All Hail the Mighty The Google!
The Google finds it hard to believe that in 2008, even with the Help America Vote Act, information important to U.S. citizens and the democratic process - like finding out how to register and where to vote - isn’t well organized on the web. OK, so I added the snarky bit about HAVA, but Google has done their part to solve this voter info problem by creating a US Voter Info site in an “effort to simplify and centralize voting locations and registration information.”
We developed the site in the hope that it will increase voter participation. We were helped by a number of partners, including many state and local election officials, the League of Women Voters, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and others involved in the Voting Information Project.
They also have a gadget for your website:
Are you registered to vote? What’s the best way to obtain an absentee ballot? When people visit the site, answers to these questions appear. And anyone with a website can provide the same information. The US Voter Info gadget places a simple search box that expands to show a full set of voter information when someone enters an address.
And an API:
To encourage political participation, we’ve opened up this data to third-party sites and developers through an API developed by Dan Berlin, one of our open-source engineers. We’re excited to share this data, and hope that others will find it useful in encouraging citizens to vote.