Not ignorant, comprehensible! And superior that you just’re asking. These small native races might be the beginning of somebody’s political profession, they’re going to be stewarding public funds and setting coverage, they usually matter!
Facet observe: Are you able to get a mail-in poll so that you’re capable of do analysis at your kitchen desk when you vote? I’m in a state with 100% mail-in. I miss going to the polling place and am glad the county clerk contains an “I Voted” sticker within the poll mailing, however I actually respect having the ability to take my time with the poll.
It’s best to have the ability to discover an election web site that may listing all of the races so that you might be ready earlier than you see the poll. The place I stay that may be the county clerk’s workplace and there’s a devoted web site. I can put in my dwelling deal with and see which races I’ll be voting on prime to backside.
Some issues you are able to do to analysis candidates (based mostly on having been actively concerned for a few years):
Go searching for an area organizing group that aligns together with your normal strategy to politics and ask them. They might maintain candidate boards, ship out questionnaires and share the solutions on their web site, interview candidates and listing endorsed ones, and usually do a number of the legwork you’re asking about. Attempt looking out in your city or county title and the political celebration, when you align with one, or key phrases that replicate points essential to you and phrases like “election 2024”. Search string is likely to be City + election + 2024 + candidate + keyword1.
A nationwide group you observe might have native chapters.
This works each methods: Discover a group you don’t align with and see who they’re endorsing. Unhappy that politics is so polarized now, and a few nonpartisan races may very well have assist from totally different locations on the political spectrum, however “the buddy of my enemy isn’t somebody I’ll vote for” can function a shorthand decision-making device, or at the very least as information.
Your state might have an impartial statewide group that places out a voters’ information. It doubtless wouldn’t go right down to the hyperlocal stage however they could embody state supreme court docket judges. Once more, could also be a number of ones of those from totally different political stances.
League of Girls Voters: Discover the native chapter and ask them for sources. They might host candidate boards.
There might be organizations that care about candidates in these races for a particular purpose, like a conservation group or the Chamber of Commerce. They’ll do endorsements, share candidate questionnaire responses and the like. You need to use this data no matter whether or not you agree with or oppose what they stand for.
For judges’ races, lookup the state bar affiliation and their endorsements.
For college district, discover the native academics’ union and have a look at their endorsements.
When you’ve got an area paper, has it performed any articles? What are folks saying about candidates within the letters to the editor? (A pause to mourn the gradual dying of native journalism as a result of this is among the many issues it contributes to civic life.) If not an area paper, then an energetic neighborhood weblog?
If the candidates do have a web site, are they endorsed by folks you acknowledge and/or by different candidates you assist? Use that as a guidepost; that’s why they work to achieve these endorsements.
Search for your state’s marketing campaign financing disclosure data and assessment their donations. Are they getting cash from PACs that stand for belongings you agree/disagree with? Use that as a information; these PACs did their analysis earlier than donating. Caveat on this: Some PACs give to each side to hedge their bets so don’t take one donation as the reply; search for patterns.
The non-public strategy: Ask folks you realize who’re affected by that place. When you’ve got a buddy with youngsters in class, ask them in regards to the faculty board race. If you realize an legal professional, ask them in regards to the judges. In the event that they work for a nonprofit that will get funding from the county, ask them in regards to the county commissioners and the way they’re dealing with the budgeting course of. For that matter, if you realize one of many folks in a task, like a faculty board member, you’ll be able to ask them in regards to the candidates for different positions who can be their colleagues in governance. They might or will not be taking a place in a race, however they could have the option at the very least to share the traits they suppose are essential for the position and there could also be clues in that.
And good ol’ Dr. Google might convey you to public statements by a candidate that let you know definitively you do or don’t need them making selections about different folks’s lives.
Thanks for voting! Individuals died for all of us to have the best to do that.
And in *each single election* somebody goes to win, no matter whether or not the alternatives are good. Not voting abdicates your duty and is like casting a vote for the better of two evils (with the stakes clearly being a lot increased in some races than in others).
It issues.
