Get To The Polls 2016 Launches!
[Image via gettothepolls]
In case you hadn’t heard, Election Day is one week away … and if you’re not one of the 20+ million people who’ve already voted, now is the time to figure out where, when and how to cast your ballot.
Fortunately, answers to those questions are handier than ever, thanks to Get To The Polls. The Pew Charitable Trusts has more:
With the election [just a week] away, the Voting Information Project (VIP)—a partnership among The Pew Charitable Trusts, Google, and the states, along with the Internet Association and the world’s top technology companies—launched Get to the Polls (www.GetToThePolls.com) to provide voters with information about polling place locations, hours of operation, and early voting, as well as ballot summaries.
GetToThePolls.com is a free, nonpartisan website powered by the Google Civic Information application programming interface (API), with directions via Google Maps.
“Pew and the Internet Association have joined forces with Google to reach people across the web through social media, websites, and company intranets,” said Alexis Schuler, who oversees election initiatives at Pew. “Thanks to state election officials across the country and the efforts of many technology companies, voters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will find information about this election online, through sources they access on a daily basis.”
The organizations taking part in Get to the Polls include:
- Amazon
- AOL
- AT&T
- Automattic
- Doorman
- Etsy
- Foursquare
- Internet Association
- Meetup
- Mozilla
- Pew
- SurveyMonkey
“The internet platforms work to provide people the information they need when they need it, and nowhere is this more true than on Election Day,” said Michael Beckerman, president and CEO of the Internet Association. “Our partnership with the Voting Information Project helps voters get to the polls and cast their ballots.”
In addition to Get to the Polls, VIP offers an embeddable widget, which may be accessed at www.votinginfoproject.org/projects, that anyone can put on a website. Voters may also text VOTE or VOTO to GOVOTE (46-8683) to access their voting information through VIP.
Get To The Polls information is also being used by members of the TurboVote Challenge, which is bringing companies and organizations across the country together in an effort to get the U.S. to 80% turnout in this year’s election.
The easy story to write here is the dizzying array of choices voters have to learn about on and before Election Day – but I also want to tip my electiongeek cap to the election offices across America who invest the time and effort to share this information with Pew’s Voting Information Project so that it can be distributed through initiatives like Google’s Civic API and sites like GetToThePolls. It’s a huge amount of work but so worth it when you see how widely this information is being made available to voters. Kudos to everyone involved.
7 days until Election Day … fire up those browsers/tablets/smartphones/??? – and stay tuned!