with in their daily lives. In more than 650 jurisdictions across 25 states, plus the District of Columbia, <a href="https://knowink.com/products/poll-pad/">Poll Pad</a> has replaced the traditional model that often causes long lines at the polls and inefficient election recordkeeping.</li> <li><strong>Democracy Live</strong> launched its AWS voting platforms, <a href="https://democracylive.com/">OmniBallot and LiveBallot</a>, to over 400 state and local governments in the U.S. and over 96 countries around the world. OmniBallot helps military, overseas, and disabled voters securely access their ballot. The U.S. Department of Defense chose Democracy Live to deliver their secure online balloting portal. LiveBallot is a social, interactive ballot for political organizations and parties. Democracy Live also collaborated with the Alexa team to launch the first “Alexa Ballot” to speak a ballot’s options and candidates’ messages, and then select and send voters’ choices to phones. Over 20 million voters will now have access to LiveBallot, including the Alexa Ballot. “Democracy Live’s system is a marvelous example of a universal design. It provides a valuable resource of voter education for all citizens, including those with disabilities who often lack access to this critical information about candidates and issues,” said Deborah Cook, University of Washington Center for Technology and Disability Studies.</li> <li><a href="https://votem.com/"><strong>Votem</strong></a>, which recently acquired AWS partner, Everyone Counts, in one of their first joint projects will complete implementation of the Interactive Sample Ballot (ISB) as part of the “Voting Solutions for All People” (VSAP) project in Los Angeles County with <a href="https://www.smartmatic.com/us/">Smartmatic</a>, another AWS partner.</li> <li><strong><a href="https://www.scytl.us/">Scytl</a></strong>, a global AWS Partner, has successfully delivered election modernization projects in the U.S. since 2008. Most recently, for the 2016 US Presidential Election, Scytl’s technology provided over 53 million registered voters and thousands of election staff across 28 states with the benefits of more efficient, scalable and accessible election processes, establishing Scytl as one of the leading election modernization providers in the United States. “Since 2012, Colorado has consolidated election reporting of all 64 counties by leveraging Scytl Election Night reporting on election night. Our voters can access a single page to see results for congressional or state races and break down even further to show results at the county level,” said Wayne Williams, Secretary of State, Colorado.</li> </ul> <h3>Helping elections administrators and citizens for this November and elections to come</h3> <p>To help elections administrators, political campaigns, and civic organizations remain secure, we offer Security Automation and Orchestration (SAO) templates and free workshops specifically designed for election customers.</p> <p>The Center for Internet Security (CIS) and AWS are working together to&nbsp;protect the security and reliability of elections through security automation, orchestration, and alignment of CIS security controls.&nbsp;We aim to help all organizations involved in elections better understand what to focus on, know how to prioritize and parse the voluminous guidance available on protecting IT-related systems, and engage in additional collaboration to address common threats to this critical aspect of democracy.</p> <p>Although it is almost time for people to cast their votes this year, elections administrators are in constant pursuit of modernization and innovation and AWS is here to help. Interested in an onsite workshop or in learning more? Contact us at <a href="mailto:elections@Amazon.com">elections@Amazon.com</a>.</p> <h3>Stay informed. Ask Alexa.</h3> <p>As our partner and customer communities leverage AWS technology, Amazon is working to provide <a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/innovation/alexa-whats-my-election-update">helpful and timely information on the voting process through Amazon Alexa</a>. Find out voting deadlines and logistical info in each city and state, such as: who is running, when polls are open, and what’s on your ballot. Alexa will also provide real-time coverage of election updates and post-election outcomes. All you have to do is ask! Try&nbsp;“Alexa, what’s my election update?” for live election coverage.</p> <p>From building intuitive Alexa Skills to seamlessly securing voting platforms, all across the U.S., elections are running on AWS and our comprehensive partner community.</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/faster-it-at-fractional-cost-spin-up-a-serverless-solution-to-support-election-night-for-just-25/ Mon, 08 Oct 2018 14:30:04 +0000 4eaa568c52e33d1370a247f13a68c0a87c832a29 From viewing election results to monitoring stock transactions, government, education, and nonprofits are adopting serverless for increased agility and lower costs. Election night presents a challenge for city and county administrators across America. Voters, party workers, journalists, and constituents converge to a precinct’s website to view election results. <p>From viewing election results to monitoring stock transactions, government, education, and nonprofits are adopting serverless for increased agility and lower costs. Election night presents a challenge for city and county administrators across America. Voters, party workers, journalists, and constituents converge to a precinct’s website to view election results.