Frederica Freyberg:
“Here and Now” is also the place to be for election coverage.  Our affiliated Web resource, Wisconsinvote.org, has just been re-launched for the 2010 election season.  Joining me to give you a tour of the site is Wisconsin Vote Web editor, Andy Soth.  Andy, thanks for being here.

Andy Soth:
Thanks so much for having me. 

Frederica Freyberg:
Why don’t you show us around your new site. 

Andy Soth:
I’ll be glad to.  Since it launched in 2000, we’ve seen Wisconsin Vote as a one-stop resource for candidate and voting information, and election news.  We re-launch it every election season when candidates become official, the State Elections Board.  So we have information and links to candidates from the statewide offices, like Governor and Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, probably more candidates than you’ve been hearing about.  And then, all the federal offices, like our Senate race, and other Congressional offices that are up, as well as State Senate and all 99 Assembly Districts. 

Frederica Freyberg:
Just asking, you put them all in there? 

Andy Soth:
Yes.  Yes.  I’m still tracking down pictures and Web links, and stuff like that.  Because if you click on one of these, you’ll find a picture, you’ll find a list of the opponents, so you can do some comparison shopping for a voting decision, and a link to the candidate’s Web site.  We’ll also be adding some campaign finance information when that becomes available. 

Frederica Freyberg:
It’s great to have it all in one place like this. 

Andy Soth:
Right.  Another thing we’ve sort of condensed and collected for you, that’s very popular right before an election, is our voting Frequently Asked Questions.  There, you can look up your polling place on the Government Accountability Board’s Web site.  You simply put in your address, and it tells you where you vote.  And you can check your registration status.  And if you find you’re not registered, you can even download a registration application right from our site and fill that out and send it in. 

Frederica Freyberg:
And you say that right before an election, really, like sometimes even the night before, this gets a lot of traffic. 

Andy Soth:
Oh, yeah.  Absolutely.  It really, really spikes.  A lot of last-minute voters out there.  People just realize there’s an election, and we find that a good half of our traffic comes in the few days before an election. 

Frederica Freyberg:
Let’s go back to the home page, because you also have some new things on here.  In fact, like radio programs and of course the TV videos. 

Andy Soth:
That’s right.  We’ve always featured our Public Radio and Public Television content.  But we’ve done a slight re-design just to make it more accessible that I’m really pleased with.  In this column here, you always have the latest from Wisconsin Public Radio news.  They’re covering elections on a near daily basis.  You’ll always be able to connect to that here.   “Here and Now” programs are embedded in this player here.  But you can also go to our video archives to look for programs you may have missed.  And this is sort of a new section, where you can actually download to play on your iPod or mp3 player, the full hour programs that are on the Ideas Network. 

Frederica Freyberg:
In fact, this one was an hour-long with Scott Walker

Andy Soth:
That’s right.  Perfect for the election season. 

Frederica Freyberg:
Also “Newshour,” we’ll soon be able to click in that? 

Andy Soth:
That’s right.  Here we have news from other Wisconsin sources.  But then also, we have a feed that comes from the “Newshour.”  They’ll be launching their election site soon, so there’ll be national coverage of elections.  They will also have an interactive map feature of congressional districts, where you can select any congressional district in Wisconsin, and click and get any kind of data about it, whether it’s racial makeup, religion, all kinds of data organized by congressional district. 

Frederica Freyberg:
That’s great.  And the “We the People” project will also be featured on here.  And this is a project that is made up of partners which includes Wisconsin Public Television and Radio, WISC-TV in Madison, and the Wisconsin State Journal.  As you’ve said, we’re kind of known in that project for our debates.  Will those end up on here as well? 

Andy Soth:
Yes.  You’ll definitely be able to catch up on the debates embedded right here.  But we’re also launching a feature next month, which is called the Fact Finder.  All media organizations are going to be working to do some truth checking on political ads or candidates’ statements, and they’ll be collected and accessed through the Wisconsin Vote site. 

Frederica Freyberg:
Andy, thank you for your hard work on this and thanks for this tour. 

Andy Soth:
My pleasure.  Thanks for letting me show it off. 

Frederica Freyberg:
All right.  Well, if you want to take a look at the Wisconsin Vote Web site, you can again, go to the Web site address, which is wisconsinvote.org that’s for a comprehensive look at the 2010 election and the political players in the spotlight.