A public interest mapping project to make electoral information more accessible to voters
Project Overview
FindMyRiding.ca is a public interest web application designed to make Canadian electoral information more accesible by providing a streamlined, user-friendly interface for voters to discover comprehensive data about their federal electoral ridings. Built in collaboration with Matthew Carroll, this civic technology project addresses the critical gap between Elections Canada’s extensive data and the everyday voter’s ability to easily access and understand it.
The Problem & Motivation
While Elections Canada maintains comprehensive voter information services and is the official source for electoral data, their website presents usability challenges that can frustrate voters seeking basic information about their ridings. The official Elections Canada voter information service, while thorough, requires navigating multiple forms and interfaces to find essential details like candidate lists, historical results, riding maps and MP contact information.
The 2025 Canadian federal election, held on April 28, 2025, marked the first election under new electoral district boundaries established in the 2022 redistribution, making it even more crucial for voters to have easy access to updated riding information, including transposed historical results. With 343 electoral districts and significant boundary changes, voters needed a simple way to understand their new electoral landscape.
Civic Impact & Public Service
FindMyRiding.ca was developed as a non-partisan public service to strengthen Canadian democracy by removing barriers to electoral participation. By consolidating scattered information into a single, intuitive interface, the platform empowers voters to make informed decisions and engage more effectively with their democratic representatives.
The timing of the project during the 2025 election cycle was particularly impactful, as the election saw significant polling shifts and strategic voting patterns, making accessible information about candidates and ridings more important than ever for voter decision-making.
Key Features & User Experience
Intuitive Riding Discovery
- Interactive map interface: Users can visually explore and click on their riding directly from a map of Canada
- Postal code lookup: Fast, accurate riding identification through postal code search functionality
- Responsive design: Seamless experience across desktop and mobile devices
Comprehensive Riding Information Hub
Each riding page provides voters with essential information in one location:
- Current candidate information: During elections, complete candidate lists with party affiliations and relevant details
- Historical election results: Access to past election outcomes, vote counts, and trends to understand riding dynamics
- Polling Data: Direct links to 338 Canada’s riding level polling and poll aggregation data
- Official Elections Canada Link: Direct links to official Elections Canada riding pages for additional verification and detailed information
The platform pulls data from multiple authoritative sources and presents it in a clean, scannable format that prioritizes the information voters most commonly seek, eliminating the need to navigate multiple government websites. Much of this data was compiled and made accessible through a REST API by Matthew Carroll.
Future Development
The initial version was developed specifically for the 2025 federal election cycle, however the plan is to make this a year-round resource for voters. The next phase of development focuses on transforming FindMyRiding.ca into a permanent civic engagement platform that serves Canadians between elections with
- MP profiles: Comprehensive information about current Members of Parliament including their committee memberships, and voting records
- Expanded historical data: Deeper electoral history with trends analysis and demographic information
- MP contact details: Direct access to current Member of Parliament information including office locations, phone numbers, and email addresses
Special Thanks
Big thanks to Matthew Carroll for making his historical riding data API accessible to this project and for collaborating with me in its development!