In a time of widespread political cynicism, disinformation, and spin, nonpartisan candidate guides can provide a concise and credible way to compare candidate stands. They can help people get past both misinformation and the myth that it’s not worth participating to vote because candidates are “all the same,” “all just corrupt, all lying and spinning.”
Campus Election Engagement Project (CEEP) produced these guides, first to help college students vote, where our campus partners, including those in Iowa and Minnesota, consistently called them their favorite resource. And then to help the constituents of a broad array of civic organizations understand where candidates actually stand.
These guides are promoted through CEEP’s schools, and they got off-campus reach through Do Something, HeadCount, Nonprofit Vote, vote.org, and our new fiscal sponsor, Youth Service America, plus groups like the NAACP and Black Voters Matter, both of which are distributing several hundred thousand copies. Both campus and off-campus partners said they were crucial not only in helping their constituents decide who to vote for, but whether to vote at all.
The new 2022 guides are produced by guides.vote for the Pennsylvania Senate and Governor’s races, plus our Congressional guide:
- PA Governor Guide 2022
- PA Governor Guide 2022 (Spanish)
- PA Senate Guide 2022
- PA Senate Guide 2022 (Spanish)
- PA Congressional Guide 2022
We also have a newly updated guide to disinformation.
These guides make a critical difference, our campus partners say, in overcoming the political cynicism that insists there are no significant differences worth voting for. In a recent Knight Foundation survey, 38% of 18-24 year-olds said they didn’t have enough information about candidates and issues to decide who to vote for, and 11% weren’t sure they did. Their role in comparing and contrasting candidate stands will be even more key this year without a Presidential race to draw students on both sides to the polls.