Your Best Source for Unbiased Information on Candidates
Project Vote Smart Supports Genuine Democracy
| The best information source on candidates -- all candidates, not just the fatcats -- has always been Project Vote Smart. Now they have expanded their coverage. |
Project Vote Smart announced that it has completed research on every city and county elected official and political candidate in the United States. This exhaustive research has been compiled and added to the Project's public information systems in time for this year's elections.
"Our database has exploded," said Kristina Saleh, Project Vote Smart's Communications Director. "Yesterday we covered 13,000 political leaders and now we cover 40,000 -- everyone from small town city council candidates to president of the United States," she said.
Saleh noted that thousands of students, volunteers and other Project Vote Smart contributors made the databases possible. They enable any citizen to instantly access the information free of charge at the Vote Smart web site www.vote-smart.org or by using the Voter's Research Hotline at 1-888-VOTE SMART.
Project Vote Smart had not planned to expand its coverage to local candidates until 2004. However, pressure from commercial operations on the Internet that hoped to force the public to pay for such information, pushed the Project into moving its timeline forward in an effort to keep the information easy to access and free to all citizens.
Elected offices and the number of candidates and incumbents in each category now covered include:
| President of the United States | 290 |
| US Congress (House and Senate) | 1,501 |
| Governor | 98 |
| Secretary of State/Lt. Governor | 90 |
| State Attorney General | 70 |
| Auditor/Treasurer | 110 |
| State Legislatures | 10,323 |
| County Board of Supervisors | 16,993 |
| Mayor | 232 |
| City Council | 10,297 |
"It is quite an accomplishment," said Richard Kimball, Project Vote Smart's president. "It is a system created through the labors and contributions of citizens for their fellow citizens, enabling every American, regardless of their politics, to instantly access untainted, abundant information about those fighting for the power to govern our lives."
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As of October 24, the Vote Smart database held an amazing 41,617 candidates.
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