Mapping Hacks

Who Are the Neighbors Voting For? #16

Chapter 2, Mapping Your Neighborhood

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HACK

#16

Who Are the Neighbors Voting For? Hack #16

Fundrace can show you which political candidates and parties have the most

support in your area—and which of your neighbors are supporting them.

The financial machinations of presidential election campaigns are not as dis-

tant, highbrow, or incomprehensible as one might think, and the web site

http://www.fundrace.org/ will show you why. Enter your address and ZIP

Code into its Neighbor Search, as shown in Figure 2-8, and you are immedi-

ately provided with a vista of the political landscape of your neighborhood.

By aggregating and geocoding campaign contribution records, Fundrace

allows you to uncover a little more about the pocket depth and political sen-

timent of your friends, coworkers, relatives, and neighbors.

Fundrace is the result of questions asked and hacks committed by research-

ers working at Eyebeam (http://eyebeam.org/), a nonprofit, nonpartisan arts

and technology organization in New York City. Fundrace is built on a data-

base of presidential campaign finance records published by the United States

Federal Election Commission (FEC). These records include the amount and

date of each contribution totaling over $200, along with the name, mailing

address, occupation, and employer of the corresponding contributor. With

individual contributions to campaigns ...