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Welcome to VoterSpeak

Days left until 2008 presidential election: 68
 
The VIP (Vote Informed Program) gives you five simple questions to ask yourself on a candidate before you make a decision on your vote. Some of these you may have already done, others may be new.

To cast an informed vote, simply ask yourself:

  1. What each candidate plans to do, specifically?
  2. Where your information comes from?
  3. Are you voting for or against?
  4. Are you voting for the candidate or the issue?
  5. What candidate is best for the office?
VoterSpeak does not care how you vote in the upcoming election but we do care that you do vote and that your vote be an informed one. No, we're not going to inform you here, for a couple of reasons: (1) Whatever we say would be biased, despite our best efforts. It is a Human Condition that we would select some useful information but not all and inevitably, we would present an uneven picture. But that isn't the real reason. The real reason is:

(2) that's your job, it is your responsibility. You know better than we do what is important to you, what makes one candidate better than another, what issue deserves approval, what local office is best held by what local person.

Democracy assumes and requires an "informed electorate". You're part of the electorate, so here's how to cast an "informed" vote:

  1. Ask what each candidate plans to do

    The trap: Sound bites and platitudes.

    Simple phrases like "I'm going to lower taxes" or "I'll fix the economy" or "I'm for education" don't mean anything, they have no substance. Use them only as a guide to find out specifics of what the candidate has planned and how they plan to get it done.

    The trick: Listen closely for specifics on both what and how.

    You have to listen to what the candidate says he/she plans to do and how they will do it. Platitudes and catch phrase aren't enough, look for specifics. If you don't hear it in their speech, go to their web-site. Speeches are short attention span situations and the media's love of soundbites just makes it worse. Make the effort, look up specifics of an issue you're interested in for at least two candidates in a given race.

  2. Ask yourself where your information comes from

    The trap: Biased sources

    Each side has experts that completely refute the other side's, who do you believe when they're all experts in things you've never heard about? And journalists seem to be biased more every year, so finding an unbiased source...is it even possible? Yes, just not in once place.

    There's something called "agenda setting theory" which says, amongst other things, that the media doesn't tell you what to think but it does tell you what to think about. How? By showing you news about some events but not others: Wars in some countries but not others, police actions in some areas but not others, etc. The idea is that you will only think about what is presented in front of you. In an election year, several very biased sources will try to get you to think about only what they want. That's a trap.

    The trick: Consider the source.

    This is getting trickier every year. Campaign-based material is purely biased and the news organizations are starting to lean more than they used to as well. The trick is to listen to several sources, start weeding out what you don't care about and then listen to all the others. "The truth will out" means that if you listen long enough, you'll naturally critique what you're hearing and the truth will be what you hear.

    Second trick: Think about what is important to you. This won't be as easy as you think at first but it also won't be as difficult as it seems once you get started. Make a list of things you care about, keep it handy and listen for a candidate to talk about them.

  3. Ask yourself if you are voting for or against

    The trap: Lesser of two evils

    Voting against someone by voting for their opposition seems like a clever idea, a way to counter-vote against someone. Similar techniques are very handy at poker tables, chess games and office politics. The trap here is that the stakes are much higher and voting for "the lesser of two evils" means you still have an "evil" in office! Put another way: If you vote against my candidate and I  vote against yours, then our votes cancel out. Which means the people who voting for  another candidate are probably going to win, possibly someone neither you or I wanted but we were too busy focusing on.... not-votes instead of for-votes.

    That's not only a trap, it is a waste of a powerful vote.

    The trick: Find a candidate worth voting for, not against.

    No matter how bad the no-vote candidate is, find a candidate who is worth voting for, even if only marginally. Voting against is the same as voting for an unknown, which is kinda like getting in a stranger's car instead of your own because yours in broken: With a little effort, you can find a better alternative than "not-them".

  4. Ask yourself if you are voting for the candidate or the issue

    The trap: Issues don't run the office

    Voting for a candidate who agrees with you on a certain issue may make a lot of sense but what if they only agree with one out of a hundred? Or their view on another, equally important issue is completely against what you want? You won't know if you only vote the "known" issues.

    The trick: Learn about the candidates, all their views on many issues.

    You may still end up voting for the candidate who lines up with you on a given issue, but at least you'll be making an informed choice about the candidate, not just the issue. Today's issues are usually very involved, meaning several people who share the opinion need to work in concert. Another good reason to look at the entire person, not just a checklist of issues and preferences.

    In the vote for the US President, this one is especially true because no president has ever had to decide only one issue....except maybe William Henry Harrison.

  5. Ask yourself what candidate is best for the office

    The trap: Losing site of what matters in The Big Picture

    There is a common tendency to vote for the candidate we like the best or the one who will help me the most, the prettiest one or the smoothest talker. These are all fine criteria but they shouldn't be the primary ones, especially when we're talking about very influential offices such as the President of the United States. Home-town advantage doesn't mean much when this person will be the leader of the free world, commander of the surviving superpower, etc. Sometimes we need to think outside our immediate concerns, what my grandmother used to call "looking past the end of your nose."

    The trick: Think about the office, what it does, the kind of person it needs

    Think about about all of the people that will be affected by the candidate that gets elected to this office, not just yourself. We known, almost instinctively, what the "Right Thing" is and, in the case of an election, once you know the facts about all the candidates (steps 1-4), you'll instinctively know who "Right Person" for the job. Call it a gut instinct, a best guess, intuition....these are all phrases that describe an internal, almost subconscious collection of information, impressions, ideas and thoughts that sum up to be that elusive "informed vote" we're all after. Mind you, mine may not be the same as yours, but that's okay, it is why we have elections. The framers knew we wouldn't agree but they also trusted that, if we each did our best, we wouldn't get it too wrong and in the long run, that was the best anyone could hope for. Seriously! Winston Churchill may have said it best: Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.
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