Gupshup partners with Maharashtra State Election Commission to launch voter chatbot

Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform Gupshup has partnered with the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) to build a chatbot that relays information to citizens on the state’s electoral process. The chatbot will provide information on voter registration, booth locations and more. It will also contain information on candidates when available and allow voter enrollment, engagement and turnout.

The chatbot, called Mahavoter 2.0, works through WhatsApp and is available in two languages — English and Marathi. “Our main focus with Mahavoter 2.0 is to expedite the voter registration process and encourage voters to come and vote. One of the major barriers due to which people skip voting is the lack of correct information and awareness around the election process and we are trying to do away with this with Mahavoter. Version one of the chatbot which we released in 2017 was a huge success; Mahavoter processed over 4.7 lakh messages,” said UPS Madan, Election Commissioner at the Maharashtra SEC.

To be clear, the Mahatover chatbot was originally launched in 2017, and is being revamped now. The first version was also built by Gupshup.

In an official statement, the SEC said that the second version is an “expanded version” that includes the voter registration process, “especially keeping in view the special summary revision” being implemented by the Election Commission of India till November 30, 2021.

To access the chatbot, users will have to add the WhatsApp number +91-7669300321 to their contact lists or click on https://bit.ly/mahavoter. Citizen collective Litmus Test Project is partnering with the SEC to help with the outreach strategy for the chatbot. The bot was officially launched last week and has processed over 77,000 queries since then, Gupshup said in a press release.