Elections and Voting Information
Get out the vote!
- Registration has closed for voting on November 4. BUT you can still register and vote at the one-stop early voting locations. Take a look at the more information page available from the NC Board of Elections
and the early voting page for Guilford County.
- Check your registration and districts with the Voter Lookup database from the North Carolina State Board of Elections . If you are not registered in North Carolina, find your state's Board of Elections here.
- Get early voting information or a sample ballot from your county board of elections.
- Learn about your candidates and the issues (see links below).
- Know your rights!
- VOTE!
Inform Yourself!: Candidate guides and information
The News & Record's Candidate Guide
- Best resource for Greensboro city and Guilford county level races.
- Profiles candidates at local, state, and national levels.
- Includes brief description of the duties, salary, and terms of the positions.
The News & Observer's Candidate Guide
- Best for state and national level races.
- Brief profiles of the background and
and key policies of the candidates.
- Also includes any major endorsements they have received.
UNC-TV Online's Election 2008
- Profiles candidates for all of the major state and national races.
Congress.org
- Information on the representatives and candidates at the national and state level.
- Provides contact information and issue positions for candidates and elected officials.
Project Vote Smart
- Big feature is the political courage test.
- Best for national and state level races.
- Covers candidates
and elected officials in five basic categories: biographical information,
issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and interest group
ratings.
Open Secrets
- Best for national level races.
- A non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C.
that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public
policy.
- Each candidate has a quality of disclosure meter!
Procon.org's Election 2008 Guide
- Pro and Con ratings for each major Presidential candidate on the major issues.
- A nonprofit public charity with the mission to promote "education, critical thinking, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan primarily pro-con format."
PolitiFact.com's Truth-o-Meter
- Best for the Presidential race.
- A joint project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly.
- Aims to separate truth from fiction by monitoring campaign statements and claims through the Truth-o-Meter.
Inform Yourself!: The debates and the electoral process
Commission on Presidential Debates
- A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose purpose is to sponsor and produce debates for the United States presidential and vice presidential candidates.
- Includes information about hosting a Debate Watch, debate history, and debate transcripts.
League of Women Voters
CQ Voting and Elections Collection (Off-campus access available only to the UNCG community)
- Covers the U.S. voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships.
Inform Yourself!: The issues
University of Michigan's Election 2008
- Comprehensive collection of links about the electoral process, the candidates, as well as issue information.
- Section on the issues is a great collection of links both governmental and non-governmental.
CQ Researcher (Off-campus access available only to the UNCG community)
- Provides analysis of current events, politics, and social issues.
- Particularly useful for health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and economics.
CQ Weekly (Off-campus access available only to the UNCG community)
- Covers United States congressional activity, as well as executive and judicial decisions that affect Congress.
- Includes summaries of committee work, investigations, hearings, debates, and votes.
Opposing Viewpoints (Off-campus access available only to the UNCG community)
- Provides background information on controversial issues as well as arguments presented by supporters and opponents of each issue.
- Includes fulltext articles, reference sources, statistics, primary documents, images, web links, and more.
Inform Yourself!: Statistics & data sources
Voting America
- Visualizations of American voting patterns from the beginning of the modern party system to today.
- Developed by the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond.
United States Federal Elections
Commission
- Great source of campaign finance data! Can be downloaded in .csv or .xls formats.
Roper Center For Public Opinion Research (Off-campus access available only to the UNCG community)
- Large archive of public opinion polling data from major polling organizations and media sources.
- Includes a section called "Election 08" with hot topics for this election year!
Vital Statistics on American Politics (Off-campus access available only to the UNCG community)
- Statistics on turnout rates, ideological self-identification, judiciary, Congress, the media, the federal bureaucracy, the national budget, and much more.
Statistical Warehouse (Off-campus access available only to the UNCG community)
- Statistics on numbers of registered voters, turnout, the electoral process, and the 2000 & 2004 Presidential elections.
Voting
and Registration Data
- From the U.S. Bureau of Census. 1998-2006 elections covered, with some projections of voting age population, and historical time series.
For more information, contact: Lynda Kellam, Data Services & Government Information Librarian
