Voting Information Project

Aaron Strauss astrauss@mellmangroup.com 1023 31st Street, NW 5th Floor Washington, DC 20007

ph 202-625-0370 fx 202-625-0371 www.mellmangroup.com

VIP’s Mission: Ubiquitous, Personalized Voter Guides

Our Mission

• Every Voter has a personalized voter guide: Polling Place Information, Voting Options, Ballot Information

• On Secretary of States’ Website and everywhere else: candidate sites, non-profits, etc.

• Open Format. Open Data. Official Source.

What We Don’t Do

• Individual-Level Data: no personal information. System is address-based.

So How Does This All Work?

User’sAddress

APIGadget Feed

•Polling Place

•Ballot•L.E.O.

State}Street Segments

Precinct (Split)

Polling Location Districts

Contests

Candidates

<street_segment id="661274"> <start_house_number>100</start_house_number> <end_house_number>349</end_house_number> <odd_even_both>Both</odd_even_both> <precinct_id>504781</precinct_id> <precinct_split_id>508413</precinct_split_id> <non_house_address> <street_name>RIVERBEND</street_name> <street_suffix>DR</street_suffix> <city>CHARLOTTESVILLE</city> <state>VA</state>

Success Story: The 2008 Presidential Election

Focus on “Mapplet”

• 10 States adopted VIP (plus some CA counties)

• Easy URL: maps.google.com/vote

• Lots of publicity (e.g., NY Times blog, Today show)

• Tons of users: 7-10% of American electorate

Success Story: 2009 Virginia Election

Lots of Gadgets!

Redundancy Is Good…

Looking Toward The Future

More States

• Build Off Previous Successes

• Meet needs of states/data providers

More Applications

• Federal/State Write-In Absentee Ballots (FWAB/SWAB). Compliance with MOVE ACT.

• iPhone and other mobile apps. (Data/API are open.)

• Whatever developers can dream up!