Revision history for IssuePositionsIntroduction
Revision [57775]
Last edited on 2021-07-15 10:08:19 by JamesW [removal of onpoint and galaxy mentions]Deletions:
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The Issue Position process starts with the Political Courage Test - a questionnaire that Vote Smart sends to candidates asking them to give their issue positions on about a dozen major political questions. When a candidate fills out the test, their answers populate three different Vote Smart tools:
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When a candidate fails to take the Political Courage Test, issue position determinations act as a substitute for candidate given answers in the three resources listed above.
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**IP Research Timeline:**
- As soon as a National PCT is approved for a year, Issue Position research can be started on incumbents. Incumbents generally can be expected to run for re-election, making early incumbent IP research a good way to get ahead of the game.
- As soon as candidates are added to an election, Issue Position research can be started on the entire candidate list. This requires communication with the Elections Monitoring sub-department, because Elections Monitoring add candidates lists into admin.
- Issue Position research should be completed, reviewed, and imported into the database for all congressional candidates before the PCT deadline/release. That way, when PCT answers are released, the Issue Position data will also be available.
- As soon as a National PCT is approved for a year, Issue Position research can be started on incumbents. Incumbents generally can be expected to run for re-election, making early incumbent IP research a good way to get ahead of the game.
- As soon as candidates are added to an election, Issue Position research can be started on the entire candidate list. This requires communication with the Elections Monitoring sub-department, because Elections Monitoring add candidates lists into admin.
- Issue Position research should be completed, reviewed, and imported into the database for all congressional candidates before the PCT deadline/release. That way, when PCT answers are released, the Issue Position data will also be available.
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To construct strong and defensible determinations of politicians' positions on the questions posed by the Political Courage test.
**How It's Done:**
Issue position researchers carefully comb through congressional candidates' public records, collecting evidence that relates to Political Courage Test Questions. Once the evidence is collected, it is used to make informed determinations on how the candidates would answer the PCT questions. We back up our researched determinations by clearly documenting and listing the evidence used to come to those conclusions.
When a candidate fails to take the Political Courage Test, issue position determinations act a s a substitute for candidate given answers in the three resources listed above.
**How It's Done:**
Issue position researchers carefully comb through congressional candidates' public records, collecting evidence that relates to Political Courage Test Questions. Once the evidence is collected, it is used to make informed determinations on how the candidates would answer the PCT questions. We back up our researched determinations by clearly documenting and listing the evidence used to come to those conclusions.
When a candidate fails to take the Political Courage Test, issue position determinations act a s a substitute for candidate given answers in the three resources listed above.
