"California voters have important decisions to make every election," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation (CVF). "Our online guide helps voters sort through their choices and make decisions with confidence," she added, noting that a 2004 CVF survey found that confusion about issues and distrust of election information are leading reasons why many would-be voters sit on the sidelines at election time.
The online guide is packed with information about the 13 statewide propositions on the ballot, as well as the hundreds of candidates running for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, statewide offices and state Senate and Assembly. CVF's online guide links voters to official campaign Web sites and directs them to reliable sources of online information provided by the news media, government agencies and nonpartisan voter education groups.
The California Voter Foundation has published the California Online Voter Guide for every statewide election since 1994, making the current edition the 14th produced by the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.
To prepare the guide, CVF contacted every state and federal candidate on the ballot, and all proposition campaign committees, in order to include up-to-date contact information and Web site addresses. "Campaigns provide a lot of useful information on their Web sites," Alexander noted, "but finding the official site can be difficult. Our guide makes it easy."
The California Voter Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to advancing the responsible use of technology to improve the democratic process. Support for the California Online Voter Guide was provided by the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and the Columbia Foundation.
