Informed Voting resources (Sheeple need not apply)

With the elections only a week away I figure most people who have silly things like lives are probably just now wondering who and what they are going to be voting for...Of course, those people are also probably not terribly likely to be reading a politically themed blog written by an obscure, if stunningly attractive and amazingly witty, citizen...Nevertheless, it is still possible that those people could accidentally have clicked on my page while looking for the latest version of "Hide Ya Kids, Hide Ya Wife."

This blog is dedicated to them.

Voting is a powerful right, when used appropriately. Like all rights it comes coupled with a responsibility. In this case the responsibility is to be informed. Note: Going into a voting booth, looking for all the "R" and "D" candidates and voting for that one is NOT being informed. Neither is listening to Limbaugh or NPR and voting like they tell you, by the way.

No, you will have to spend countless hours in debate and research, identifying important issues, carefully seeking out books on the subject from sources days apart...Well, that's what you used to have to do, anyway, in the years long past before the wonderful invention of mass media and the Internet. Now it takes whole minutes to know nearly everything you need to be reasonably well informed. I present to you two websites, both completely non-partisan.

First, Project Votesmart. This outstanding resource is dedicated to the candidates themselves. Using this you can find out who is running in your area, both for Federal and State level offices. Then you can look up their voting record, statements they've made in the past, ratings they've received from various interest groups, etc., etc. Estimated time to become informed: 20 minutes (on the outside).

Secondly, for the things you may be voting on that aren't horribly corrupted sacks of worthless meat upstanding politicians representing this fine nation, I give you Ballotpedia. Laid out like the secondary repository for all human knowledge, Wikipedia (the primary repository being Google, of course), it is easily navigable to your particle locality. There you can find any ballot initiatives that are being voted on and the details of them all. You can quickly see the "intent" of the new law, the text of said law (or the proposed alterations to an existing law, as the case may be), and what groups support the initiative. Estimated time to become informed: 10 minutes if you are a remarkably slow reader.

So there you have it. In the span of a single sitcom, lunch break, or traffic jam you can join the ranks of an elite group of Americans known as "the informed voters".

Is thirty minutes too much time to become informed? Not willing to take the energy to read a few articles on important subject? Hey, no problem. Just do myself and every other American a huge favor: Don't vote, and don't complain.