Election resources for 2010 midterms
Submitted by jrjacobs on Wed, 2010-10-13 12:11.
The 2010 midterm elections are just a couple of weeks away (November 2, 2010 across the country!). So I thought I'd highlight some cool Web resources to help voters separate the wheat from the chaff of our political candidates.
- Project Vote Smart is a non-partisan volunteer organization that tracks voting records, biographical & contact Information, candidate issue positions, interest group ratings, public statements, and campaign finances. And this election cycle, they've put together a nifty little tool called VoteEasy where you can quickly see candidates from your state and Congressional districts and explore their positions on 12 different issues from abortion, Afghanistan and education to environment, social security and taxes. One word of warning, the site has a soundtrack so turn your speakers down or click on the audio control on the lower right of the site. You've been warned :-)
- MAPLight is a site that tracks Money And Politics (MAP). They've also recently released some California-centered tools like MAPLight California which tracks campaign contributions to Assembly members and Senators in the California State Legislature and MAPLight Prop 23 which tracks donations for/against the hot button issue of Prop. 23 (which suspends Air Pollution Control Laws Requiring Major Polluters to Report and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions That Cause Global Warming Until Unemployment Drops Below Specified Level for Full Year).
- Also centered on California, the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, in collaboration with the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University, and the Center for California Studies at CSU Sacramento has created the California Choices Website with guides to the nine ballot measures on the November 2 California General Election ballot. The site also features a View Endorsements and Share Your Vote page where you can compare endorsements from political parties, unions, newspapers, and other organizations, and share how you are voting with friends and family via email or Facebook.
Please leave us links to other voter resources in the comments. And DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER TO VOTE WITH YOUR STATE SECRETARY OF STATE!
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more election resources from OpenCongress
I just received the OpenCongress voters toolbox in my email so thought I'd share with our readers. JRJ
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To find who your current senators and representative are, use this zipcode look-up tool.
1) RaceTracker - See who the candidates are, learn about their positions, and get a snapshot of the fundraising race. This is a collaborative wiki project, so if you have information about a particular candidate, this is a great place to add your knowledge and share it on a fully-referenced, free and open-source platform.
2) AdTracker - In the wake of the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision allowing outside groups to spend unlimited money on campaign ads, it's more important than ever that we have transparency in how these ads are affecting the election and exactly how they're funded. AdTracker is a wiki project for tracking and watching all the ads in congressional races across the country and providing background info who's sponsoring them. It provides a unique view into the advocacy work of low-profile independent political groups.
3) Voting Records - We typically find out about candidates' voting records when they are being spun by their competitors, but on OpenCongress it is possible (and easy) to look at the actual vote data yourself. From your senators' and representative's profile pages, click the "Votes" tab and search for any topics you're interested in. Looking at the actual data gives you a more accurate picture of how your lawmakers really voted on the issues that matter to you. To find more votes, check out our one-of-a-kind listing of Hot Bills by Issue Area.
4) Compare Votes - In this election more than in most, independence from party leadership is considered an especially important trait. Our head-to-head vote comparison tool gives you a view of party loyalty that you can’t get elsewhere. Compare the voting records of any two senators or representatives to see how often they vote with their colleagues and on what votes in particular they agree or disagree.
5) Bill sponsorship - In addition to vote records, it's important to look at the bills your incumbent candidate has proposed. From senator and representative profile pages, click the "bills" tab to browse or search all sponsored and co-sponsored bills. Even more than votes, the bills lawmakers support are indicative of their overall vision and ideology.
6) Money - Last but not least, take a second to look at your candidates' campaign funding sources. Time and again it's been show that campaign finances are directly related to how members of Congress vote. Click the "Money Trail" tab on your senators' and representative’s profile pages to see which industries and special-interest groups have donated to them. This is who they'll likely owe favors to if elected to Congress in the next session.
If you need help finding out where to vote on Nov. 2nd, try this simple tool from Google and the New Organizing Institute.
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