Coalition of Groups Applaud NYC Board of Elections for New Level of Data Access
Special Election Results Released Online in Machine-Readable Form for First Time
A coalition of groups representing civic, good government, election and research organizations praised the NYC Board of Elections today for releasing election data in an “open data” format for the first time in its history. The Board recently published data from the May 5, 2015 special election in a machine-readable online format. This follows discussions between our groups and the Board in mid-April about the need for greater accessibility of important election data, and a commitment from the Board to release more information in machine-readable formats. It is our hope that this is the beginning of much greater accessibility, and we encourage the Board to make more of its data – historic and going forward – available to the public in user-friendly digital formats via the Board’s website. Accessibility of election data allows civic organizations, researchers, journalists and others to both spread the word about upcoming elections and the candidates running for office, and better understand how our democracy is functioning.