Voting Blogs: Crowdsourcing election data — a success story | electionlineWeekly
U.S. Vote Foundation’s Election Official Directory (EOD) is a crowd-sourced database with 7,825 extensive records. The “crowd” comprises Local Election Officials (LEOs) across the US who regularly update their jurisdiction contact data. In 2010, the foundation began tracking response rates to update requests that go to LEOs. In the last five years since, the response rate to the update requests doubled from 30 percent to 60 percent. This is a story of dedication in pursuit of an idea and its implementation. Standout states in 2015 were Rhode Island and Michigan. Rhode Island’s Deputy Directory of Elections, Rob Rock, contacted US Vote to ask how his state could reach a 100 percent participation rate for all 39 of its jurisdictions. They teamed on the timing and messaging to the LEOs and the goal was achieved.