The Cicero API currently provides legislative district matching and elected official data to public and private web applications for newspapers, election watchdog groups, philanthropic foundations, unions, arts organizations and commercial firms.  An example of an application powered by a Cicero Free account is ‘Our Philadelphia’, a new website built by Common Cause Pennsylvania. The site tracks campaigns contributions in Pennsylvania and will also soon focus on redistricting reform for Philadelphia and the state, tracking the influence of lobbyists, and promoting higher ethical standards for public officials.

Subscribers to the Cicero Free account are only required to post a ‘powered by Cicero’ logo on their public-facing website, and be able to make legislative district matching requests to the Cicero API by passing already geocoded address coordinate (latitude/longitude) points to the Cicero API.  Details about the Cicero Free plan are available here.

Stay tuned for more exciting Cicero developments….

Our new Batch Geocoding and District Matching service uses the same Cicero API we provide for developers, but it enables you to send us a database of addresses (as an Excel spreadsheet for instance), and we’ll return your addresses to you stamped with all of the districts you request as well as any legislator contact information.  And this is all at an affordable price.  The data returned with your addresses can include:

• Geocoded coordinates for each address
• Local, State and Federal legislative district id’s for the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand
• Elected official name, contact information, etc.
• Non-legislative district id’s such as counties, school districts, watersheds, police districts, etc.

This is just the first step. We are working on more ways to use Cicero including integration with Salesforce.com and an online batch district matching service, so stay tuned for more developments.