Best Web Tools For Voters

Visit Five Great Websites Before Heading To The Ballot Box

Geeks are jamming the web with widgets, gadgets, and feeds that inform us about the candidates and their positions. Five websites in particular can help even the most undecided voter make a choice. These are nonpartisan resources, and user-friendly for even a web newbie.

• Expert Voter: Provides a handy-dandy one page matrix of clips with the candidates sharing views on Iraq, immigration, energy, nuclear
proliferation, healthcare, education, social
security, taxes, and campaign
reform.

• Fact Check: Monitors the truth of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.

• Match-O-Matic: Developed by ABC and USA Today, this interactive site quizzes you on your views to see how you match up on the hot issues with the candidates.

• Ask Your Lawmaker: Users submit questions and vote on them, and then journalists track down lawmakers in Congress and on the campaign trail to get those questions answered. 

• Vote Smart: Volunteer citizens provide biographical information, voting records, issue positions, interest group ratings, public statements, and campaign finance information so you can find out who your candidates are really representing.

With great information just a point and click away, and computers in almost every public library in America, there’s no excuse for skipping out on the vote this year.

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Mitali Perkins (mitaliperkins.com) is the author of two novels for teens about a candidate’s daughter, First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover and First Daughter: White House Rules (Dutton). Her main character, Sameera Righton, described by Publishers Weekly as “an intelligent, witty and prepossessed heroine,” is keeping track of the hype around the REAL First Kid wannabes at www.sparrowblog.com. To learn more about the books, visit firstdaughterbooks.com.

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