Politics & Elections Blog: Making it easier to find polling places after Superstorm Sandy

Politics and Elections Blog

Trends, tools and news from the Google Politics & Elections team

Making it easier to find polling places after Superstorm Sandy

Monday, November 5, 2012

Cross-posted from the Official Google.org blog
While Americans prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, election officials are completing last-minute moves of dozens of polling places in areas affected by Superstorm Sandy.

Google is making this updated polling place information available through our own tools, such as the Voting Information Tool and search onebox, and also making it available to other developers and technology partners through the Google Civic Information API.

One of our API users, Mobile Commons, built a custom instance of an SMS-based polling place locator to allow voters to send a text for the latest information. New Jersey voters can text "WHERE" to 877-877, while New York voters can text "NYCVOTES” to 877-877 for updated locations. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have referenced the tool at recent news conferences.

The League of Women Voters, the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights, AT&T, and Foursquare are working quickly to help affected voters find their polling place. Whether you’re in New York City or Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we’re all doing our best to ensure you can access the information you need to vote.
Posted by Eric Hysen, Google Politics & Elections Team