How To Learn About Candidates

Source: League of Women Voters Educational activity Fund

Elections present voters with important choices. Whether it is a local race that will impact your community or a national race that could change the direction of the land information technology is a time to consider the issues which you lot intendance about and make up one's mind which candidate you support.

How do voters go well-nigh comparing and then judging candidates?

The vii steps outlined below are designed to help y'all approximate a candidate.

Decide what y'all are looking for in a candidate.
Find out about the candidates
Assemble materials about the candidates
Evaluate candidates' stands on bug
Acquire well-nigh the candidates' leadership abilities
Learn how other people view the candidate
Sorting it all out

Step 1: Make up one's mind what you are looking for in a candidate.

Candidates can exist judged in two ways: the positions they take on problems and the leadership qualities and experience they would bring to part. Both are important. Your first step in picking a candidate is to decide the bug yous care well-nigh and the qualities you desire in a leader.

When you consider issues, retrieve about customs or national issues that you want people in regime to address. For example, yous may be interested in the threat of nuclear war, government funding for educatee loans or teenage unemployment. Those are issues.

When y'all consider leadership qualities, think well-nigh the characteristics you want in an effective leader. Do yous look for intelligence, honesty, an ability to communicate?

Step two: Notice out about the candidates.

Start detect out which candidates are running in the race past going to Smart Voter. If Smart Voter is non available for your county, and so look in your Sample Ballot mailed to you from your canton elections office. Newspapers are another source of information.

Stride 3: Gather materials about the candidates.

Put together a "library" of information well-nigh the candidates. Collect any information you can discover on the candidates. Call entrada headquarters and watch the press. Sources of data from which you may choose include:

campaign literature, including campaign Web sites
nonpartisan online voter information Web sites like Smart Voter
direct post letters
printing reports (newspapers, boob tube, and radio)
radio and television receiver ads
candidates speeches
candidate debates.

In a local race, interviews with the candidates can be helpful. For incumbents, a look at their voting records on issues that you lot have listed equally of import can tell you the candidates' positions on those bug.

Step four: Evaluate candidates' stands on issues.

Equally y'all read the materials you lot collect, keep a record. Do the materials give y'all an overall impression of the candidates? What specific conclusions tin can you lot describe about the candidates' stand on issues? Fill in the Candidate Written report Card as you gather new information (see end).

Step 5: Acquire near the candidates' leadership abilities.

Decide if a candidate will be a practiced leader is difficult. How can yous know if someone volition exist honest, open up or able to act nether pressure if elected to office? Here are some means to read betwixt the lines every bit yous evaluate the candidates' leadership qualities.

Look at the candidates' background and their experience. How well prepared are they for the job?
Detect the candidates' campaigns. Practice they have speaking engagements before different groups - even those groups that might not be sympathetic? Do they have invitations to argue? Do the campaigns emphasize media events where the candidates tin can be seen simply not heard?
Review the campaign materials. Equally you read the materials and lookout the campaign develop, add to the Candidate Report Bill of fare. the data that provides insights into candidates' personalities and leadership qualities. For example, do campaign materials emphasize bug or just images? Are they accurate?

Stride half dozen: Learn how other people view the candidate.

Now that you have accumulated information from campaigns and other sources, yous volition want to learn what other people call up about the candidates. Their opinions can help to clarify your ain views, but exercise not discount you own informed judgments. You may be the most careful observer of all!

Seek the opinions o others in you community who keep track of political campaigns. Interview 3 people (not family members) such as shopkeeper, neighbour, or politically agile volunteer, to notice out which candidate they support and why. Larn what has shaped their political opinions. Was it an issue? An idea or plan proposed by a candidate? A particular issue well-nigh which they experience strongly? A long-continuing party loyalty?
Learn about endorsements. This is a manner for involvement groups and organizations to five a "postage of approval" to a candidate. Endorsements provide clues to the bug a candidate supports. Go a listing of endorsements from each candidates' headquarters. Notice out what these groups stand for and detect out why they are endorsing this candidate.
Look into campaign contributions. Where practice the candidates get the funds to finance their campaigns? Do they use their own money or raise funds from a few wealthy donors, from may small contributors, or from Political Activeness Committees? Many types of information about entrada contributions must be reported to the authorities and are watched by the press. Check the newspaper for stories on entrada finance. How might these campaign contributions affect the candidates' deport in office?
Throughout the entrada, opinion polls will be taken past a variety of groups to evaluate public support for the different candidates. Polls reveal who is leading at a certain point in the race. As you read the polls, inquire these questions: Who sponsored the poll? Were all the figures released? What kinds of questions were asked? Were they slanted or unbiased? Who were respondents selected - randomly or such a manner to include all segments of the population? How many people were included in the poll sample?

Stride vii: Sorting it all out.

Review the information in your Candidate Report Carte and compare all the candidates. Inquire yourself these concluding questions:

Which candidate's view on the issues practise you agree with the well-nigh?
Who ran the fairest campaign?
Which candidate demonstrated the most cognition on the problems?
Which candidate has the leadership qualities y'all are looking for?

Is the pick clear? If so, pick a candidate.

Evaluate candidates' use of television

More and more, people tune in to televisions for their main source of information. Television is a visual medium dependent on good pictures and timely events to tug at your emotions and keep your interest. Candidates are aware of the potential ability of television and endeavour to use information technology to their advantage. For example, in a newscast, the picture you lot meet of a crowd with banners and balloons cheering a candidate may have been staged by a media counselor whose job is to make the candidate look good on television. As you watch news coverage of campaigns, be aware of staged events and try to notice out what the candidate is maxim about the bug. When you lot watch political ads you demand to be aware of how the media influences your reactions. Ask yourself some questions as you watch. Did you lot find out anything about problems or qualifications? Or was the advertizement designed just to affect your attitude or feelings most a candidate? How important were the script, setting and music?

Seeing through distortion techniques.

All candidates are trying to sell themselves to voters. Sometimes their language is so skillfully crafted that they distort the truth in way that are hard for even the most careful observer to detect. Here are some examples of distortion techniques that you should watch for every bit you review candidates' campaign materials.

Common baloney techniques:

Proper name calling/Appeals to prejudice:

These are attacks on an opponent based on characteristics that will not affect performance in office. References to race, ethnicity or martial status can be subtly used to instill prejudice.

Rumor mongering:

These include statements such as, "Anybody says my opponent is a crook, but I have no personal noesis of whatsoever wrongdoing," which imply (but exercise not state) that the opponent is guilty.

Guilt by association:

These are statements such as, "We all know Candidate B is backed by big money interest," that attack candidates because of their support rather than considering of their stands on the issues.

Catchwords:

These are phrases such as "Police and Order" or "united nations-American" that are designed to trigger a knee-jerk emotional reaction rather than to inform.

Passing the blame:

These are instances in which a candidate denies responsibility for an activity or blames an opponent for things over which he or she had no command.

Promising the heaven:

These are unrealistic promises that no one elected official could fulfill.

Evading real issues:

These include instances in which candidates may avoid answering direct questions, offering only vague solutions or talk nearly the benefits of proposed programs but never get specific about possible problems or costs.

Prepare a Candidate Report Bill of fare

List Problems: Your Priority Issues

List your positions and rank the candidates on how they stand on the issues and your positions

List the Leadership Qualities you want and rank the candidates on those qualities.

This data is part of the League of Women Voters Instruction Fund projection.

Online publishing of this page was originally done by
The League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area
103 Wm H Taft Road 45219
(513) 281-8763

The League does not support or oppose candidates or political parties.