Government Resources You can locate your federal representative by visiting one of the federal government's sites. The address for the House of Representatives is located at, http://www.house.gov and the Senate is located at, http://www.senate.gov, Both these sites provide a drop down menu to locate your Representative by name or by district. Both the House and Senate Web sites provide a link to voting records for congress. The Federal Election Commission, located at http://www.fec.gov, covers election information and has a Disclosure Database located at http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/disclosure_data_search.shtml. The Disclosure database tracks contributions to a candidate or committee. The United States Census Bureau has a voting and registration site, located at http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting.html, The Census Bureau provides demographic statistics of registered voters. Thomas & the Library of Congress Thomas, named after Thomas Jefferson, is a site provided by the Library of Congress, to help the general public locate copies of both current and archival bills, congressional reports and other legislative material generated by congress. Thomas also has a link to congressional voting data located at thomas.loc.gov/home/rollcallvote.html. Election Law If you have questions about Election Law, another great Library of Congress site provides information and links on Election Law at loc.gov/law/guide/elections.html. If you are looking for an article on an aspect of election law, the Election Law Journal, specializes on the legal aspects of elections in the United States and around the world, is located on the 3rd floor of the Law Library in periodicals, or you can access it online by using the Madcat link. To locate the Madcat record, select http://madcat.library.wisc.edu/, select Basic, then type in Election Law Journal. A link to the online site is provided in the record. The Almanac of America Politics, published by the National Journal, is available online at http://nationaljournal.com/pubs/almanac/. The Almanac of American Politics is a searchable database on up-to-date election results and election forecasts. Voting State by State Project Vote Smart is another source of voting statistics and can be located at http://www.projectvote-smart.org For information on your state representatives, type the name of your state plus .gov, for example, http://www.wisconsin.gov, and you can follow the link to government information on your state's home page. State Blue Books Every state provides an annual manual on their state's government, including voting records, biographical information on state representatives, and other information about the state. Now that information is online and a link to the State Blue Book for all fifty states is located at http://wwwapp.bradley.edu/library_reference/index.php/State_Blue_Books Lobbyists Political Advocacy Groups, states it is a directory of United States lobbyists, and can be located at http://www.csuchico.edu/~kcfount/ This site is maintained by Kathi Carlisle Fountain, a reference librarian at California State University, Chico. For another Web resource that tracks voting records and provides biographies of federal representatives try Sourcewatch and locate the link to Congresspedia, located on the left-side of the home page. Sourcewatch, is a project by the Center for Media and Democracy. This site states that it was created as a directory of the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda, and can be located at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch. Sourcewatch can also be used to search for information on political think tanks and public relations firms that work with individual politicians and political groups. E-Voting The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that promotes privacy issues, provides and E-Voting site located at http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/. This site monitors electronic voting machine laws, regulations and legislation and reports on privacy issues and electronic voting concerns.
Submitted by Jenny Zook, Reference Librarian on March 29, 2007
This article appears in the categories: Law Library/IT
