This is damn cool! Incident reports for the whole country including Texas. Check out your county and see what's going wrong now. This is why we need to report any problems with voting in Texas. Tracking helps us get better legislation!
Today, EFF launched the public face of "Our Vote Live"
www.ourvotelive.org, the redesigned incident reporting system that the
Election Protection Coalition is using to record calls made to the
866-OUR-VOTE hotline. Incident information is available in
near-real-time (updates every 20 minutes) and can be reviewed now. As
with previous systems, no personally-identifiable information is
available for public review.
The system hosts approximately 9,600 reports at the moment, which
includes reports going back to mid-August when we switched over from the
beta version we used in the primaries. As you might expect, call volume
to the hotline is rapidly increasing, with over 1,000 reports per day
(including problems as well as information inquiries) late last week.
A much-requested feature -- the ability to download all reports in a
spreadsheet -- will be up and running later this week, as will a handful
of other features and upgrades.
>From the joint press release:
Monitor Election Problems Nationwide with OurVoteLive.orgSearch by State or County for Real-Time Voter Reports on
Election Day
San Francisco - Reporters, bloggers, and voters across the
country can monitor problems at the polls on Election Day
on OurVoteLive.org, a project built and hosted by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of Election
Protection, the nation's largest nonpartisan voter
protection coalition, and its toll-free voter-assistance
hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE.
OurVoteLive.org collects and analyzes reports from calls to
the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline, which is staffed by hundreds of
volunteers across the country. Tested during the
presidential primaries, the site is already documenting
over a thousand examples per day of voters needing
information or reporting problems such as registration and
identification issues, difficulties with voting machines,
and polling place accessibility issues. Over 200,000 calls
are expected to come into the hotline and be documented on
OurVoteLive.org through Election Day.
"Improved transparency in all aspects of the electoral
process is critical to ensuring accurate results as well as
diagnosing systemic problems and helping voters," said EFF
Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "OurVoteLive.org is
helping the Election Protection Coalition make that
possible."
In addition to call incident data, OurVoteLive.org also
features maps, nationwide trend information, and an active
election issues blog that will highlight important election
incidents as they develop.
"OurVoteLive.org will allow us to help more voters more
effectively," said Jonah Goldman, director of the National
Campaign for Fair Elections at the Lawyers' Committee for
Civil Rights Under Law, which leads Election Protection.
"We -- along with election officials and the media -- will
be able track trends and identify problem areas quickly so
that we can remove any barriers that voters face as they
cast their ballots."
Election Protection has more than 100 partners at the
national, state and local level and is providing live voter
protection services now through Election Day across all 50
states. On November 4, Election Protection will mobilize
tens of thousands of volunteers, including 10,000 legal
volunteers to monitor polling places, educate voters,
facilitate a dialogue with local and state officials,
provide legal support to poll monitors, and answer the
1-866-OUR-VOTE voter services hotline -- a monumental
undertaking designed to ensure smooth voting in November.
On Election Day, reporters who have questions about
OurVoteLive.org or particular incidents reported on the
site should contact Nell McGarity via email at
press @ ourvotelive.com or by phone at 202-262-0721.
For this release:
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/10/26About EFFThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at
http://www.eff.org/About Election ProtectionElection Protection is the nation's largest nonpartisan
voter protection coalition, led by the Lawyers' Committee
for Civil Rights Under Law. Through its 1-866-OUR-VOTE
hotline (1-866-687-8683) and dedicated team of legal
experts and trained volunteers, Election Protection helps
all American voters, including traditionally
disenfranchised groups, gain access to the polls and
overcome obstacles to voting, offering live assistance. The
coalition has more than 100 partners at the national, state
and local level and is providing live voter protection
services now through Election Day for all 50 states. For
more information about Election Protection and the
1-866-OUR-VOTE Hotline, please visit: www.866ourvote.org.