Ongoing Website Support Capability for BallotNav.org

[staceyrebekahscott]

Overview

We need to determine the overall capacity of Hack for LA to support the BallotNav Website long term. If the research conducted for the Market Fit results in BallotNav in its current version as the way to move forward, we need to figure out what support it will need to make it viable for elections in the future.

And if the research results in a different product to move forward with, this research will help us determine what kind of product we can support.

Action Items

• Develop a plan for the ongoing support needed for BallotNav in its current version
• Develop a plan for the development of BallotNav as an open source software
• Analyze the CivicEngine by BallotReady website- this site offers a similar service as BallotNav re: Vote by Mail (not limited to ballot drop offs, but similar in the collection of accurate information on polling locations and other voting information.)

CivicEngine Vote by Mail
CivicEngine Election Center

Why this is necessary: It is unlikely that a fully functioning website will be available for the 2022 elections. The next major election would be 2024. We should have a plan for how this project might continue as it is likely that the HfLA team will change between now and then. The project should have processes developed to get new team members on boarded and oriented to the project quickly so that the site can be continuously supported.

We should also discuss whether now would be a good time to develop a marketing strategy outline, to determine how much work it would be to promote a website like this. Can we estimate what kind of strategy would be needed and set success metrics based on marketing of a similar website (ex: analyze the marketing efforts of one of our direct competitors).

Additional items to consider:

• An analysis of the Hack for LA website, and an understanding of its plans to keep the website updated regularly with a team of volunteers
• An analysis of the long term plans for other projects

[staceyrebekahscott]

@kcoronel @layneam @yoursgayathri I created this issue to determine the ongoing support capability of BallotNav. I thought this would be a good issue to work on after reviewing the current status of the HfLA Competed Projects.

[kcoronel]

@staceyrebekahscott really great issue. Do you need support here?

[staceyrebekahscott]

@kcoronel I will need support on this one. I was going to put together a doc that lists the current state of the completed projects and brainstorm what else we may need to figure out in order to create a "sustainability plan". We need to collaborate as a PM team on this as it will be critical to know the long term viability regardless of what direction BallotNav ends up going in. I'll post in the issue once I have the doc created (might be a Miro board).

[staceyrebekahscott]

Article on Solving problems in software development: Solving the Right Problem

Transcript from Work Life Podcast: How to pitch your best ideas

• Work with UX researchers to develop process for how to evaluate completed HfLA projects
• Brainstorm questions to consider when thinking about how to develop software that can solve the problem we are trying to solve.

[staceyrebekahscott]

@seyounglee2001 Given that a big challenge for maintaining BallotNav is the amount of data that has to be collected and updated on a regular basis, what are your thoughts on how to deal with that problem? How should we be thinking about it in terms of the developers we would need to maintain the site, the researchers we need to make sure the data is accurate, and any other roles we need to consider? Given the nature of the data being hard to find, different for each state/county/jurisdiction, what kind of plan would we need to develop to make this happen? What would be a time estimate that would need to be committed?

Please come up with any framework you think makes sense to tackle this, as I am curious about your insights here.

[seyounglee2001]

Link to possible insights: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KTXGIANgaRgGTsc7VLd8DwhnfWYHayFjsp3-SUZ0weE/edit?usp=sharing