Gearing up for next week's midterm elections, the Institute on Money in State Politics has opened up its APIs help get information on campaign contributions out to the public. By making its APIs open, the Institute hopes to make it easier for people to access and use its large database of state level campaign finance information and encourage them to share their knowledge on local contributions and their impact.

So far it's working. Different projects are using the Institute's APIs and are showing campaign finance numbers in interesting and compelling ways. Edwin Bender, executive director of the Institute, described a few in an email he sent to us.

An initial API developed for Project Vote Smart, which collects biographical and voting information on state and federal candidates at www.vote-smart.org, received more than 50,000 calls for candidate contribution data in its first two weeks.

Another organization, named MAPLight.org, is linking the Institute's data to bills and votes considered by the 2005 California state legislature. The resulting analyses show the dates of votes on specific bills and when donations are made, clearly illustrating where an appearance of impropriety exists.

The Institute is also developing some widgets to make it easier for people to use this information if they're not programmers. Below is an image of one that you can customize and put on your website or blog.