GeoCommons and the Georgian Election

At FortiusOne we have a history of mapping elections. Previously in this blog Sean Gorman discussed “Leveraging Open Data for Transparency” during the 2009 Afghanistan elections. This blog also looked at rates of violence and its potential impact on voter turnout in Afghanistan as well. We also provided a dashboard for the Virginia election as well, looking at voter turnout and the Republican victories.

When VoteGeorgia.ge decided to use GeoCommons’ maps to display election monitoring information for the Georgian elections we were excited to be able to help. The idea was to provide all the election data all in one place so it could be accessible to all. Using the sharing features built into GeoCommons maps were provided for the site.

One thing that was going to be important during the election period was frequent updating of the map.  This is why feeds were used to keep the various data overlays up to date.  Using the “Add a URL Link” feature in Finder! the GeoRSS feeds were added.  URL linking works for KML and CSV files as well.  How often a feed is updated is dependent on the update rate of your individual dataset.

With the datasets being updated then the next step was to get maps in the VoteGeorgia website.  After a map was made in Maker! the embed code for that map can be embedded in another website.  To embed maps in your own website click the “Details” button on a map and then click “Embed this map in your website.”  A textbox with an embed code will appear, just copy and paste this into the HTML of the site where you want to share the map.

To see the results of this simple integration with GeoCommons go to VoteGeorgia.ge.