Thursday, October 15, 2009, 7-9pm. League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, Virginia Interfaith Center, and the NAACP cosponsored Candidate Forum for Delegate. (See candidate information in the Voters Guide at lwvmcva.org. A video of the debate will be hosted on the LWV-of Montgomery County website as soon after the debate as it can be managed. If you know the questions you would like to ask candidates, go ahead and put each question on an individual 3×5 card and be ready to turn it in to the people collecting questions. Or, wait until you get there and obtain a card, fill it out and submit it.
You, as a voter, will be part of making decisions on November 3rd that will affect your life and the lives of your friends and family members for decades to come. Isn’t it worth taking a couple of hours to have an opportunity to evaluate these candidates? Will the results of the election lead to more of the same or to change? What issues are important to you? This is your opportunity to be the boss. Evaluate the credentials of those who hope to work for you and cast your vote according to your goals and objectives for our State.
Need more information?
In both of the local Delegate races, you can find information on the incumbents and their challengers at Richmond Sunlight & Project Vote Smart.
Unfortunately, these are useful sources of information only when you are assessing candidates who are or have been in office.
My personal preference of those two sites is the Richmond Sunlight because they also host videos of votes on bills. (Gotta love those videos!) And, you can download the entire voting record for elected officials over several years. This allows you to get a much better feel for the issues the candidates suupport. Perhaps a vote is like a picture in that “one vote is worth a thousand words”.
A quick review of just those bills from the 2009 session gives a view of where the candidates have focused their energies. Of course, it also gives you an idea of which years the candidates chose to try to push issues that might be unpopular, thus affecting their electability.
If you are taking the time to look, don’t forget to look and see who has contributed to the campaign finances of each of the candidates. It is typical that campaign funds come from those who share the ideals and values of the candidate.
Be an educated voter. Don’t take something as fact just because someone tells you it is true.
You may want to check out information on the candidates for governor at FactCheck.org. On this site, the goal is to find the truth behind allegations of different parties/candidates. Makes for some very interesting reading.
