It's election day in the Commonwealth of Virginia -- the state in which most Forum One staff call home. Today we'll elect a governor, a lieutenant governor, attorney general, and 100 house delegates.

Thousands of people woke up this morning seeking answers to these three questions:

• How do I found out if I'm registered to vote?


• Where do I vote?


• What's on the ballot?

Many will turn to the internet for the answer and will find themselves at this polling place form on the Virginia State Board of Elections voter information web site. The form is clunky. It assumes you know your exact "locality." ("Do I live in Fairfax City or Fairfax County?"). Worse, it is the only place to find this official information.

Official voter information should be easily available in myriad web sites, search engines, and mobile phone applications. It should be presented in simple, attractive user interfaces. Unfortunately, the information is stored in a variety of dissimilar, muddy, closed formats. Every state stores this information differently.

Fortunately, a new partnership of state election officials, foundations, and technology companies are developing a better system. The project is led by the Pew Center on the States and Google.

The initiative is called the Voter Information Project. Their goal is to standardize official voting information into a common, XML standard. This will enable states to share this data widely with civic groups, political parties, and the media. Web programmers, in turn, can develop better voter web sites and applications.

The Virginia Voter Information Tool is a example of how good these tools can be once voter data is standardized and shared. Check it out. And if you live in Virginia, vote today! Polls close at 7 p.m.

This video introduces the Voter Information Project in plain English: