Mid-term Elections are right around the corner with U.S. voters going to the polls to elect Federal, State and Local officials. Election Essential is an app available for both Windows Phone and Windows 8 that is designed to deliver information on the State and Federal candidates on the ballot.
The information is compiled from various political watchdog groups such as Sunlight and Project Vote Smart. Along with candidate information, Election Essential will also provide users with information on any Statewide Amendments and measures that will appear on the ballot.
Election Essential comes across as a handy app to have if you need to dig around and see which candidate is worthy of your vote.
State by State Information
The main pages for Election Essential begins with a Menu Page where you can choose your State and view any Statewide offices that are on the ballot. This will include Legislative and Judicial offices as well as the office of Attorney General, Auditor, Secretary of State, State Board of Education and more.
It does appear that the Judicial Offices covered by Election Essential are the Statewide positions (State Supreme Court, State Appellate Court, etc.) and not the local State Circuit or District Judges (trial level).
Once you have selected your State, additional pages with Elections Essential will become populated with Congressional and Governor's races and any State measures that are on the ballot. The Congressional page will list any U.S. Senate or House seats that are on that particular State's ballot.
Your Gubernatorial Page will list both any Governor's and Lieutenant Governor's races that are on the ballot while the Measures Page will highlight any State Amendment or Referendum that is to be decided.
Information on each candidate may include:
- .Biography Summary
- .Contact information (Twitter, Facebook, Email, Phone Numbers, etc.)
- .Key votes on hot button issues (abortion, crime, national defense, economy)
- .Ratings from key National special interest groups (NRA, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, etc.)
- .Campaign Contributions
If records are not available or cannot be found, Elections Essential notes that with many of the candidates.
Overall Impression
These days most of us are on the go constantly and have little time to sit down and read the local papers or catch the local news to stay up to date with the various political candidates vying for our vote. While I wish Election Essential drilled down to local candidates, it does a nice job of delivering a lot of information on Federal and State candidates.
The app ran smoothly and was simple to navigate around. I did find a few offices with duplicate entries for candidates but nothing too widespread. Overall, Elections Essential comes across as a nice source for candidate information.
- Download Election Essential for Windows Phone (Free)
- Download Election Essential for Windows 8 (Free)
