Simple app. to automate tweeting of voting resources for the U.S. 2020 election.
Voter info facet:
python voterinfo.py campaign [["]U.S.-state-or-territory-specifier["]]
Socialize facet:
python socialize.py [-l limit] campaign [tweep]
Driver:
./tweet_vi [-d] [-q number-of-tweets(min 4)] [-w time-period(max 86400 sec)] [-b base-interval(default 600)] [-k keys_file] { [-S tweep_file] | [-s state] } campaign
Run tests:
pytest
This tool contains two main facets, or executable entry-points, one to tweet voter info by U.S. states and territories,
the other to tweet mutual followers asking them to search up and retweet the voter-info tweets. It includes a
driver script, tweet_vi, to automate tweeting to many states, or repeatedly to a single state, or to mutual followers,
or to a list of users, separated by computed delay intervals. The delays can occur either before or after the tweets.
The campaign argument refers to configurations of campaign-specific data found in campaigns.xml in the top-level
directory, a resource file you create. You can use campaigns-template.xml as a guideline to the configuration schema.
voterinfo.py by default issues a tweet on Twitter containing
links to on-line resources for voters for a single random U.S. state or territory.
The optional argument causes issuance of a general tweet with that information for the given state or territory.
States and territories are spelled as their official proper names (capitalized words separated by spaces).
socialize.py by default issues a tweet on Twitter to each of the user's mutual followers that asks each follower
to search and retweet voter-info tweets, or to a single user if given. If a user appears in
the do_not_call.txt file, that user is not sent a tweet. Per Twitter rules, Twitter automated apps ("bots") may
not @-mention a user without prior contact from that user; socialize.py will not tweet a user unless the username appears
in the opt_in.txt file. The -l argument limits the number of tweets to the given number of mutual followers, randomly-chosen.
This facet outputs a header line with the user's follower and following counts, the count of mutual followers,
and the number of remaining mutual followers in opt_in.txt and not in do_not_call.txt. It then outputs a line
with each follower's name that it sends a tweet. Currently, you must manually maintain opt_in.txt and
do_not_call.txt to track opt-ins and opt-outs.
This tool currently requires the user to have a Twitter developer account.
The keys.py file requires a keys.xml file in the top-level directory with the structure
<credentials>
<twitterCredentials>
<apiKey>...
<apiSecret>...
<bearerToken>...
<accessToken>...
<accessSecret>...
</twitterCredentials>
</credentials>
with the consumer keys and access tokens for the developer account under
whose user ID the tweets will be posted. The user of the package must set the element co
6B82
ntents in keys.xml
to valid values issued by Twitter. The -k argument to tweet_vi will symlink keys.xml to the given keys file,
first removing keys.xml if it is a symlink. If keys.xml exists and is not a symlink, -k will make tweet_vi
exit with an error message.
The program will exit with non-zero status if it cannot compose a tweet in its standard format
that fits within Twitter's length limit for a tweet. This is a rare occurrence, only happening when
voterinfo.py cannot include at least one city in the state or territory in the tweet without exceeding the limit.
Recent changes have moved the definitions of campaigns out of Python code and into a resource file, campaigns.xml.
The program loads the campaign definitions from this file at startup.
The included campaigns-template.xml contains elaborate examples of single- and multi-state campaign definitions. Note the
contents of the <entry> elements. <entry> element CDATA contains a list of Python formatted-string arguments passed
verbatim to the campaign.tweet_entry() function to render data and other content conveniently. Python symbolic references
within these CDATA blocks must be visible to campaign.tweet_entry() at runtime. Also note, before you can run
the tests successfully, you should first rename or make a copy of any existing campaigns.xml, then symlink
campaigns.xml to campaigns-template.xml.
- Python >=3.6
- Pytest >=3.3.2
- Virtualenv >=15.1.0
- See
requirements.txt
Copyright 2020-21, Timothy E. Wood
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License online.
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
Thanks are due voteamerica.com for their carefully-assembled pages of state-by-state voter resources, which facilitated building this tool; also to Twitter:@balkingpoints for developing the tweets-to-cities targeting strategy.