</p> <p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/alameda-county/">Alameda County</a> in California, with 800,000 registered voters, was one county that learned a lesson about surging traffic on the 2014 election night. Their on-premises server crashed soon after the first set of results were released. Upgrading their on-premises server capacity in time for their next elections would have cost $20,000. Instead, on the 2016 election night they relied on a <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/">serverless computing solution</a> in the AWS Cloud to support the web and mobile traffic to their site – peaking at 3,000 users at times. With a serverless solution in the AWS Cloud, supporting the election night traffic cost Alameda County just $25.</p> <h3>How serverless computing delivers value for public sector organizations</h3> <p>With more than 3,000 counties in America reporting election results, more county elections websites may find their concurrent user limits tested this fall. Serverless computing can help manage occasional traffic surges, reduce operational costs, and improve the productivity of IT operations.</p> <p>Nonprofit organizations, federal agencies, and educational institutions, such as <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/finra-data-validation/">FINRA</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmYMuFrANjw">Fannie Mae</a>, and <a href="https://www.ksdk.com/video/news/local/education/slu-adds-alexa-devices-in-dorm-rooms/63-8216270">Saint Louis University</a>, have also adopted serverless solutions for IT transformation.</p> <h3>Why public sector organizations choose serverless computing</h3> <p>Serverless computing does not mean there are no virtual machines. Instead, the operations around provisioning, managing and scaling servers, and architecting for high availability and fault tolerance are handled by AWS. With serverless computing, public sector organizations can experience faster time-to-market, focus on development instead of operations and infrastructure, eliminate the need for server capacity planning, and eliminate costs for idle server capacity.</p> <p>In public sector organizations where IT talent is often hard to acquire and retain and budgets remain limited, a technology that helps reduce cost and enhance focus on mission-critical tasks is welcome.</p> <p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/">AWS Lambda</a> allows IT departments to run code in response to a trigger or event. A trigger or event might include a citizen uploading a photo to a health database or a GIS user downloading spatial intelligence data or even an http request (as in the case of Alameda County). The code runs in parallel and processes each trigger individually, scaling precisely with the size of the workload. Developers pay only for compute resources used. AWS Lambda is often used with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/">Amazon API Gateway</a>, which makes it easy for developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale.&nbsp;Both services received FedRAMP authorizations and are ideally suited for organizations with regulatory compliance requirements.</p> <h3>Four top serverless use cases</h3> <p>Four main use cases that serverless computing supports are:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Control systems</strong> – IT automation-related event-driven tasks, such as tasks that might be handled through Cron Jobs on a Linux platform or through Task Scheduler in Windows. These tasks generally include backups, log file rotation, and system maintenance. This use case is an easy win for early serverless adopters.</li> <li><strong>Data processing</strong> – This use case includes data analytics, batch, Extract-Transfer-Load (ETL), machine learning, MapReduce, and stream processing using Amazon Athena, Amazon Aurora, AWS DynamoDB, and Kinesis DataStream.</li> <li><strong>Backend systems</strong> – This use case includes web and mobile backend for mission-critical applications.</li> <li><strong>Internet of Things (IoT)</strong>&nbsp;– This use case triggers processing from a sensor in IoT scenarios, such as fault prediction, environmental monitoring, public safety, and Alexa skills for Amazon Echo using Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Lambda functions, and AWS AppSync.</li> </ol> <p>As serverless computing adoption grows within public sector IT organizations, AWS is making more learning opportunities available. AWS is hosting a <a href="https://awsserverlesscomputeday.splashthat.com/">Public Sector Serverless Day</a> in Washington, D.C. on October 11. To learn more on how to build serverless applications, view this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc7ZW2VVaGw&amp;feature=youtu.be">video</a> and <a href="https://pages.awscloud.com/GLOBAL_WWPS_WEBINAR_wwps-serverless_20181008_Registration.html">webinar</a>.</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/casting-the-vote-for-the-cloud/ Tue, 25 Sep 2018 14:01:23 +0000 b144352ab6052374ea62ed2e6a42dab704c37bd4 Choice and self-determination are cornerstones of our nation’s democratic process. Come election night, we might not all root for the same candidates, but there’s one point we can all rally around – the need for modernization and the role of the cloud in powering U.S. elections. <p><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-medium" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/06/09/Vote2.png" width="1115" height="282"></p> <p>Choice and self-determination are cornerstones of our nation’s democratic process. Come election night, we might not all root for the same candidates, but there’s one point we can all rally around – the need for modernization and the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-the-cloud-modernizes-and-simplifies-elections/">role of the cloud in powering U.S. elections</a>.</p> <p>Elections administrators, political campaigns, and civic organizations are faced with a rapidly changing environment, advanced cybersecurity threats, limited resources, high spikes in traffic, and a running clock. AWS enables these officials to leverage the cloud to provide underlying elections infrastructure in a secure, cost-effective, and scalable way, so that they can focus on engaging the public and running elections.