Politics 2.0: Google Election Maps

Google is offering a mashup that combines its popular Google Earth mapping program with information about the U.S. congressional races coming up in two weeks.

The Google Earth 2006 election resource tool, unveiled early Monday, indicates the country's 436 congressional districts with stars on the popular 3D map of the country. Clicking on a star pops open a bubble window that has information on the candidates in that race.

The window also includes links to news, images and Web search results on candidates, as well as to information on where and how to vote and campaign finance reform.

"Our hope is that young people using Google Earth will…make better, informed choices," said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Google Maps.

The project was the brainchild of two members of the Google Earth team who created it during the 20 percent time allotted each week for engineers to work on special projects of their own design, Hanke said.

via CNet


AKI COMMENT: Try a slightly easier interface at Washington Post, as you will likely need to download Google Earth applications onto your computer to use.

And did anybody else notice the 20% WORKTIME COMMITMENT TO INNOVATION POLICY at Google? More on that later...