Voting day tomorrow! If you’ve never voted before or just want to make the entire process a little easier by using technology, here are some handy tools to make your voting as easy as ignoring the mountains of pamphlets people will try and give to you as you go to vote.
Google’s Election Site
Google’s election site is a mashup of links and tools to guide you through the election, the most useful being a complete list of polling locations mapped on Google Maps. Simply enter in your suburb and the map will drill down, dropping pins on all the polling locations in your area. It will also show you which party is currently governing your local electorate, offers trends from the campaign trail and has links to various parties’ YouTube channels.
Belowtheline.org.au
In some states, the sheet for voting in the Senate is over a metre wide. If you want to vote below the line – which many of you would given the various issues for the tech community in this election – it’s probably worth preparing before you go. This site lets you pre-plan your votes before you get to the election booth, making the process of filling out all those numbers easy.
Can’t Decide Election iPhone App
It’s a pretty basic app, but if you’re a swinging voter this might help you decide which of the two major parties’ policies best match your own ideals. Although given that both major parties are pretty much cloning each others’ policies this election (with the exception of the NBN, of course), you might want to consider a minor party vote, particularly in the Senate.
ABC Australia Votes iPhone App
If you haven’t really been following the election coverage, you might want a quick refresher before heading to your local polling booth. The ABC’s Australia Votes 2010 iPhone/iPad app is a fairly comprehensive way of getting all the news from the election campaign, as well as info on your local electorate, key analysis and the latest polling results. And it’s free, which is always a bonus.
The ABC iPhone/iPad app
After you’ve voted, you might want to watch the election coverage. The ABC is the place to do that, with coverage on both the ABC24 news channel and ABC1, but if you’re not near a TV on a Saturday night, you can stream the coverage live to your iPhone or iPad using the ABC’s app.
Poll Position election game
If you want to know who’s going to win the election before it actually happens, why not let this Flash game help you decide. It’s certainly a lot more fun than listening to both parties ramble on about how the other party sucks, which seems to be the campaign approach of choice these days…
Did we miss anything? Anybody else have any good techie election tips for us? Let us know in comments.