How Big Data Will Help Sandy Victims Get to the Polls
Hurricane Sandy may wreak havoc on Election Day in some of the hardest-hit states, including New Jersey and New York. Election officials in the northeast are scrambling to ensure that voters will have a place to cast their ballot on Tuesday — New Jersey will use National Guard trucks as makeshift polling places, for instance.
The Sandy-sewed confusion only adds another layer to an already complicated Election Day: jurisdiction maps have been redrawn since the last major election, meaning many voters have new polling places and unfamiliar candidates. Add the complex voter identification laws recently passed in several in several states, and the headache intensifies.
How can voters sort through the chaos? With the Voter Information Project, a big data project from the Pew Center on the States.
The VIP team has been working for years to perfect the art of transforming election officials' jumbled mess of voting data into an easy-to-use API. For the post-Sandy election, its team is on the case.
"We know many polling places will have to be changed as a result of the hurricane," said David Becker, Director of Election Initiatives at Pew. "What the VIP team is doing is ensuring that states providing data into the VIP are doing such in a way that it's as updated as it possibly can be."
Thanks to the VIP's team, voters using Voter Information Project tools — including Google's Voter Information Tool or Bing Elections — will get the most up-to-date information possible.
"VIP can only deliver official information as soon as it becomes official information, said Becker. "Jurisdictions, counties, election officials throughout the area affected by Sandy are still trying to figure out where they'll have power and so on. As soon as election officials have made that call, we'll deliver that info. We're working closely with states that have been affected, get data into pipelines and processed as quickly as possible."
"When anyone accesses data from VIP, it's the most current data anyone has provided," added Jared Marcotte, senior engineer at VIP. "If VIP knows data is old and has been replaced, it will deliver data as relevant as possible by the point of time it's being accessed."
It's not just VIP's team that's working hard to get the right information out there: voters can help VIP perfect its data as the day goes on by reporting any errors.
"On election day, voters will be able to report an error," said Becker. "Our team is working hard to immediately respond to that, and voters will be very confident that at any point in time they're getting the right data."
Overall, how many people might turn to VIP's data for help on Election Day?
"We had 7.2 million use it in 2010 (during the midterm election)," said Becker. "And we're expecting double or triple that."
If you want to use VIP's data to find your polling place or examine your ballot ahead of time, try the Google widget embedded at the top of this post. What other online tools have you found for Election Day? Share in the comments below.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, plherrera
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- Election 2040: The First President for Digital Natives
- Voter Data: What the Candidates Know About You
- How to Market the Next President
- Gaffesplosion: The Unrelenting Hype of Modern Politics
- How Social Media Can Safeguard Your Vote
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