Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#1

Post by jkarneges » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 9:51 PM UTC

Hi HN!

I made a live presidential polling website with real-time electoral results. Votes can be changed at any time until the poll closes. Only visitors from the USA can participate. Congressional district is detected automatically.

The idea is to enable a coordinated voting process, where selections are non-binding and negotiable rather than blindly cast once. Kind of like a presidential caucus, but national and over the Internet.

The infra is Fastly & DigitalOcean. Backend is a Django service running on DO App Platform with Postgres. Fastly is used for edge logic, captcha, geo location, and pushing updates to the page (Fanout). In theory it should be able to handle millions of participants.

Note: since my previous post, I've added a way to close the poll after a time period. I realized that without some kind of time boxing it was unclear what the point is or how long to participate.

Show HN: Who Should Be the President?
ileantoward.com

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#2

Post by tadfisher » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:09 PM UTC

I'm on a business trip so I can't vote from the location where I can actually vote in the election.

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#3

Post by elfbargpt » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:10 PM UTC

Surprised there aren't more votes for Stein, hoping to see a big third party bump this election

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#4

Post by october8140 » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:11 PM UTC

tadfisher wrote: post #2

I'm on a business trip so I can't vote from the location where I can actually vote in the election.

Similarly I live abroad and can’t vote.

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#5

Post by shwaj » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:12 PM UTC

RFK is still on the ballot in more than half of the states. He should be added to your site.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-map-on-the-ballot-states...

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#6

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:12 PM UTC

No offense… but what exactly do you expect from this site?

I could have a made something that performs the same with with a blank page and Harris.jpeg

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#7

Post by jkarneges » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:12 PM UTC

tadfisher wrote: post #2

I'm on a business trip so I can't vote from the location where I can actually vote in the election.

Sorry about that! To keep friction low and to avoid people voting in the wrong state on purpose there's no way to select your location. In a future iteration I want to relax this but not sure how yet.

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#8

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:13 PM UTC

shwaj wrote: post #5

RFK is still on the ballot in more than half of the states. He should be added to your site. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-map-on-the-ballot-states...

I mean, he is makings ads telling people to not vote for him, and instead to vote for Trump. If you cared enough to vote for him, I would think you would believe what he is telling you there.

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#9

Post by jkarneges » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:13 PM UTC

shwaj wrote: post #5

RFK is still on the ballot in more than half of the states. He should be added to your site. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-map-on-the-ballot-states...

He dropped out while I was developing this, so I removed him. But I could re-add him if it makes sense.

Re: Show HN: Who Should Be the President?

#10

Post by jkarneges » Mon, Sep 23, 2024, 10:16 PM UTC

elfbargpt wrote: post #3

Surprised there aren't more votes for Stein, hoping to see a big third party bump this election

One of the goals with the non-binding vote aspect is to encourage people to fearlessly vote their first choice. They can always change it to something else at the last minute.

Then again, since this is only polling and not real voting, there's not much to lose anyway.