Users can enable new Post Alexa skill to get live election results on Amazon Echo, Fire TV, Amazon Tap and Echo Dot

Information about the Republican and Democratic National Conventions also available

Gearing up for the general election, The Washington Post has launched an election results skill for Alexa-enabled devices, which will allow device owners to get real-time election updates with a voice prompt. With this skill, Alexa device owners can ask for and receive general election information and results using the voice service, Alexa. Also, as the Republican National Convention kicks off, users can receive general information about both national political conventions with prompts such as “Alexa, ask WaPo Elections, when does the GOP convention end?” or “Alexa, ask WaPo Elections, where is the Democratic convention?” The app is powered by a Post election bot developed by The Post’s team of engineers.

“This tool is a great example of how The Post is dedicated to providing seamless, valuable experiences across platforms. From a technology standpoint, we can easily provide valuable, on-demand information, and we will continue to experiment as we determine our long-term strategy for conversational user interfaces,” said Joey Marburger, director of product at The Washington Post.

In addition to The Post’s experimentation with this feature, the tool will soon become available in The Post’s technology platform Arc, which is available to other publishers and organizations.

Jeremy Gilbert, director of digital initiatives, added, “Bots have a range of uses in news, especially around results-oriented stories across politics and sports, and we envision a variety of ways they can enhance our work. This is a first step in myriad possibilities.”

Users can also ask The Post’s elections skill for Flash Briefings which will be conventions-focused. The Washington Post began providing these political news briefings on Alexa-enabled devices earlier this year.

To access the WaPo Elections skill, simply enable The Washington Post in the Alexa app.