Ballotpedia:Solving the ballot information problem
The dominant narrative today says Americans are disengaged from our democratic system. Each election, tens of millions of eligible voters stay home.
Our experience suggests something more is happening than mere apathy. People want to participate, but they often lack the time, tools, and confidence to make informed political decisions. Few voters know who is on their ballot, and they don't have an easy way to find out. This is the ballot information problem.
No organization has completely solved the ballot information problem. At Ballotpedia, not only do we believe that it is possible to fill this information gap, but also that doing so will bring joy, optimism, and enthusiasm back to the political process.
It won’t be easy. It will require sifting through a complex array of political data, and finding ways to get data that appears nowhere to be found.
The ballot information gap also widens the further down ballot you go, and is the worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts.
These officials and candidates are your neighbors, friends, and former classmates. What they do affects us daily through schools, roads, taxes, and police and fire departments. Ballotpedia is one of the few organizations that provides a comprehensive list of all the candidates on the ballot in the largest 100 cities, including these local offices.
Our goal is to expand our coverage to all federal, state, and local elected officials nationwide. But we have to overcome some big challenges first.
Sample ballot tools, ours included, are limited by the digital maps that are available; these maps are an essential component of a comprehensive and specific sample ballot. Earlier this year, we conducted a study evaluating how we can get all the electoral maps we need to meet our goal.
Successfully gathering and building more maps would enable every voter in the country to preview their exact ballot before they go to vote—a critical piece of solving the ballot information problem.
We’ve also spoken with people in select cities to find out what kind of information they need to cast a confident, informed vote. We have developed a unique survey for candidates, asking questions that go beyond the typical issues.
We know that meaningful coverage of local elections reengages voters. In 2013, we covered the school board race in Atlanta. Before the election, we received a phone call from an Atlanta mother of two to thank us for our coverage. She wanted changes in the district, but she didn’t know how to make it happen.
She knew she could vote in the school board races and that those board members could create change, but the candidates and what they stood for had always been a mystery. She said that our coverage that year empowered her to make her best choice for her son’s future.
This challenge is an opportunity to empower voters everywhere by meeting their needs in a way they haven’t been met before. If we close the ballot information gap, every voter in the United States could find the list of candidates for all of their elections. They could find meaningful information about all of those candidates. They will be confident in their decisions at the polls.
That is how the future looks to us: voters who are engaged, enthusiastic, and equipped to make a difference.
-Leslie Graves