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Google unveils election mashup

Congressional campaign information meets Google Earth for a mashup made in voter resource heaven. Images: Google's election mashup

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
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Elinor Mills
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.

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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.

The election-related material is a layer on top of Google Earth, Hanke said. Google has worked on other customized layers for the U.S. National Parks Service, the Discovery Channel and National Geographic.

On Tuesday, AOL launched an election-related blog called "The Stump."

The mid-term elections are scheduled for Nov. 7.