</p> <p>After the 2012 presidential election, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XY39eRFA9I">the Obama for America (OFA) campaign talked about the significance of using the cloud</a>, “Using AWS gave us the flexibility and the power we needed to run a very strong campaign,” said Harper Reed, CTO for the Obama campaign. Around the same time, the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/democratic-national-committee/">Democratic National Committee</a> (DNC) turned to the AWS Cloud to reduce its IT footprint, cut costs, and scale its website to handle spikes in traffic.</p> <p>In 2016, both presidential campaigns relied on the AWS Cloud to support the race, and did so with significant success. “At the RNC, we leverage many cutting-edge AWS technologies that accelerate our efforts to securely engage with voters and campaigns at scale on timely issues that matter most to them,” said the current CTO of the RNC, Puran Nebhnani.</p> <p>State and local governments also brought the cloud to their elections. By relying on the automatic scalability of AWS, the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/partners/success/doublehorn/">Travis County, TX Clerk’s Office</a> had the capacity required to easily support massive web traffic spikes during elections. “On election day, our website traffic was 25 times that of a typical day,” says Scott Flom, IT Manager, Travis County Clerk’s Office. “We were able to support that spike without problems or impact to our end users, thanks to AWS and DoubleHorn.”</p> <p>In Hawaii, where the state moved key elections workloads to AWS, the results were just as impactful. “Our experience with AWS has been exceptional throughout the entire process, and continues to translate into tangible benefits,” said David J. Rosenbrock, Supervisor of Computer Services, State of Hawaii Office of Elections. “By moving to AWS, the Office of Elections has realized the scalability and performance we need to deliver a superior customer experience for the citizens of Hawaii, with greater technical capabilities, security, and compliance at a fraction of the cost.”</p> <p>For this year’s Election Day, the cloud is at the forefront of election strategy. Let’s take a look into three ways the cloud is powering elections:</p> <ol> <li> <strong>Security and Compliance</strong>: Elections attract some of the most hostile information security threats in the world. <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/security-compliance/">Information security</a> is a top concern when it comes to technology in elections. AWS understands the obligations of elections administrators and meets or exceeds the security or compliance requirements at every stage of our customer’s cloud journey. Protecting data is AWS’s number one priority and our global infrastructure is designed and managed according to security best practices.</li> <li> <strong>Voter Engagement</strong>: 2018 marks the first major election year in the US that all millennials (currently 18-29 years old) will be eligible to vote. Millennials are more comfortable with online transactions and bring high expectations for personalized customer experiences. Whether you’re <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/voter-engagement/">running a political campaign</a> to mobilize supporters through strategic messaging or you’re an elections administrator serving citizens with a unique digital experience, AWS provides building blocks you can quickly assemble to support virtually any secure workload for targeted outreach.</li> <li> <strong>Elections Management</strong>: Elections Management refers to core back office functions, including voter registration, that serve as drivers of operational efficiency across multiple interdependent systems, applications, and local agencies across counties and districts. AWS offers a <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/elections-management/">wide range of database services</a> to fit your application and voter registration requirements. These fully managed solutions can be launched in minutes with just a few clicks. In addition, the AWS Database Migration Service helps guide your transition to the AWS Cloud in a supportive and cost-effective way.</li> </ol> <p>Recently, we hosted deep-dive training sessions for the national committees to help each of them to further strengthen security for election and campaign-related workloads on AWS and leverage innovative solutions. With the 2020 elections fast approaching, political parties are continuing to leverage the AWS Cloud as a powerful tool in the race to the White House.</p> <p>Along the way, we tip our hats to the tech teams for making impressive use of the cloud, showcasing a true innovative spirit.</p> <hr> <p>Today is National Voter Registration Day. Hundreds, if not thousands, of races are decided by a single vote every year. Amazon&nbsp;is a proud member of the&nbsp;<a href="http://turbovotechallenge.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TurboVote Challenge</a>, a corporate coalition championing civic engagement in the United States. TurboVote’s mission is to increase national voter participation to 80%. We’re currently around 60%. Get out to vote!</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-the-cloud-modernizes-and-simplifies-elections/ Tue, 07 Nov 2017 16:32:17 +0000 e8e137c7f900c56c0415b89fce1154c4dc8a0bd8 AWS enables rapid deployment and effortless scaling of critical systems for customers who administer, promote, and protect the electoral process. Candidates are empowered to focus on the core issues of their campaign, instead of having to focus on building the underlying infrastructure to support their efforts in a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way. Here are […] <p>AWS enables rapid deployment and effortless scaling of critical systems for customers who administer, promote, and protect the electoral process. Candidates are empowered to focus on the core issues of their campaign, instead of having to focus on building the underlying infrastructure to support their efforts in a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way.