How ElectionGuide works

Transparency about the technology powering your civic assistant — the AI models, Google Cloud services, security architecture, and the principles that keep every answer non-partisan and source-grounded.

Open assistant

Google Cloud services

AI & Answers

Gemini (Google AI)

Streaming AI answers for the civic assistant with citation and source grounding

Deployment

Cloud Run

Serverless auto-scaling deployment for the FastAPI backend and Next.js frontend

CI / CD

Cloud Build

Continuous integration and deployment pipeline with automated testing gates

Security

Secret Manager

Secure storage for OAuth credentials, API keys, and environment secrets

Observability

Cloud Logging

Structured application and access logs for monitoring, debugging, and audit trails

Storage

Cloud Storage

Persistent volume for session data, civic reference documents, and static assets

Audit

Firestore

Audit event persistence for AI interactions and platform usage analytics

Registry

Cloud Artifact Registry

Container image registry for the backend and frontend Docker images

Technical architecture

Civic experience layer

Next.js 16 with React 19 and TypeScript
Server and client components for optimal performance
Framer Motion animations for interactive civic tools
Tailwind CSS with India tricolor design tokens
Fully accessible — WCAG 2.1 AA compliant

AI and grounding layer

Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental with streaming
Google Search grounding for real-time ECI information
Tool-first verification before answering
Non-partisan system prompt enforced at model level
WebSocket streaming for low-latency responses

API and data layer

FastAPI (Python) with async SQLAlchemy and SQLite
Real-time WebSocket chat with session persistence
Google OAuth 2.0 authentication
20+ civic platform API endpoints
Structured audit logging to Firestore

Security layer

Security headers: X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, HSTS
Rate limiting: 45 requests / minute per IP on chat endpoints
Input validation with length and content checks
Secrets stored in Google Secret Manager — never in code
CORS restricted to known origins only

AI neutrality and accuracy commitment

What the AI will never do

Endorse or criticise any political party or candidate
Make predictions about election outcomes
Express opinions on electoral or legislative policy
Spread unverified claims about election processes

What every AI answer includes

A grounding check against ECI official sources
Citations to specific portals or official documents
A clear next step for the voter to take
Consistent language across all Indian languages