GotToVote

GotToVote is an open-source civic-tech toolkit for turning government voter registration data into simple, deployable lookup websites; it is built on Jekyll and maintained by Code for Africa.

What is GotToVote?

GotToVote is a toolkit of simple web and SMS services that help citizens find their nearest voter registration and polling centres so they can get to the ballot box informed and ready to vote. It takes registration-centre data that governments release (originally a PDF from Kenya's Independent Electoral & Boundaries Commission in 2013) and presents it as a website with three dropdowns that let voters drill down by administrative boundary. The project is maintained by Code for Africa, and the Kenya deployment is live at https://kenya.gottovote.cc.

Key Features

• Voter registration centre lookup — Presents official registration-centre locations through three dropdowns organized by administrative boundaries, so a citizen can find the nearest centre in a few clicks.
• Jekyll static site — Built on Jekyll, the RCI module compiles to plain HTML and can be hosted on GitHub Pages at no cost.
• Fusion Tables data layer — Registration-centre data is stored in Google Fusion Tables, which means the data can be updated without rebuilding and redeploying the site.
• Redeployable across countries — The Registration Centres Information (R.C.I.) module was redeployed in Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Malawi after the Kenyan version went viral without marketing.
• Extended election toolkit — GotToVote has grown beyond centre lookup to include Peace Messaging, Polling Results, and Voter Registration Confirmation (VRC).
• MIT licensed — The code is released under the MIT License, copyright Code for Africa, so other civic-tech teams can freely reuse it.

Who is it for?

• Election management bodies can publish official registration-centre data in a format citizens actually use, rather than PDFs on an unreliable website.
• Civic-tech organizations like Code4Africa can fork the toolkit and redeploy it for elections in other countries, as was done with the Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Malawi versions.
• Citizens and voters can use the deployed website to find their nearest registration centre through simple dropdowns instead of parsing official documents.

What can you do with GotToVote?

• Kenyan voters: locate your nearest voter registration centre by selecting your administrative boundaries on the Kenya deployment at https://kenya.gottovote.cc.
• Civic hackers: reproduce the original 24-hour experiment by scraping a government PDF of registration centres, loading the data into Fusion Tables, and deploying the Jekyll site on GitHub Pages.
• Election observers: use the Peace Messaging, Polling Results, and Voter Registration Confirmation modules to share verified election information with the public.

How does GotToVote work?

The workflow starts with the official registration-centre list, which was originally a PDF published by the electoral commission. That data is scraped and loaded into Google Fusion Tables, then a Jekyll site reads the data and displays it through three dropdowns. Because the output is a static site, it can be deployed on GitHub Pages without maintaining a server.

FAQ

Is GotToVote free to use?

The source code is open source under the MIT License, so anyone can freely use, modify, and redeploy it for their own elections.

Which countries have used GotToVote?

The original deployment was for Kenya in 2013, and the toolkit has since been redeployed in Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Malawi.

What is the RCI module?

The GotToVote Registration Centres Information (R.C.I.) module is the redeployable website component that lets citizens drill down to their nearest polling or registration centre. It is built on Jekyll with data on Fusion Tables and deployable using GitHub Pages.

Does GotToVote need a backend server?

No. Because the site is built with Jekyll, it is a static site that can be deployed to GitHub Pages, so there is no server to maintain.