COVID-19 and Contingency Planning with the Voting Information Project
We’re here to help election administrators with COVID-19 changes.
We know the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the election landscape, and giving election staff even more work to do in an already busy year. In response, our team has been working on new approaches to help meet their needs.
Amplifying voting information —
We recently launched a new feature in our tools, which can direct voters to official absentee voting information. When a voter enters their address—rather than immediately seeing in-person polling places—a pop-up will now appear to explain all their options for voting, such as by absentee ballot. To learn more about absentee voting options, voters will be directed to the dedicated page on the official state website. This feature is entirely optional, and will only direct voters to the webpage provided to us by state election offices.
We have also improved VIP’s display of vote-by-mail elections and drop boxes. When an election is being conducted primarily by mail, voters will see a message informing them of this. They will then be presented with the contact information for their local election official, in case they have any questions. If there are drop boxes or in-person polling places available, they can simply click “continue” to see the VIP map.
Updating voting locations —
We know that voting locations across the country have been constantly shifting in response to the pandemic. VIP is committed to making sure voters have access to the most up-to-date election information online.
For example, COVID-19 posed new challenges for Oregon’s primary in May, even though the state is accustomed to conducting mail-only elections. Some of its drop boxes were located inside buildings like public libraries or town halls, which were no longer guaranteed to be open. Leading up to Election Day, our team worked closely with Oregon’s election staff, processing daily updates as additional drop boxes became available. By utilizing VIP’s customizable, embeddable tool as a drop box locator on its election website, the state was able to provide voters with the most up-to-date information on where to drop their ballots. Thank you to the Oregon election staff for this exceptional partnership!
Election administrators can include us in their contingency plans.
VIP can provide a valuable backup function to serve as part of election day contingency plans. If a state polling place lookup tool or website experiences an unexpected disruption, they can redirect voters to the official polling place data in VIP tools. That way, voters can still get accurate polling place information when they need it most.
What do Minnesota, Wisconsin and California have in common?
Each of these states faced technical difficulties on their primary election days earlier this year. However, all three quickly redirected to a VIP tool, allowing voters continued access to official polling place information.
With high traffic expected in November, every election website could use a backup. Contact us at info@votinginfoproject.org to learn more.