How to inform the voter?

I have to admit, my favorite discussion so far this year was on Friday about if it is better to vote uniformed or not at all. I’m rather passionate about that – I still think that it is our responsibility to educate ourselves and then vote because honestly, it’s not that hard to do. To clarify, I think that becoming educated about voting is at least knowing the general beliefs of the candidates and knowing your own beliefs to compare and to make a better decision. Which relates to my next thought: during the discussion, someone mentioned that we should do a better job of increasing voter education. I think the example given (although don’t quote me) was that we should put more information in places like public libraries, where more people would have access to it. I wholeheartedly agree with that and it made me think – how easy is it for the voter to get information?

I mentioned in my blog earlier this week that where I live, it seems pretty easy – the candidates that I volunteered for had us make calls to scores of people, pass out literature in a variety of neighborhoods, had obvious headquarters that were easy to find, and went to local events to reach the voter. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s easy to get access to some candidates – the ones that have money and are out actively canvassing, passing out literature, getting scores of volunteers to make phone calls. If not, you have to look for websites for some of the more random candidates that don’t have the funds to promote themselves or are running for a position like Register of Wills that no one really cares about. That’s pretty difficult to do, and very few people are devoted enough to look everyone up. Maybe the way to educate people is to literally force it down their throats – have candidates put their literature in very public places, like stores, libraries, rec centers, etc. Make it even more easily accessible. In addition, get the youth interested in government and local politics – start education about politics earlier and work to instill a sense of national and state pride in students. That will hopefully encourage them to take an active stance in politics in the future if they care a lot about where they live and want to see the best for it and if they have the base knowledge to accomplish this.