Are you one of those people who follows every move of an election, but don’t want to be tied to your web browser? There’s an app for that.
Last month, the Alaska Commons blog site reported on Anchorage’s Hackathon. While the name might sound ominous, it’s actually quite the opposite. Lance Ahern is the Chief Information Officer for the Municipality of Anchorage and a Hackathon participant. he explains what goes on at these events.
“A hackaton is, nowadays, when a group of–let’s call them civic-minded–people, who are interested in technology and would like to use it to maybe better local government or help non-profits, get together for a weekend…to work on projects together.”
Before the hackathon starts, those civic-minded coders hear pitches from various groups that are looking for help. Then, Lance Ahern says they work through the weekend to get the project done.
“We get together Friday night; we start working on projects. The goal is to get whatever we can done on Sunday, and deliver that, and hopefully solve some problems.”
This year, one product of the Anchorage hackaton is a website that will let you track up-to-the-minute results on any race appearing on Alaskan ballots this year. Lance Ahern explains how it works.
“What we wanted to do was create a simple website where you can put in your phone number, then you could pick out the different races you wanted to follow, whether it’s the Governor, a local seat, a judge, or whatever…Pick out any of them, and you just submit that information to the website. And then, once the election starts, and those updates to those races start coming in, every time there’s an update to the website…we’re going to send a bunch of text messages to everyone who signed up saying, ‘Here’s the current updates for the races you’re interested in.'”
The app sends a request to the state election site once every minute, so whether you’re following the hotly contested races for U.S. Senate and Governor or want to know how a ballot proposition is doing, you can.
Of course, KTNA and the Alaska Public Radio Network will be providing updates on the election, but for the listener who absolutely must know what’s going on at any given moment, the Alaska Election Watch app is a good solution. Lance Ahern says the group that created the app will be watching closely on Tuesday, and they hope all goes well.
You can sign up for the alerts on the Alaska Election Watch website.
