Rally for the Run-Off! - Githubissues

sergeiwallace commented 4 years ago

What problem are you trying to solve?

Travis County needs help in gathering a list of potential poll-workers to facilitate the primary run-off elections on July 14th, 2020. Given the circumstances surrounding the pandemic, we will likely need to recruit lower-risk individuals instead of the more at-risk population that typically participates in these activities.

Who will benefit (directly and indirectly) from your project?

Both the Travis County Clerk's office and its resident citizens will benefit from having a well-staffed workforce to facilitate the smooth running of the July 14th primary run-off elections. Furthermore, this will likely serve as a pilot for the more expansive election operations taking place in November 2020.

What other resources/tools are currently serving the same need? How does your project set itself apart?

To our knowledge, there is no organization or other effort working to serve this need.

Where can we find any research/data available/articles?

Rally for the Run-Off - Design document - Google docs

https://countyclerk.traviscountytx.gov/elections/elections-home/democratic-primary-runoff-and-special-election-tuesday-july-14-2020.html

https://www.austinchronicle.com/elections/

What help do you need now?

We need help creating the technology infrastructure to enable the collection of applicants' contact information. Once the initial technology is set up, we need help brainstorming ideas for outreach and then support to spread the message.

What are the next steps (validation, research, coding, design)?

Create the google form
host the form on a credible website
Brainstorm places and methods to spread the message
Create resources to facilitate outreach and awareness about this initiative
Spread the message to ideally gather around 1,000 applicants for Travis County to reach out to.

How can we contact you outside of Github(list social media or places you're present)?

Open-Austin Slack community Email at sergeipwallace@gmail.com

Project management

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lianilychee commented 4 years ago

closing as 7/14 runoff elections have passed

diafygi commented 3 years ago

A closing "what happened" summary

The League of Women Voters Austin Area embedded the google form application on lwvaustin.org/pollworker
Powerthepolls.org directed people who were interested in signing up to be a poll worker to the LWV's page.
Over 7,800 applications were submitted through the form (see attached timestamps and archived screenshot).
Travis County did not have to close any polling locations for both the primary runoff election or the general election.
Travis County developed their own online application form directly inspired from the OpenAustin/LWV application form.
Powerthepolls.org and lwvaustin.org/pollworker now link to the the official Travis County online application.
LWV deleted the Google Form and submissions to ensure that Travis County were the only office with application records.
OpenAustin now has an established relationship with Travis County to further streamline recruiting poll workers.
OpenAustin co-presented to other Texas county officials in a LWV-TX webinar on how it streamlined the application process for Travis County.

Conclusion

The goal of this project was to ensure that enough poll workers were available to keep all the polling sites for the primary runoff open during the pandemic. Then following the primary runoff, the project became the default method for recruiting election day poll workers for the November general election. I feel this project succeeded well beyond it's goals and helped guide Travis County to significantly streamline it's poll worker application process. Thanks to everyone involved!

runoff_rally_poll_worker_application_timestamps.txt