Eye-catching yard signs are just not enough.
Nor promises of politicians.
Or recommendations of a liberal establishment newspaper.
When we slow down and actually see what usually influences voters in our culture, it’s ghastly, obviously a joke, and a bad joke at that.
We mention this status quo to underscore why we at ClarkCounty.info built the political candidate evaluation matrix. This matrix provides relevant, consistent, and objective information on all local candidates (full description).
Delivering this information to local citizens was a daunting effort–with hundreds of hours expended by our volunteer team. We finally went live a week after the ballots were received by citizens in this recent primary election. This didn’t appear to be a large issue as very few voters completed their ballots in the first week. This candidate information was studied by more than 1400 users during the weeks before the primary election.
We received useful feedback on the information and how it’s presented. This will be taken into consideration and will affect the next generation of the political candidate evaluation matrix for the general election. Now that the base information and overall matrix framework is built, it will be ready a few weeks before the general election ballots are sent and will be promoted broadly.
Background on the uselessness of most political information provided to voters
- Ballot statements in the County voter’s guide. These statements are often not aligned with what the candidate really thinks or can deliver.
- Entities endorsing with unknown agendas and bias. See a recent example from the local Building Industry Association.
- Columbian newspaper spreading political misinformation and telling citizens for whom to vote.
- Political signage – the speciousness of ‘name recognition’.