Comments on: Reference Question of the Week – 10/26/08

By: Brian Herzog

Brian Herzog — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:01:09 +0000

@Summer: I have no idea how we missed that. I remember clicking on the orange boxes, thinking it would be a dropdown, but I never noticed the names themselves were links. Wow. I like the information the site provides – nice and concise, and cites the source. Thank you for pointing it out.

By: Summer Nemeth

Summer Nemeth — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:21:03 +0000

Hi!

It’s Summer, the creator of Imagine Election. There’s information about the candidates available on Imagine Election – you just need to click the name of a candidate from your ballot, and you’ll see information about their bio and issue positions, as well as a link to their website and any other resources available about them.

Check it out. And I’ll try to fix the user interface to make this more obvious next time around!

Best,
~Summer

By: Brian Herzog

Brian Herzog — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:12:13 +0000

I know our Federal system specifically keeps voting a decentralized process, under the control of the states, but it almost seems that a centralized, regulated and consistent process might be better. @James: Yes, we do have the Voter Information booklet, which I did give to the patron, but as you indicated, it only covers the ballot questions, not the candidates. Actually, he was looking for something exactly like that, just about the candidates. Next election season I'm going to try to work more closely with Town Hall to make sure we've got copies of everything available to voters before the election. Also, a couple online resources I left out: -League of Women Voters (Mass) -FiveThirtyEight.com - Poll projections, not candidates or the issues

By: Katie Fortney

Katie Fortney — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:51:47 +0000

I like smartvoter.org, from the League of Women Voters. They're another site that will give you a sample ballot if you enter your address, and they usually include links to candidate websites, news articles, and other helpful stuff. I've also seen them submit questions to candidates on their own and then post the answers. Unfortunately, it looks like there's not nearly as much information in their Middlesex County coverage as there is for, say, my county. But keep it on file for next election - maybe they'll have more.

By: James

James — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:01:32 +0000

The Sec. of State’s office sent out voter information booklets to the last known address of each registered voter in Massachusetts. The booklet has the exact language of all 3 questions on the ballot and what offices are up for election but not the candidates. If you didn’t get yours check with office to make sure your address information is current for the voting roles.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:51:14 +0000

When I lived in Washington, D.C., I received a sample ballot in the mail. I live in Virginia now, and I don’t. I really miss it. Instead, I visited the Washington Post, and it not only had all of my candidates, their answers to various questions, but propositions as well. The Virginia Board of Elections website was difficult to navigate and didn’t include the props.

By: Sarah W

Sarah W — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:58:53 +0000

In Ohio we also have sample ballots–in fact if you go to the county board of elections webpage, you can enter a specific person’s name and find their polling place AND print off a copy of the actual ballot they will use at that location (since we have lots of local bond issues). I’ve printed these out for quite a few patrons!

My father lives in Utah, and he also informed me that their board of elections also have the option of seeing what an actual ballot will look like.

By: Somer

Somer — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:47:26 +0000

Here in Texas, we do have sample ballots available. They’re online through individual county’s websites, and we have paper sample ballots available at the library (they are required to be printed on yellow paper).