Voting Information Project

With more information available to the public than ever before due to today’s technology, providing the electorate with the basic facts they need to engage in the democratic process remains a challenge.  Currently, voters are often unable to easily find essential voter information such as how they register and if they are registered, 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 voters as part of our broader effort to improve the election system.  To achieve that goal, Pew has partnered with technology companies (including Google, Inc. and CREDO Mobile) and several state and local election officials, to connect voters with the information they need to effectively participate in the democratic process.  The effort, known as the Voting Information Project (VIP) takes official voting information straight from election officials to voters—including the organizations voters rely on for their information.

The Voting Information Project is expanding these partnerships to develop and implement technology to enable more election officials to efficiently disseminate voting information to the organizations that citizens regularly rely on for election-related information including the media, civic groups, search engines and political parties. While many states publish this information in some form on their Web sites, the data sources are not consistently available to these organizations.  The innovative technology links every address in America to a polling place and also provides voters with a full range of voting information including voter registration requirements; polling place directions; voting procedures and absentee ballot instructions.

Pew’s most recent report on voting information, Being Online is Not Enough shows how time and resources are lost when voters have difficulty locating basic information about elections. Successful implementation of the VIP nationwide would provide a critical service to voters and allow election officials to focus on other aspects of building a better election system.