PollPal

PollPal is a personalized, nonpartisan election guide that helps voters move from “I know there’s an election” to “I know exactly what to do next.” Election information is often fragmented across government websites, PDFs, maps, candidate pages, and county resources. This creates unnecessary friction—especially for first-time voters, young adults, and people voting in a new jurisdiction. PollPal brings the entire voting journey into one clear, accessible experience. A voter enters their address, and PollPal identifies the elections relevant to their location. It presents confirmed election dates, registration and ballot-return deadlines, official sources, and when each piece of information was last verified. Voters can then explore nearby ballot drop boxes, voting centers, and election offices, sorted by distance with availability, directions, and links to authoritative sources. When ballot information becomes available, PollPal organizes races by district and displays every candidate without ranking, endorsement, or prediction. Using Meta’s Muse Spark model, PollPal creates side-by-side candidate comparisons from official filings and voter-guide statements. Every candidate is evaluated using the same questions, AI-generated summaries remain connected to their supporting evidence, and any claim that cannot be verified is rejected rather than shown. Muse Spark also helps make election information more accessible across language barriers by translating the interface and dynamic election content into a voter’s preferred language. Translations are clearly labeled as machine-generated, the original English remains available, and sensitive information—including residential addresses and email addresses—is excluded from translation requests. Users can opt into personalized email reminders before important deadlines, with every message containing a clear next step and an official source. PollPal can also support self-reported voting progress and clearly labeled election-result experiences. PollPal’s Washington-first data pipeline combines official state and county election information with deterministic application logic for dates, locations, and reminders. AI improves clarity and accessibility, but never invents deadlines, determines eligibility, recommends candidates, or replaces an election authority. PollPal does not tell people who to vote for. It gives every voter a clearer, more trustworthy path to participating.