If, like me, you don't get around to sorting through ballot measures until election day, you'll always hit some where you think, "I haven't the foggiest idea whether this is good or bad." Obviously, there's no black and white in politics, and most measures have a little bit of good, a little bit of bad. However, there's some people out there who DO see the world in black and white. They're so sure. They know what to think, and they know what you should think, too!
A couple elections back I had a brainwave. In general, people are much more outspoken and eloquent about what they don't like, and don't tend to spend as much time talking about things that are working just fine, as far as they're concerned. So what I needed to do was find an organization who absolutely, positively, without a doubt does NOT match my political leanings, and then see who/what they are arguing against most passionately!
Since I am an unapologetic liberal, I must thank several extremely conservative, fundamentalist websites for providing me with a complete list of candidates they blacklisted and propositions they absolutely did NOT want passed.
It's not that I will vote against everything they stand for, or that I will always endorse the other candidate. That would be lazy and dangerous -- I'd still be letting their assessment of the situation dictate my vote, and they might be missing something important. It's just that they tend to explain at length and in detail exactly what so-and-so has said, done, or voted on that they don't like, or why they think that a ballot measure is problematic. That often provides me with a much clearer picture of the candidate/issue than I had before.
Obviously, if your political views are different from mine, you can apply the same technique, but you'll be looking at a different set of websites. Like, say, the Green Party's. ;)
Another tool for American voters of ALL political persuasions is the League of Woman Voters website. It attempts to provide unbiased, thorough and complete information on every ballot measure and candidate, on the theory that democracy only works if we know what we're voting for. It tries to present both sides of each issue.
And by the way, PLEASE VOTE. I see a lot of flag bumper stickers and hear a lot about patriotism, but how many people actually vote? Why not? Isn't that why America was founded? Why mock its core value? For all the flaws in the system, if we don't vote, then what we've got is not democracy, but oligarchy.
Also, we've sent all these young American soldiers overseas to defend democracy and freedom. I wish they hadn't been sent, for reasons I've stated elsewhere, but since they ARE there, we owe it to them to exercise the right for which they're putting their lives on the line.
