Related Guides
Questions?
Reference & Instructional Services
Voting is Important
Voting is immensely important. Why? Four reasons:
- It's your right! Many people have been denied or do not have the opportunity to vote - don't take it for granted. Voting is a privilege.
- Your voice is important and your vote matters. Elections can be incredibly close. Your vote could be make the difference.
- Tell your government what issues matter to you. If you don't vote, you don't get the opportunity to voice what issues are important to you.
- You are helping your community. When you vote, especially in local elections, it decides who represents your community.
-
Vote.orgVote.org is the largest 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan voting registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) technology platform in America. It has registered more than 4.5 million new voters, verified 10.5 million voters’ registration status, and has helped over 39 million website users by providing registration links and deadlines, polling location details, and other essential voting information for each state. Vote.org also leverages its research-backed GOTV program each year, targeting underserved voters in regularly scheduled and special elections.
-
I Will VoteSelect your state, make sure you're registered to vote, then choose how you're going to vote this year.
-
Vote411Launched by the League of Women Voters Education Fund (LWVEF) in October of 2006, VOTE411.org is a "one-stop-shop" for election related information. It provides nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information on the following aspects of the election process:
Absentee ballot information
Factual data on candidates in various federal, state and local races
General information on such topics as how to watch debates with a critical eye
ID requirements
Polling place locations
Registration deadlines
Vote411 gives you unbiased information on candidates so you can make your own informed decision. -
FactCheck.orgFactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state and federal levels.
How do I research a candidate?
Deciding who to vote for can be confusing! Follow these tips to research a candidate:
- Go to the candidate's website to explore where they stand on important issues.
- If the candidate is an incumbent, look up their voting record or policies passed in previous years.
- Find and watch debates or press conferences.
- Go to Factcheck.org to see how accurate candidates' answers on issues are.
- Explore the candidate's background and experience. Do you think this person has the skills to perform well in this role?
- Research how others view the candidate. Have they been endorsed? Have they made or received any significant campaign contributions?
- Lastly, create your own "Candidate Report Card."
- What are your priority issues?
- Rank the candidates based on how they stand on your issues.
- List the leadership qualities you want in a candidate and measure your candidates.
Keep in mind that you can encounter biased information when you are researching. Always be sure to use the following infographic in the next box to fact check the information you are consuming.
Pause. Consider. Decide.
Though information- and misinformation- comes at us all day, everyday, there are concrete steps that you can take to build your expert toolkit, and know what to trust.
Cultivate a critical mindset about user-generated content, unfamiliar organizations, and content shared by recognized news sources, by practicing and developing the habits outlined in the News Literacy Project's 7 Steps.
How can you reconstruct the context of an online information source in order to make a solid judgment about it's reliability? the SIFT framework by Mike Caulfield offers simple and empowering guidance.
Dig in to the reliability of the sources quoted or embedded within news stories themselves using the IMVAIN framework, developed by Stony Brook Center for News Literacy.