Voting Information for 4 November

Just a couple of quick links for prospective voters out there:

The WSJ this morning reported that voter information would be available via Google's mapping website, which is here: http://maps.google.com/vote. When you click on that link, Google asks for your home address, and then they provide the exact location of your polling station tomorrow. No muss, no fuss! There should be no question of where a person needs to go to vote legally, without crossing jurisdictions and/or having to cast a provisional ballot. If a person has a mobile device, like a BlackBerry or an iPhone, I assume that person could pull up this info on the mobile Google maps application.

Google also set up a temporary (at least, I assume it's temporary) website to provide full election coverage for the 2008 election. It's chock full of information on each candidate, and it worth perusing if you get the chance.

In my home county, the Champaign County Clerk, Mark Shelden, used his website to post all sorts of really good information for voters to use tomorrow. There are sample ballots, a way to check your own voter registration status, and helpful guides of what to bring to the polling station tomorrow. There are images of the electronic voting kiosks people can expect to see at some polling stations, of which this is one:





A prospective voter can print out a representative ballot, study it, make his or her decisions about who to vote for in each race, and even carry that sample ballot into the booth tomorrow before transferring the marks over to the official ballot. There's even a 32 page PDF voter's guide that contains everything a person would want to know about voting in Champaign County. So there's really no excuse for not knowing what to do or where to go tomorrow.

Honestly, this is one of the better government websites (and especially local government!) that I have seen in a long time. I applaud the webmaster that put it together. Best of all, they essentially advertised this service through the local news; I heard about the County Clerk's website on the radio on my way in to work this morning, and it was easy to find through a quick Google search.

So, make sure you find the voting information for your locality and get out the vote! No matter who you decide to vote for, the important thing is making sure you take the time to vote. Just do it!