As early voting opens Monday in Iowa, voters in several counties can get information using their smart phones. Both Scott and Clinton counties are offering an app called WhereUVote.
Scott County Auditor Roxanna Moritz says the app offers a variety of information including early voting sites, just by typing in your address.
"I want to vote on October 20th, where do I go ? It'll bring up all the satellite voting locations and where they go. I want to vote on election day - it'll pull up a screen, they'll put in their address, and it'll tell them their polling location and it'll give them a Google map and directions to get to the location."
Moritz emphasizes the app only uses a person's location but not their name or voting record or any personal information. You only have to type in a location and not anything else.
Clinton County began using the app last spring for the primary election, and Auditor Eric Van Lancker says he's very happy with it so far. In fact he wants to add another feature, "push notifications."
"We'll send out an occasional notification to let voters know when, say, absentee voting starts. We'll let them know when certain dates are coming up, maybe voter registration, that sort of thing."
Van Lancker says on election day a lot of people suddenly realize they don't know where to vote, and this app can help - they can just type in their address for the location. They can do the same for anyone else in the county who isn't sure where to vote.
To get connected, find the smartphone app WhereUvote, then specify which county you're interested in. It can be downloaded for both I-phone and Android phones.