</p> <p>Here are three different ways the cloud securely modernizes and simplifies the primary functions that drive the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/">elections process</a>.</p> <p><strong>Elections Administrators</strong>: Elections are among the most important administrative processes underlying our democracy. Election infrastructure is vital to the essential functioning and administration of elections. From voter registration databases to voting machines, many election administration systems rely on data and supporting information technology throughout the process.</p> <p><img loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/06/09/NCelections.png" width="272" height="121">“For us, the overarching feature of using AWS is reliability. On election night, I trusted that I wouldn’t have to worry about capacity or load, and could instead focus on delivering results,” said Marc Burris, Chief Information Office, NC State Board of Elections and Ethics.</p> <p><strong>Political Campaigns</strong>: AWS offers agility for political campaigns to securely engage voters faster and more effectively, and at a lower cost. Core functions, such as standing up a data warehouse or establishing an omni-channel digital presence built to scale for demand, can take months with traditional infrastructure. On AWS, they now take days or even hours.</p> <p><img loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/06/09/RNCelections.png" width="172" height="162">“At the RNC, we leverage many cutting-edge AWS technologies that accelerate our efforts to securely engage with voters and campaigns at scale on timely issues that matter most to them. During the peak times of an election cycle, the elasticity and security of AWS offerings are tested regularly as we manage heightened activity from debates, surveys, and petitions that generate immense online traffic between stakeholders. AWS then provides proactive, ongoing support, including any critical updates for party websites and production workloads,” said Puran Nebhnani, Chief Technology Officer, Republican National Committee.</p> <p><strong>Civic Organizations</strong>: Nonpartisan civic organizations play an important role in raising awareness and driving voter participation. In addition to their primary functions, these cost-conscious organizations can also face security threats and sporadic surges in web traffic. AWS helps them do more with less without sacrificing performance, so <img loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/06/09/LWVelections.png" width="224" height="100">they can focus on their core mission.</p> <p>“The choice to move to the cloud was clear. AWS was exactly what we needed: a hosting solution that scaled seamlessly. We could create instances on demand to handle data clean-up and import. If we had to build this service on-premises, it would have cost us three or four times as much,” said Jeanette Senecal, Senior Director, League of Women Voters.</p> <p><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/election-day-examples-of-how-the-cloud-scales-to-meet-election-demand/">Read last year’s blog</a> to see other examples of how the cloud scales to meet election demand and more about elections as a service <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/election-as-a-service/">here</a>.</p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/from-passion-to-scale-bringing-people-to-the-polls-with-the-carpool2vote-app/ Thu, 03 Nov 2016 13:08:18 +0000 fafa78d9fea5dffcbab992624332695ea6970d74 With the countdown to the election in full force, modern politics has combined with technology to help shape the social landscape with Carpool2Vote. The non-partisan app seeks to empower women voters and increase voter turnout by connecting voters needing a ride to the polls. What started as an experiential learning project for Nicole Wild Merl […] <p><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/06/09/carpool2vote.png" alt="" width="1155" height="548"></p> <p>With the countdown to the election in full force, modern politics has combined with technology to help shape the social landscape with Carpool2Vote. The non-partisan app seeks to empower women voters and increase voter turnout by connecting voters needing a ride to the polls.</p> <p>What started as an experiential learning project for Nicole Wild Merl and her mentor, Thomas Cook, through Northeastern’s first virtual Education Cooperative, has now grown into a community of activists sharing their voices and providing free rides to the polls through their app. Carpool2Vote is a digital platform of WomenVotes, a blog and social platform.</p> <p>“To develop the platform, we had to do research and decide on the technology that could help create something from passion to scale. Given the nature of elections, and considering that we are a nonprofit with two of us on staff, we needed something that was fast, scalable, and secure. And for our end users, we needed something that was reliable and easy to use,” said Nicole, co-founder of WomenVotes and Carpool2Vote.</p> <p>WomenVotes used the AWS Cloud to combine educational studies with a political purpose in order build and iterate on their Carpool2Vote app in time for the elections. By running their app on the AWS Cloud, Nicole and Thomas were able to take the heavy lifting out of building their infrastructure so they could focus on what matters most to them – getting voters to the polls on election day.