A note from Gabriela Schneider of the Sunlight Foundation alerts us about the launch of a new project which seeks to help provide more information about political candidates running for office:

We are launching something new over at Congresspedia.org this morning -- "Wiki the Vote," a project to build citizen-written profiles on each and every candidate for Congress in 2008.

The project is starting with nearly 300 basic profiles to be expanded and updated by citizens, journalists and even the campaigns themselves (or those of their opponents). Unlike Wikipedia, people connected to the subjects of articles are free to add to them as long as their contributions are rhetoric-free and comprised of fully documented, verifiable facts. The citizen editors are assisted and fact-checked by professional editors.

The first set of articles is based on confirmed candidates according to 2008racetracker.com and will eventually expand to cover every candidate on the ballot in the primary and general elections next year. When the OpenSecrets.org 2008 congressional campaign contributions database goes online in a few weeks, the candidate profiles will also display live feeds tracking the money race and who is funding it.

We often discuss new ways to make congressional data available on this list. It’s equally important to let citizens have access to user-friendly information about Congress. This project does that by turning data on earmarks, campaign contributions, etc. into narrative with information that citizens can use. Check out the site, and let me know what you think.

Check it out folks and start updating the members that you care about.