Why is it so hard to find good, unbiased candidate information?

[MrChad]

This is the first election year that I'll be voting as a New York resident, and I must say I'm discouraged about the process.

After some searching, I was able to use this tool on the NYC government page to determine my state and federal legislative districts. Then I used the Smart Voter website to figure out who was on the ballot. That's about as far as I can get.

Over half of the candidates on my district's ballot have no additional information listed. I can try and look up each candidate's web site, but so far the ones I've looked at have little to no meaningful analysis of their stances on the issues. I've searched nytimes.com, nypost.com, nydailynews.com; none have breakdowns of the candidates in each race and their positions. I found a nice video voter's guide on the NYC.gov site, until I realized that IT WAS FROM 2005! :|

Why is this so hard? This is not my first time voting, but how in the world can it be so hard to make an informed choice when the internet lends us so many avenues of information? No wonder the turn-out rates are so low in this country.

 

[Kadarin]

At the federal level, the best thing to do is probably to give Bush a Democratic Congress, to make it more difficult for him to push his agenda. But, that's just IMO

 

[FoBoT]

http://www.vote-smart.org/

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
At the federal level, the best thing to do is probably to give Bush a Democratic Congress, to make it more difficult for him to push his agenda. But, that's just IMO

My political leanings tend to be more libertarian than anything else, but I don't like voting along party lines. Some of the the libertarian candidates don't even seem to take it seriously.

 

[z42]

I agree with you MrChad.

Unfortunately, all we get are infomercial type ads in print and TV either for or against someone or something.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
http://www.vote-smart.org/

Site is getting hammered. I'll take a look, though, thanks.

 

[loup garou]

Gotham Gazette candidate info

NY1 Voter's Guide

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
At the federal level, the best thing to do is probably to give Bush a Democratic Congress, to make it more difficult for him to push his agenda. But, that's just IMO

That's generally been my policy, vote for candidates with political orientations leaning the other way from the president. That is, unless the candidate appears to be absolutely insane (Jon Kyl from Arizona).

 

[fitzov]

Voting record is the first thing I look at, then, if they have none, what their previous jobs were.

 

[wyvrn]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
http://www.vote-smart.org/

Best. Site. Period. Go MTV.

 

[slsmnaz]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
At the federal level, the best thing to do is probably to give Bush a Democratic Congress, to make it more difficult for him to push his agenda. But, that's just IMO

My political leanings tend to be more libertarian than anything else, but I don't like voting along party lines. Some of the the libertarian candidates don't even seem to take it seriously.

I agree the Libertarians need to put some better candidates out there. The ones running just can't be taken seriously.