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ELECTION ’10: Online tools help voters make informed decision


WASHINGTON (BP)–Voters in 50 states go to the polls Tuesday, and there’s a host of Internet resources to help them cast an informed ballot.

Several pro-family groups have compiled scorecards reflecting how every representative and senator voted on key bills during the current Congress. If that’s not enough, several non-partisan websites quiz voters to gauge their ideology and then match them up with the candidate who best reflects their beliefs.

Following are a list of voter resources:

— Family Research Council Action has posted a scorecard listing how all 435 representatives and 100 senators voted on key bills. For House members, the scorecard tallies 16 key votes, such as health care, homosexual issues and abortion funding. The Senate scorecard is more extensive and lists 24 votes, not only on health care but also on confirmation votes. Visit www.frcaction.org/scorecard.

— Americans United for Life and National Right to Life have posted scorecards focusing solely on pro-life issues and how D.C. legislators voted. For the Americans United for Life scorecard, visit www.aulaction.org and click on “voting scorecard.” For the National Right to Life scorecard, visit www.NRLC.org and click on the “scorecard” icons on the right side of the page.

— VoterMind.com, a non-partisan website, gives visitors a quiz on their beliefs about various issues and then asks them to rank which issues are most important. The website then shows the reader the candidates who most align with their beliefs, ranked in order of closest match. The creators of the website said the concept for the site began in 2008, when a poll in Iowa showed 40 percent of voters in the primary didn’t know who they would vote for a day before the election. Visit VoterMind.com.

— Project Vote Smart’s Vote Easy non-partisan website shows candidates’ pictures and allows visitors to click on any of 12 issues (abortion, crime, economy, etc.). For each issue, the website lists which candidate best matches a visitor’s belief. Visit www.votesmart.org/voteeasy.

— The website www.Ballotpedia.com lists the ballot initiatives for every state. Click on “ballot measures” at www.Ballotpedia.com.
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Compiled by Michael Foust, an assistant editor of Baptist Press.

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