For the better part of a year I worked for Google but couldn’t tell people the details of my work because of an NDA. Over the past few months the details of the project have emerged and this weekend the true promise of the project came to fruition. So, let me introduce you to the Voting Information project.

The goal of the Voting Information Project (VIP) is to free election data from the confines of state and county databases. This pursuit fits nicely with Google’s mission statement of “organizing the world’s information” and the project is a partnership of the search company, Pew, and JEHT. We started in early 2007 with the long-term goal of creating an open format that states could use to publish their election geographic and ballot information, and that organizations like the League of Women Voters could layer candidate questionnaire responses over.

For this election, we focused on election geography, specifically informing citizens where their polling location is. Past attempts at a nationwide polling place locater had failed because not all states or counties were willing to share information. However, with the advent of nationwide voter files, one step of the process was complete: every registered voter in the U.S. could be matched to a precinct. Google devoted many resources this summer filling in the second piece of the puzzle: matching precincts to polling location. Now, every registered voter should be able to find his or her poll location here. (The Obama campaign also used this strategy.)

But, what about new registrants (or even same day registrants)? If they live at an address without another registered voter, Google’s strategy will fail. That’s where VIP comes in. Participating states and counties, distribute their street segment infomation (in a common format), which matches all addresses in the state to a precinct and then a polling location. These street segments are exactly how registrars themselves determine the precinct of new registrants, so they are very reliable.

I’m happy to announce that this past weekend, Google combined these two strategies at maps.google.com/vote. Test it out! One of my Princeton colleagues hadn’t realized that her polling location had moved until she tried the application, You can even put the app on your own website as a gadget. Also, the website got some press play from the NYTimes and Te The Today Show <video>. So that’s what I’ve been up to.

Also, go vote!