Voting Information Project

With more information available to the public than ever before due to today’s technology, providing American voters with the basic facts they need to engage in the democratic process remains a challenge.  Currently, voters are often unable to easily find essential information such as how to register, where to vote and which candidates and issues are on the ballot.

The Pew Center on the States recognizes the need to make official voting information widely and equally available to all Americans as part of our broader effort to improve the election system.  The Voting Information Project (VIP) helps election officials bridge the gap between the information that voters need and what is currently available to them.

To achieve that goal, Pew partners with technology companies (including Google, Inc. and CREDO Mobile) to enable election officials to provide the public with cutting-edge online tools that bring official election information to individuals, civic groups, news organizations, political campaigns and other organizations around the country.

Pew’s recent brief, Voting Information Project: Partnering with Election Officials to Inform American Voters provides more details about how VIP uses 21^st century technology to ensure that all citizens have the opportunity to cast an informed vote. 

In 2008, Pew released Being Online is Not Enough, which showed how time and resources are lost when voters have difficulty locating basic information about elections. Successful implementation of VIP nationwide would provide a critical service to voters and allow election officials to focus on other aspects of building a better election system.