Next Monday, April 30, civic-minded coders will join forces near Washington, D.C., to build new applications that help voters get the information they need on Election Day. The event, co-sponsored by the Pew Center on the States, The Sunlight Foundation, and Microsoft will focus on the tools and data provided by the Voting Information Project (VIP), which answers common questions including “Where is my polling place?” “Who is on my ballot?” and “How do I navigate the voting process?”

Even in today’s world of instant search, mobile banking, and social networking, this information has traditionally been difficult for voters to find, often requiring calls to election offices or trips in person to obtain basic information. But through the Voting Information Project (VIP), Pew [Center on the States]’s team of policy experts, together with election officials and computer engineers, has been working full time for several years to set this data free from computer databases dispersed across state capitals and county seats.

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