Rock the Vote Registration Migrating to Amazon Web Services as Part of Strategy to Advance Cloud-Based Election Administration Innovations
Rock the Vote, one of the largest nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations in the United States driving the youth vote to the polls, announced today that the Rock the Vote registration platform and services will be hosted on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. The re-launch of the online voter registration platform, being engineered by Rock the Vote’s technology partner the TrustTheVote Project, will be ready well ahead of the final 2016 voter registration period starting this summer.
Rock the Vote’s voter registration platform is a free, open source solution that makes voter registration easier for voters and partner organizations across the country. The first instance of this first-of-its-kind tool was launched in 1999, and it remains the largest voter registration service maintained by a nongovernment entity to-date. Moving Rock the Vote’s platform to the AWS Cloud will allow for increased scalability for an increasingly mobile society, with the same robust service and approach to security AWS delivers to all commercial and government customers worldwide.
Rock the Vote’s goal is to ensure it offers young voters the most innovative, available, and reliable online voter registration process. “Cloud technology combined with open data, open standards, and open source development can be a game-changer in election administration,” said Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “Leveraging the AWS Cloud’s highly scalable and secure infrastructure will help enable Rock the Vote to raise the bar on innovative voter registration services.”
Carolyn DeWitt, President of Rock the Vote, explained, “We anticipate registering two million new voters this election cycle, and we’re looking forward to new innovative mobile services to support the voter experience. AWS is a world-class hosting solution that will enable Rock the Vote to be ‘always on’ and able to scale on demand to register young people across the country.”
John Sebes, Chief Technology Officer of the TrustTheVote Project explained, “Rock the Vote is investing in a next generation platform and service with mobility and user-centered design as its mandates. AWS provides the world-class robust service capability required for a well-engineered solution. This is another piece of our public benefit mission to catalyze election administration innovation by leveraging the zero-footprint data center alternative of cloud computing.”
About ROCK THE VOTE
Rock the Vote is the largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization in the country driving the youth vote to the polls. Since 1990, Rock the Vote has fused pop culture, music, art and technology to fulfill its mission of building long-term youth political power. During the past six Presidential elections, Rock the Vote ran the largest voter registration drives for young people and has worked with more than 25,000 partners through its online, multi-lingual voter registration tool. Rock the Vote is dedicated to mobilizing the vote, protecting voting rights, and advocating for an electoral process and voting system that works for the Millennial generation, America’s largest and most diverse population in its history. To get Rock the Vote updates on upcoming events, election reminders, and candidate, visit RocktheVote.com. Engage on social media, by following Rock the Vote on Facebook and on Twitter.