The 2020 Primary season is officially underway.
Although the results of the Iowa Democratic Caucus are as yet unavailable, eyes are starting to look toward New Hampshire, which has its primary happening on Feb. 11, with Nevada and South Carolina following shortly after. And Super Tuesday, scheduled for March 3, is officially less than a month away.
With the primary season underway, I thought I would introduce you all to my personal method of vetting candidates for primaries. I won’t tell you who to vote for or who I’m voting for, as that’s not what these pieces are designed to do. Rather, they are to help you make the best informed decision for you as a voter.
My process is fairly simple and I think would be beneficial to all voters. Others may disagree and that’s fine, but for those who don’t know where to start, let me assist.
To start with, you can create a sample ballot on Ballotpedia. I wrote about doing that in my last blog post. Read it if you need a refresher.
From there, I would make a list of all the candidates you’re likely to vote for based on the sample ballot. These will probably be those who share the same political party as you or you could simply write down all of the names of the eligible candidates.
However you pick which candidates you might vote for, take down their names and organize them by the office they’re seeking. Once you have a list, the vetting process begins.
To start with, visit each candidate’s campaign website. Most of these are linked on each candidate’s Ballotpedia page, which gives you easy access to the campaign websites. Read what each of the candidates has to say.
If I agree with most (usually not all) of what a candidate says on issues and what their plans and goals are upon election, I’ll make a note next to their name. If I find myself disagreeing with the candidate on multiple positions, I’ll go back to my list and cross their name off. In addition, if a candidate in particular stands out to me based on their campaign website, I’ll make some sort of notation (usually an asterisk) to indicate to myself that they are someone I would likely vote for just based on their campaign website.
A red flag I noticed when I did this first step this year: Candidates who do not have a campaign website. Some candidates only had a presence on social media, which suggests to me they aren’t serious about running for office. If you find yourself with a candidate with no website, maybe cross their name off your list.
Once you’ve narrowed down your list, you’re ready to start vetting the candidates on a deeper level. There are many ways to do this, but the simplest way is to do a Google search of your candidates and read as much as you can about them. And don’t just rely on one website to educate yourself. Use multiple websites, including news websites, to find out as much as you can about the candidates.
During this second tier of vetting, you’ll be able to truly narrow done your candidate list. For instance, if a news article or a candidate’s voting record matches what they’ve campaigned on, you’ll probably want to vote for them. Conversely, if the voting record does not match or they have complications in their past (conflicts of interest, etc.), then you might cross their names off your list. You just have to do your research and trust your instincts.
For a full 2020 Election Calendar of the Primary races, click here.
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