VIP Mobile

Version: 1.0

In the 2010 election, over 6 million people used the Voting Information Project (VIP) to find their polling place, learn what’s on their ballot, and navigate the voting process. Most importantly, voters could easily answer these questions via a mobile device for the first time. VIP doesn’t just provide applications, but also the official data itself, partnering with states with utilize dozens of XML feeds from state, county, and local election databases. The VIP team travels the country to get the data, standardize it, then make it available to everyone for free through an open API.

The VIP mobile site brings official election information to individuals, civic groups, news organizations, political campaigns and other organizations around the country to help citizens find and get to their polling place on Election Day. By tapping into the GPS on mobile smartphones, VIP’s mobile site acts as a polling place lookup tool. In a simple interface, VIP’s mobile site takes into account the user’s current location, allows the user to look up the polling place for the residence at which they are registered to vote and helps the user navigate directions to their polling place via Google Maps.

In 2010, VIP’s mobile site helped users locate their polling place while on the go, bringing 21st century technology to the oldest mean of representative democracy. VIP’s mobile site is updated with fresh information from state and local election officials for each election to reflect changes in local districts and elections.

Note: Due to various laws regarding use of polling place data, VIP cannot display the 50 state dataset used during the 2010 election. Currently, our mobile site accepts as a test address any residence in Virginia (example: 3052 South Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22206)—for this reason, the geolocation feature will not currently work outside the Commonwealth of Virginia. Check back during future elections and VIP Mobile will be live with your state’s data.

Get Involved