</p> <p>“We wanted to develop an app that provided free rides so there was no excuse for anyone not to get out and have their voice heard in the elections. We joined together and believed in a cause. As individuals, we know that technology levels the playing field and allows us to make a difference,” Thomas said.</p> <p>Carpool2Vote has the power to make an impact. Carpool2Vote is bringing people to the polls who may not have had the access or opportunity to get to their polling location on their own. It is also encouraging and building a community by allowing volunteers who are passionate about voting to help those who may need extra encouragement to get there. If they reach their goal of ten thousand users during this election period, then that is ten thousand users who may not have voted. Since launching Carpool2Vote and WomenVotes.org early this year, Nicole and Thomas have been joined by a community of collaborators that include government representatives, women’s networking associations, and media companies. Using the AWS Cloud, WomenVotes was able to build Carpool2Vote in time for the general election, and will continue to grow using the cloud.</p> <p>“With WomenVotes being a grassroots organization, Amazon Web Services allows us to grow as an organization, advance our mission, and reinvent how we look at the future,” said Nicole.</p> <p>Follow along at <a href="https://twitter.com/WomenVotes">#WomenVotes</a>. Learn how to use Carpool2Vote in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AaE-aJMzw8">this video</a> below.</p> <p><iframe loading="lazy" title="How To Use Carpool2Vote" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1AaE-aJMzw8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin"></iframe></p> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/oset-foundation-using-aws-to-advance-cloud-based-election-innovations/ Mon, 07 Mar 2016 21:21:32 +0000 466e711e3be0c58ea26e51ef24792986cc7e4125 We are pleased to announce that the Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation’s TrustTheVote™ Project is utilizing AWS to ensure that the democratic process is not threatened by archaic and obsolete systems. Often, these systems are no longer supported by manufacturers, and in the case of voting machinery, rely on proprietary software that’s difficult to […] <p>We are pleased to announce that the <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oset-foundation-and-amazon-web-services-work-together-to-advance-cloud-based-election-administration-innovations-300217914.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation’s TrustTheVote<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2122.png" alt="™" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;"> Project</a> is utilizing AWS to ensure that the democratic process is not threatened by archaic and obsolete systems. Often, these systems are no longer supported by manufacturers, and in the case of voting machinery, rely on proprietary software that’s difficult to inspect or audit.</p> <p><a href="http://www.osetfoundation.org/#welcome" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">OSET</a> is a 501(c)(3) non-profit election technology research institute focused on creating open source software for elections administration in the US and around the world. The TrustTheVote<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2122.png" alt="™" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;"> Project is an open source software initiative that develops and provides an election technology framework with apps. States and counties can then adopt, adapt, and deploy the software to administer&nbsp;elections. Currently, OSET offers apps for states’ online voter registration services, with ballot design and election results reporting in development and testing. More apps are on the way for all aspects of election administration.&nbsp;The cloud-driven open source approach means that any election jurisdiction can adopt and adapt OSET’s apps and launch them faster and more cost effectively than ever before.</p> <p>Election officials have to deal with aging hardware, shrinking budgets, and inefficient processes, while managing chaotic election logistics,&nbsp;polling place&nbsp;volunteers, and local web sites that often&nbsp;crash when everyone simultaneously wants election results. Cloud technology, combined with open data, open standards, and open source development, offers an ideal solution for elections administration with no hardware to buy or maintain, unlimited capacity for traffic, and a pay-as-you-go model.</p> <p>The OSET Foundation is driving increased innovation in elections technology, like voter registration services, ballot creation, election results reporting, analytics, and voter information services with zero-footprint data center solutions that were not possible with traditional IT infrastructure. Since it’s on AWS GovCloud (US), the TrustTheVote Project technology can be used by any state or county looking to quickly improve elections administration without the high costs and long time frames of old computer systems.</p> <p>OSET chose to make its software available on <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/">AWS GovCloud (US)</a>, because it offers the security and compliance for sensitive data, while having the scalability, agility, and cost savings of not buying hardware. And it can be quickly and easily delivered anywhere in the country.</p> <p>Cloud-based voter registration, ballot design, and elections results reporting are ideal starting points to lowering costs and improving the public trust in our democracy.</p> <p><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/awsemailuploads/uploads/election.PNG" alt="" width="366" height="146"></p> Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purpose such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.