VIP Expands Election Support

The Voting Information Project (VIP) is significantly expanding its support of state and local elections in 2016. In addition to the Nov. 8 general election, the project will provide critical information, such as polling place locations and ballot summaries, for voters in more than 70 elections, starting in January. The races include presidential primaries in 32 states and statewide primaries in 41 states, as well as runoffs where applicable, and dozens of local and municipal elections, including fire district and school board races across the country. VIP will not provide information for caucuses.

Although some states are able to quickly and easily provide VIP with the necessary information, many others do not have the infrastructure to efficiently collect and share the data, particularly for local and municipal elections. To address this, VIP worked in Arizona, California, Idaho, New Jersey, Ohio, and West Virginia in 2014 and 2015 to build systems to automate the collection of polling place and ballot information for all elections.

VIP data is available at no cost through customizable tools and apps as well as Get to the Polls, a website developed by Pew in collaboration with the Internet Association that allows voters to enter their addresses and find ballot and candidate information and the location and hours of their polling places. Developers can use the Google Civic Information API to include VIP data in their applications.

Amy Cohen is an officer for election initiatives at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

VIP to Provide Data for More than 70 Elections in 2016

Dates (2016)

State(s) 

Election Type 

Jan. 5  Rhode Island Special election
Jan. 26 New Jersey  Special election
Feb. 9 Washington Special election
Feb. 20
New Jersey
Fire district election

Rhode Island
Special election
South Carolina
Presidential primary (R)
Feb. 27  South Carolina Presidential primary (R) 
March 1 Oklahoma, Vermont, Virginia Presidential primary (R) and (D)
March 5 Louisiana Presidential primary (R) and (D)
March 8
Idaho
Presidential primary (R)

Michigan
Presidential primary (R) and (D)

Mississippi
Presidential primary (R) and (D), statewide primary

New Jersey
Special school board election
March 15
Florida, Missouri
Presidential primary (R) and (D)

North Carolina, Ohio
Presidential primary (R) and (D), statewide primary
March 22 Arizona Presidential primary (R) and (D)
March 29 Mississippi Runoff statewide primary
April 5 Wisconsin Presidential primary (R) and (D)
April 19 New York Presidential primary (R) and (D)
April 26
Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island
Presidential primary (R) and (D)

Maryland, Pennsylvania
Presidential primary (R) and (D), statewide primary

Washington
Special election
May 3 Indiana Presidential primary (R) and (D), statewide primary
May 10
Nebraska, West Virginia
Presidential primary (R) and (D), statewide primary

New Jersey
Municipal nonpartisan election
May 17
Idaho
Statewide primary

Kentucky, Oregon
Presidential primary (D), statewide primary
May 24
North Carolina
Runoff statewide primary

Washington
Presidential primary (R) and (D)
June 7
California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico
Presidential primary (R) and (D), statewide primary

Iowa
Statewide primary
June 14
District of Columbia
Presidential primary (R) and (D), districtwide primary

Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia
Statewide primary

New Jersey
Municipal nonpartisan runoff
June 28
Colorado, Oklahoma
Statewide primary

New York
Federal primary

South Carolina
Runoff statewide primary

Utah
Statewide primary
Aug. 2 Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Washington Statewide primary
Aug. 9 Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin Statewide primary
Aug. 13 Hawaii Statewide primary
Aug. 16 Alaska, Wyoming Statewide primary
Aug. 30 Arizona, Florida Statewide primary
Sept. 13 Delaware, New York, Rhode Island Statewide primary
Sept. 27 New Jersey Special school board election
Nov. 29 Mississippi Runoff election
Dec. 10 Louisiana Runoff election
Dec. 13 New Jersey Special school board election

Note: The list of supported elections is subject to change.
Source: Voting Information Project (https://www.votinginfoproject.org)
© 2015 The Pew Charitable Trust
s

VIP is a project of The Pew Charitable Trusts, in partnership with the states and Google, to ensure that voters in the United States have the official information they need to cast a ballot, such as where to vote and what’s on the ballot.

Please check the website for regular updates to the calendar of elections and get notified as data go live by joining the VIP Google Group. For more information about VIP, please contact [email protected].

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