Supporting elections through voter education and information access, security and scalability, and absentee voting

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.

Voter education and access to information

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.

AWS and its partners can help elections organizations:

• Provide accessible and up-to-date election information to voters, through:
  • An Alexa-enabled device and skill—including any smartphone with the Alexa app—to access state or county elections information. See how New Hampshire rolled out their Alexa skill 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 custom Alexa skill.
  • A question and answer chatbot, 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?”
• Automate outbound voter messaging with multi-channel communications with Amazon Pinpoint. 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.
• Create instantly scalable cloud-based call centers with Amazon Connect and streamline communications with voters who prefer to call in, for a lower cost of ownership and superior service.

Security and scalability

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 used by Rhode Island’s Department of State via AWS partner KNOWiNK. Similarly, the Indiana Secretary of State’s office worked with AWS Partner FireEye to help Indiana protect its election infrastructure against potential breaches through the 2022 elections.

AWS and APN Partners can help elections organizations:

• Assess and improve application and infrastructure security, reliability, and scalability to mitigate or lower risks before they happen, through AWS Well Architected Framework.
• Implement a new AWS multi-account environment through guardrails using AWS Control Tower, and other key security related services and best practices, including Amazon Guard Duty and AWS Security Hub.
• Protect election websites against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks with AWS Shield Advanced.
• Provide upgraded support throughout the extended election process with AWS Infrastructure Event Management (IEM).
• Recreate realistic election security threats during rapid response exercises with AWS Security Incident Response Simulation (SIRS).

Election management and absentee voting

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:

• Help secure digital ballot delivery. Learn more about West Virginia’s solution to deliver online ballots to disabled and military citizens with Democracy Live.
• Track voters’ absentee ballot location and status. Learn more about implementation of the “Where’s My Ballot?” tool, powered by AWS partner BallotTrax, in many counties across California.
• Architect secure cloud solutions that comply with the FedRAMP High Baseline with AWS GovCloud (US).

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.

Learn more about how elections administrators, political campaigns, and civid organizations use AWS to improve the voter experience. Read more about AWS elections solutions, customers, and use cases, listen to Fix This podcast episode, “More than voting…,” or contact us at Elections2020@Amazon.com.