Today is Election Day in many jurisdictions across the country, and as it has since 2008, Pew’s Voting Information Project (VIP) will be ensuring that voters have easy access to basic election information—such as polling place locations and ballot content—via the tools they use most, including mobile apps and search engines. Thanks to our partners, including Google and Facebook, voters will be able to use these resources to make their voting experience easier and more efficient.
For instance, our annual Get to the Polls project—powered by the Google Civic Information application programming interface, in partnership with The Internet Association—enables voters to use their home addresses to find their official polling places, get hours of operation, and review their ballot for all supported statewide and municipal elections.
VIP’s white-label Voting Information Tool and its iOS and Android apps are available again for 2015 and provide polling place hours and locations, contact information for local election officials, and registration website links in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese.
And VIP’s texting tool offers yet another avenue for accessing this vital information. Users can text “VOTE”—or, for Spanish speakers, “VOTO”—to GOVOTE (468683) to receive voting information via SMS in the same 10 languages.* The tool is available to interested organizations at no charge.
We will continue and expand this work in 2016. VIP and its partners will be providing information on more primary elections than ever before, in addition to covering the November 2016 presidential election.
Stay tuned for more news about next year; and in the meantime, check out VotingInfoProject.org for more information.
*By sending a text message to Pew, you consent to receive voting information via texts from an automated system. This is a free service, but standard text message rates may apply. You may revoke consent by contacting Pew, including by texting STOP.
David Becker directs election initiatives for The Pew Charitable Trusts.