(Yet Another) Political Map Mash-Up

Slate.com has added to our growing list of election-related map-presentations with Map the Candidates.

This is a map-based interface with a deep dataset of campaign events. Each candidate has an icon, based (presumably) on their campaign logo. Users can set different time periods for which to map campaign events. Each data point includes additional information on each event.

Interestingly, Slate has added an element of citizen data-creation in partnership with Primary Place Online, which lets voters add their own "write-ups" of events. These are added, where available, to the attribute information on Slate's site. There are also videos from some events and links to related news stories about events. (Via Data Mining)

More Mapped Election Finances

The Federal Elections Commission has announced a map-presentation of campaign finance data for House and Senate races in 2008. This is a companion to the Presidential campaign finance map we noted in June.

A mouse-over on the House and Senate version shows the number of Representative Districts in the state. Clicking on the map brings up a state-view showing all the Districts boundaries. Mousing-over on that map highlights the District and shows the folks running for that seat.


From there, one can drill down to see detailed financial and donor data for each candidate.

As map-presented data goes, this is a fairly simple-looking site. But it leads users to a wealth of data. And that's probably the point.

Wisconsin Has a New GIO

The Wisconsin Mapping Bulletin has word today of the appointment of Curtis Pulford as Wisconsin's new Geographic Information Officer. Pulford, who has been GIS Coordinator for state's Department of Transportation, will start his now job on December 23. As near as I can tell, this has been announced to staff via e-mail; I have not yet found a news release.

"Volunteered Geography"

Michael Goodchild has an article in GeoJournal on the phenomenon of everyday folks creating and publishing geospatial data through websites like Google Maps. He calls it "volunteered geographic information."

The article -- Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography -- is not available for free on-line. A news release about the article from Springer, publisher of GeoJournal, gives an idea of some of the concepts Mr. Goodchild explores, and a statement of his conclusion:

He concludes that “collectively volunteered geographic information represents a dramatic innovation that will certainly have profound impacts on geographic information systems and more generally on the discipline of geography and its relationship to the general public.”

Update: Many thanks to commenter "phantomplanet" who has provided a link to the full article in PDF format.